murphaph

In some places they do compulsory land swaps so that farms are for the most part on one side or the other of the new road, railway etc.

Definitely, sure Mungret used to be fed Gypsum from Kingscourt by rail too. It's not like there isn't a precedent. Aggregates trains to concrete plants with only the end product (concrete) going by road is a common way of doing things around Berlin anyway.

It's insane that bulk cement goes entirely by road in Ireland. It's the thing that makes most sense to transport by rail, right into the cities where most of it is consumed.

Is there not supposed to be a "top" on the brake reservoir cylinders?

I am kind of relieved! Thanks for that

The "problem" is Cathal, if they are "fairly 21mm friendly" then I will regret not buying the whole lot! I gauge the risk of being stuck with them as fairly low but I gauge the risk of me not wanting to part with them even if they aren't 21mm candidates as very high And Hattons Trunk means I don't even pay extra for throwing more and more of them into the order!

I have a "sinking feeling" that a 21mm conversion wouldn't be impossible by any means on these coaches, with the help of a bit of 3d printing. Assuming all 3 assemblies are removable as in the picture on this page.... https://albionyard.com/category/southern/ I am starting to wonder should I order the complete set now and sure if they prove too difficult to convert I can probably sell them on of hold onto them should I need a kidney some day.

Few layouts provide so many great angles per metre! And nice peaceful videos. The sight of an 8 piece fert on the move really is something to behold.

I honestly can't remember the cutoff radius. I just saw this being pointed out on one of the youtube channels.

The Genesis coaches centre axle has side to side play (it needs to or they would derail on curves). I think when you fit the footboards this play is limited and you can't get around smaller radii curves so as standard they are not fitted.

Email sent!

Limerick is an ideal city in which to develop commuter rail. It actually has railways that are not built on going out in multiple directions from the city. RTE reports that the new rail for the reopening is arriving into Foynes Port (presumably by ship). This all did rather come out of the blue for me too. I assumed it would be report after report and then nothing. If the line is rebuilt to carry freight it will be relatively trivial to add passenger services later. https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2022/1114/1335959-foynes-limerick-rail-line/

Cheers JB, I can't use them on the planned 21mm layout but they are worth supporting so I have ordered the 4 pack for the display case I know these are "just repaints" but it's a good sign of a growing market for Irish RTR.

Could any of the resident experts say which of these are genuinely close to Irish prototypes? I am thinking about one or two for the display case. I assume these cannot be regauged to 21mm without major surgery.

That's very nicely done. The mottling especially.

I am looking forward to following your progress on these Robert.

Classified is now live:

I will be going ahead folks. There's been enough +ive feedback to justify producing a few units of these at least. I have outlined the details in a classified instead of clogging up this thread. That should go live whenever a mod has a chance to ok it.

Strange looking contraption too. The snowplough seems to be designed to clear left and right of the track and to put in grooves as it does it. It's as if road vehicles are expected along there too.

If I was to do the transfer sheets, I'd probably do say enough for half a rake/4 wagons per sheet with a couple of spares for mistakes. How much would folk be prepared to pay inc postage for such a sheet? I don't want to rip anyone off but I don't want to rip myself off time-wise either. Time is precious and all that. Please bear in mind these transfers are only designed to make the fert pallets look like they are pallet wrapped when they are inserted into the wagons. There is no decoration on the sides or anything, though this makes application very straightforward. You just drape the transfer over the top and smooth out with your wet fingers. The transfer paper used is quite thick and completely opaque white so it actually looks like pallet wrap if you ask me. By the way, I'm not really sure it's appropriate to "hijack" the IRM thread for a "commercial" (he said very much tongue in cheek!) purpose like this. Apologies if it's unwelcome but the transfers have come up a number of times now both here and on Facebook so I thought I should see if there is genuine demand. If this discussion should be in another thread of its own please move it out of here.

I guess anything is possible but I think Martin will want to get the basics working first. It is a work in progress and still months away from a finished polished version I think. But it's all going in the right direction and for those requiring a custom gauge like 21mm it's extremely promising.

Yeah I have been following the topic quite keenly for several months now I get the email updates and read them almost daily. Martin has put in a heroic effort with all this. He's "reasonably" close to getting a point to printable stage I would say. The common crossing is challenging him at the moment I think. I wouldn't worry about the lack of canted rail, sure soldering FB rail to PCB sleepers can't do that either. Martin is a big 21mm fan so he will possibly some day look at FB rail. We have exchanged a few posts about the topic in those two threads. The main difficulty with FB rail is that the clips are so small that making them robust enough will be quite hard. Pandrol clips he reckons will not be doable. Some earlier types which would certainly pass the 2' rule but to be honest I would take his bullhead solution and run with it. Plenty of bullhead in Ireland as well. It is the way I now plan to make my layout's trackwork. I am probably going to go the laser cut sleeper route, though I may get an FDM printer to do the pointwork as some features like sole plates are printed into the sleepers themselves that way.

I suspect not too many would have believed an MV+Hunslet+rake of ferts would have been prototypical had Jim not seen it. Someday someone will model that scene.

Great stuff. the decals really pop out.

It's rather humorous that An Post's International Express takes exactly the same number of days to get to Germany