murphaph

I suspect the Irish connection is on the more tenuous side rather than something that ran in Ireland. Otherwise we'd probably be hearing about another joint IRM/AS project like the mk 2's. Could be an Oliver Bulleid connection perhaps?

Yep:

Well I don't "need" Taras for my planned region/era but of course I bought some of the blues anyway to run down to Limerick wagon works because I like the more interesting corrugated lid profile on them. The intention was always to heavily weather them such as they would have appeared in 1994 or thereabouts, so virtually no blue left visible. That Albert Bridge image is tantalising as you can make out some repair patches and they seem to have continued using the blue or a shade of blue on those patches, but I wonder how late they were using blue paint on patch up jobs. I wonder did they start using bauxite on the blue wagons when patching them up at some stage. It seems highly likely that they would have, once they made the decision to repaint the fleet in bauxite. Some more pics would be great but they seem hard to find. Most people were only interested in photographing the loco back then as film was not free.

Does anyone have any more pics of dirty blue Taras?

There was fairly limited interest from forum members to be honest. A few folks took them, but most of the orders came from the facebook groups.

Hi all, Does anyone have any 201 spares? I am specifically looking for the pipework running along the side and bogies side frames. Feel free to send me a PM if you can help. Cheers!

Yep.

Yeah there is no way you can even earn minimum wage doing resprays to a decent standard unless the livery is exceptionally simple. Not many people are going to be prepared to pay the hourly rate required to "properly" respray stuff. As soon as you have to start masking, the time required goes through the roof. Weathering is different. There you can make money I think but people still assume that it "only takes a few minutes" to do everything, neglecting the set up and cleanup time.

Did the PR underframes end up under the Donelli gantry trains? An entry in the October 1993 Irish Railway News suggested they would do.

Good stuff. I would have almost been surpised if this hadn't been the case given CIE's propensity to mix n match stock! Thanks for the confirmation

Did they mix n match the suburban ones with mainline ones if they were stuck (in the late 80s, early 90s)?

You could also ask a friend or family member to reserve the items for you.

Did you reach out to them about it? That depends entirely on the era and location/service. When and where are you looking to model?

Cheers Noel, yeah I'm familiar with the 1984 Rabone images but any from 10 years later in that condition I wonder. I would have almost expected fewer PRs to get tippexed than the Cravens but I would like to know for sure.

Did any Park Royals make it to 1994 with a single 6" stripe like some of the Cravens did?

The mk1 BR vans and the Dundalk vans for sure. Probably also the "tin vans"? @jhb171achill ?

Cool. Still I am guessing the odd one would have been coupled up (locked out) to a rake of Cravens to be sent to Inchicore or wherever? If anyone has a pic of one in such a formation I would be much obliged!

Cheers Mark. Did they ever run in revenue service through Kildare as late as '94?

On what duties could Park Royals be found running in revenue service at withdrawal in 1994?

Quick comment/question. First of all, the new shop tabbed interface (maybe it's not that new but new to me) looks great and the exact years of service information is great too....which leads me to a question: Did the Park Royals have a twin IR style stripe in 1984 already or is that perhaps an error in the text on the pages of the ones with the twin "tippex" stripes? eg: https://irishrailwaymodels.com/collections/park-royal-coaches/products/park-royal-d-176-suburban-no-1389tl I always thought the twin 3" stripes only came in 1987 but my knowledge of these particular coaches is about zero.

Really nice choice. Quintessentially Irish. I expect these to sell rather well.

Good job Noel! Looks great. I see IRM have set up camp next to the emergency exit in case they are run out of there with pitchforks for not announcing the "right" new tooling lol.

I must be confusing it with something else. Cheers!

Be amazed if they don't. Isn't the weedspray tank the same?

The long awaited €49 or "Deutschland Ticket" goes live on Monday. As expected it's a subscription model but it can be subscribed to and more importantly cancelled digitally from many of the numerous tariff area apps and websites. If you plan a couple of weeks in Germany then even as a tourist it makes sense to subscribe and cancel before the 10th of the month. I can see myself occasionally buying one if there's a series of trips planned in a month. The clear winners are medium and longer distance commuters though. A person in the next town out from here is no longer in the Berlin ABC zonal area and pays about 1400 a year for their ticket. That will now be a lot less. https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-new-49-monthly-travel-pass-explained/a-65421776