murphaph

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/314176163092 The IE ballast ploughs went for €170 + shipping.

Same here. No layout but buying what I need for the layout I want to build. I did go a bit mad at the beginning buying duplicates to renumber, for example I have a second rake of both ferts and kegs that I will be looking to sell and replace with the new IRM ones with updated running numbers. But I learned my lesson and now I limit myself to one of each item and wait for the rerun.

I have less sympathy for people paying extortionate prices for Irish models now than at any time in the past. We have active RTR manufacturers of high quality stock and motive power. Yes, you need to be a little patient and you need to have your pennies saved for the releases when they come, but they do come, on a regular basis now with IRM too.

It's an Alphagrahix kit right? It should have the clearance under the splashers to be rebuilt to the proper gauge in that case. Is that correct?

I will see if I can locate some George. Thanks for the tip. Have you used it with Railtec transfers?

You're welcome and that's very kind of you to say.

Yeah the MIR transfers are brittle indeed but seem fairly thin I have to say. I was also expecting them to be thicker. I have decided to slice the transers along the panel lines as a next step. In reality they would be discontinuous at panel line junctions and a wash will be applied in all the panel lines later also. This may hopefully allow the transfers to sit down into those panel lines at least. I'm giving them one more go now with micrsol after slicing them (1 Railtec and 1 MIR). In an ideal world I'd have a laser cutter and I'd cut out a stencil from Tamiya masking tape and just airbrush the logo on. I think it would work as there are no "islands" thanks to the break in the top of the "R".

Cheers Mark. Getting there anyway

Hattons will be worth looking at for these. They seem to have their delivery to the EU sorted out now (at least to Germany) with deliveries arriving duty paid and no charges at the door.

Coming together fairly nicely apart from the large NIR transfer not sitting down into the recesses. The surface is a lot more irregular than it looks. I only have microset and microsol so I think I'll try the recommended decalfix (these are Railtec transfers) and the Vallejo decal softener as a fallback. I also have some MIR transfers that I may try instead though I can't really imagine they will pull into the recesses better than the very thin Railtec ones. @DJ Dangerous wants to recreate the 3 111's in their mid 90's guises, heavily weathered at the end. These are for him. Interestingly the running numbers were in different places in pictures I've used for reference. The tablet catcher plates are unfortunately not accurately modelled on the MM 071. They should be marginally higher. I've never noticed this discrepancy to be honest. It only occurred to me as I was looking for references to correctly position the running numbers. I've used a compromise location between the two references which I think looks best. 113 never had tablet catchers as she was ordered much later after they'd been retired, so the plates were removed and the holes filled before painting commenced back in early February I believe. The world was a different place back then!

No it's a trade secret. Only joking Bogies: The bogies are disassembled and resprayed after applying a primer but if you're not regauging thm you might get away with not disassembling them. Not sure. Respray a dirty colour as they got filthy really with no trace of the bauxite red being visible after a short while. Then apply dark grey washes to the bogies into all the crevices and clean off the excess when dry. Then a bit of dry brushing with titanium white oil paint, very sparingly applied. Don't forget to apply sleeper grime or frame dirt to the wheels (except the running surfaces) or it will look odd. Wagon: Matt varnish the wagon and apply washes into all the crevices (mostly dark browns and greys, bit of rust colour wash as well but not much). Then clean off the excess when dry. Then for the rustier ones I think I applied a "powder" effect wash from AK and rust colour powders and a rusty coloured paint mix I made up. Then blast the underframe and bogies with frame dirt acrylic from the airbrush. Bit of dry brushing with the white oil paint is optional here I think. Then seal the whole lot with matt varnish again. Buffers get a bit of gloss acrylic black on the faces and the shanks (sparingly so they don't seize!). I think that was it.

So, weathering fun put aside for a while as some Railtec transfers have arrived, allowing me to progress with 2x 111 resprays. These were paused for ages. Can't remember the last time I saw that red paint which I revealed from under the masking tape today! I've glossed up the spots that are to receive transfers and I will let them dry for a day or so before proceeding. Masking is very tricky as it runs through the marker lights.

I've seen youtube clips of 42's with a 20' container and 2 keg cages. That makes for an interesting bit of variety too.

Yeah that's the plan for the ones I "go to town" on Rich. I will not bother weathering the top surfaces of most of them because they will have containers on 'em. The keg ones will need a bit of top surface weathering too as you can see between the cages.

Well I'll have to have a little tank about that....

Thanks Mark. I wasn't aware of that thread. I was wondering more about the background of the model however . I should have been more specific. I was wondering is it from a kit or scratch built etc.

Just a couple of battered containers. The Kien Hung one must surely be nearly end of life with all those patches....

Lovely thing. What's the background to it?

Dave any close ups of that Donelli machine or whatever it is behind the Sulzer?

You're a model making machine Darius! Fair play to you.

Fascinating topic. Maybe it would help to ask on a specialist UK site, if there's a suspicion it is built from plans available in a magazine etc?

When I send parcels to Ireland from Germany using the normal post they usually take 1 week or slightly less to arrive. I sent a parcel to a forum member on Tuesday and it got there yesterday (Friday). That's the fastest I've ever had a parcel arrive from here it has to be said. That's only a day more than I'd expect it to take within Germany!

Nope, Ringaskiddy is never likely to be rail connected either. It's the wrong side of Cork city for that. Madness building ports that can't even be theoretically rail served at some point in the future really.

When you see the extraordinary amount he got for the last (used) one he listed you can understand the starting price..... https://www.ebay.ie/itm/155076573039