Barl

It looked like a great event and well done to George for organising it! I was actually in Cork on the day but was rushing to get the train home and was a little bit hungover too so I couldn't make it

That's a great job on the weathering, really brings them to life!

Really interesting, and excellently built, piece of kit and very nicely weathered!

Was there on Saturday, as Blaine says, it was mostly farm and truck displays with the odd exception. The Wexford and Midlands clubs were the only layouts on show. I think the fact that Mark's Models only had a few starter sets, in terms of railway stock, on sale tells what the target audience was this year. It was good to see the NDMFC being well represented. The Back to the Future Delorean was nice to see too. Hopefully it was successful and continues next year, maybe with more railway displays included

Ah here, we're in enough of a hole as it is at the minute

Not railway related, but I've heard that the Newbridge & District Model Flying Club (NDMFC) will be in attendance at the show to add a bit of variety!

Those night shots look great and very atmospheric!

You could always build an underground man cave/bomb shelter, which just happens to contain a layout! At least if there's nuclear war and you're stuck in it, you'll have something to keep you entertained! As for the Planning Guidelines/Regs, Glenderg is right, they'd bore anyone to tears:((

Laying the LUAS to Irish gauge to cater for heavy rail, while it could have its benefits, would have lead to much higher costs. Not only do you have to consider the increased size of track foundations and improved load bearing of bridges and support structures, but the trams themselves would have had to be specially built to suit rather than buying an 'off-the-shelf' model as was the case. As for HS2, I saw a good joke about this on Mock the Week where they said wouldn't it just be cheaper to move Birmingham closer to London

Very nice job George, excellent work as usual!

Great to see such healthy looking statistics and, as the others have said, a big well done to all involved in keeping the site running and constantly improving!

The airshow in Salthill used to be an annual event but was stopped, presumably due to 'red tape' issues, and was always a good show! The only annual event at the minute is the Bray airshow which is normally very good, albeit not quite as good as the Salthill event!

They're great pics Glenderg, it really is a beast of a plane! Was at the show myself, was very well organised and got a good viewing spot too! Only had the phone with me so photo quality isn't great. Here's a few snaps; Got a few short video's too, apologies for the sound it was very windy! Aircorp Casa's and PC-9's: A380: B17:

Not many layouts put the real thing to shame in terms of stock variation and quantity but I think this comes very close Excellent stuff!

Very impressive work! The station looks great too

Looks great Kirley The curve on the station actually makes it look even better for some reason

Sounds like a great event and the Stillorgan Park Hotel is very handy to get to, best of luck with it! Just in case you didn't know the Flightfest for the Gathering is on in the city centre on the same day so bus routes (145, 46A etc?) and other modes of transport may be restricted, but I haven't heard anything yet.

Apologies for being slightly off topic but its a coincidence that the Ford Anglia 100E was brought up here. I saw one of these the other day when I was travelling down a country lane in Monaghan but I couldn't figure out what it was and the 'Anglia' badge on the front threw me in particular! I was trying to describe it to my Dad and he said it sounded like a Popular so he was nearly right, just a 2 door version Thanks for solving the mystery for me

It was apparently an NTSB intern playing a prank so the email to the news station would have been an official NTSB one, but still you'd think someone would have copped it! Have they never watched the Simpsons:confused: If its true I'd say his superiors aren't too pleased with him!

Looks fantastic Anthony, top notch as usual

I think the tank wagons are old Triang models; they were my Dad's when he was younger and, once re-wheeled, they were a good weight to add Gaugemaster track cleaning pads to. One of them has a spring attached to push the pad onto the track and the other has a small piece of lead added to it! I gave the Dapol cleaner a quick coat of yellow and plan to add IE logos at some stage! The factory fitted switch was acting up so I removed it and hardwired a decoder in place and decided to add a white LED at one end just for fun and to use the extra function

I haven't made much more visible progress but I dotted a few figures around the layout and took a few photos today. My version of the weed spraying train, the track cleaning train It is apparent from the pictures that there are still several areas that need to be finished off and I need to get a backscene at some stage!

It looks great and I like the background story

I'll try get a few more photos over the next few days. I hope to make a bit more progress on the layout over the next few months too, so i'll take pictures as I go along The viaduct is the Metcalfe one but it has been shortened to suit. The road over-bridge is scratchbuilt from card and packing plastic covered in Wills stone sheeting. The arches were made by cutting out a semi-circle of thick plasticard, then scribing the outlines of the stones where I wanted them. They were then further outlined using the edge of a rectangular needle file and sand paper.The capping pieces were done in a similar way. It sounds like a lot of work but I couldn't find anything on the market to suit so I didn't really have a choice but to build one!

Thanks for the comments lads, they are very much appreciated I'll try and answer the questions asked below: 1) The layout is still very much a work in progress! I'm in the middle of doing a civil engineering masters so time is unfortunately very scarce, as many on this site can relate to, and so I haven't really made much progress since I posted up photo's before which can be found here http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/showthread.php/1043-Barls-Layout 2) The grass is simple Noch long static grass from a puffer bottle over a layer of cheap mix of 'saw dust' scatter from the likes of Hornby and Noch. I tried using a static grass applicator I got from ebay but I found the puffer bottle to be much easier and to give better results! In some of the embankment areas a layer of hanging basket liner is placed under the static grass but I'm not sure if this really adds any depth to the scenery? 3) The layout is DCC operated and wired all over. It is controlled from a Hornby Elite controller, which many people would recommend you avoid, but I have never had any issues with and it does the job perfectly for a layout of this size! The points are operated using standard switch and CDU control. Hope this helps