murphaph

Likely a one-off being down to it being a repaint of a GB model than the start of an Irish range from Dapol, right?

What years would this have been the case with the block trains to Ballina, Noel? I only have a 1992 WTT and there's no mention of a block fert train to Ballina that particular year. The WTT in 1992 generally makes little mention of dedicated fert trains but we have many pictures that seem to counter that. How accurate is the WTT likely to be I wonder. Perhaps some of the "liner" trains were actually fert block trains. Or perhaps fert traffic was already on the wain at that stage. I wonder would the IRRS journals be of any help here.

What originated in Thurles Bob? Fertiliser or briquettes?

Oh when you multiply 73.86 x 1.23 you get 90.85. Hmmmm....

What is going on here I wonder...I am now seeing a different price, but still not what you see Stephen. I am not using a VPN or smart DNS or anything like that on this laptop. That was the first thing I checked. I'm connected straight to my ISP, which is Deutsche Telekom so should definitely be a German IP. My phone (with wifi off using Telefonica mobile data, so completely different network) also shows €87.89. €87.02 seems to be the correct price, as (89.95/123) x 119 = 87.02 however. Any ideas?? Before the javascript kicks in and rewrites the inc-VAT price I can see the ex-VAT price being displayed as €73.86, which times 1.19 is €87.89. Could the ex-VAT price be different here? Edit, by the way, customer support at midnight? Not bad!

So Gouldings in Cork was gone as an origin by my era (1995) then? I see Gouldings pallets in some of the pics above so they definitely continued to carry Gouldings branded fertiliser. Would this have come from Foynes then by the mid 90s?

Hi guys...Quick question about the price displayed on the website here in Germany. Is the €89.95 the price in Ireland with 23% VAT included? I ask because when I go to order my rake I am seeing a price of €90.85 even though German standard rate VAT is actually 4% lower than Ireland at 19%. Am I missing something or is something not configured correctly perhaps?

Can we try to summarise the origins of the loads and the loading points for the ferts: -IFI Shelton Abbey, rail served -Albatross New Ross, rail served -Gouldings Askeaton?, loaded at Foynes? -Gouldings Cork?, loaded?? -Bord na Mona, where? loaded where? -Coal, short lived but prototypical so of interest for sure. From where? Can someone fill in the blanks? What years were these flows in operation? I always thought it was just IFI Shelton Abbey to the rest of the country but it seems these wagons did much more than that.

I'm looking forward to this

Yeah it's very forgiving too. You just need white transfer paper (not clear!). Print off the decals in photo quality on a half decent printer. I only have an inkjet printer, but I presume it would work on a colour laser printer as well. Let the ink dry well then seal with a light coat of clear varnish. Let dry well then cut into rectangles. Cut out a slightly larger rectangle than the top of the load. Apply microset to load top and sides around the top. Let decal soften in water but really only just as long as it takes to come loose then take it out and slide decal onto top, folding the edges down. The white transfer paper is now your fake outer plastic wrap around the sacks. Looks fairly close to the pics I've seen. No need to do the sides for the wagon loads as you can't see them For a bit more definition between the pallet loads (remember the double height models are two pallets top and bottom) apply some micro sol just between the pallets so the transfer sucks in along that line only. Don't apply it to the whole top or the transfer will suck in around the individual sacks which is not really what you want.

Available from an inkjet printer near you

The above excellent pic of the briquettes certainly suggests that the wooden limiting boards were removed as it would have been impossible to load the wagon like that with the boards in place. So I'm assuming the laden 48 tonne wagons at least occasionally looked something like this:

https://irishrailwaymodels.co.uk/

Maybe a failed train of empties being rescued? Don't think a single 121 would have been able to haul a laden train like that.

Yeah Joe it was another hot one. 32 degrees in Zittau yesterday mid afternoon. So a few videos have been uploaded:

So yesterday I took another spin to another narrow gauge steam system. This time the aforementioned Zittauerschmalspurbahn. Unfortunately there are still works restricting the capacity on the Berliner Stadtbahn (our 100 year old version of Crossrail that runs east-west right through the heart of the city, except all on a viaduct or otherwise elevated above street level: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Stadtbahn The works mean my local regional train, the RB14 terminates at Charlottenburg but this trip involved traversing the city so I waited briefly for an RE1 (they have priority and can still use the Stadtbahn it seems) and took this to Ostkreuz (eastern cross, where the Stadtbahn intersects with the Ringbahn, or circle line). From here I took an RE2 to Cottbus in the far south east of the state of Brandenburg. There the connection was delayed but connecting trains waited and I had a cross platform transfer to the RB65 to my final destination on the mainline network, Zittau in the far south east of the state of Saxony. Unfortunately there are track upgrade works so at the moment the middle-of-nowhere station of Hagenwerder is the terminus. From there a seamless rail replacement service took us by bus to Zittau Hbf. In the end the rail replacement service added a nice bit of interest and my phone welcomed me to Poland and back to Germany the whole way along the route as the border parallels the road. From Zittau I took the narrow gauge direct to Oybin, then straight back to Zittau, then to the Junction station at Bertsdorf, where I changed trains and headed to Jonsdorf, from where I took the train back to Bertsdorf, changed again and headed back down to Zittau to catch my bus and head home the way I came. I made a stop in Berlin Hbf as it turns out and took the RB10 home instead of the RB14 as the timing was better. A couple of pics of Berlin Hbf are therefore included for completeness. It's basically a large shopping centre with a railway station inside it really. Ok, so on to the pics... Arriving into Lübben, which is the first station in the bilingual Spreewald district. The other language here is the minority Sorbian, a slavic language, which is strongly protected by the German state following the persecution of Sorbian speakers under the Nazi regime. I can thoroughly recommend a visit to the Spreewald. It has a real primordial feel to it. The area is known for its canals and features Germany's only canal boat postal delivery service. The little punt is also Germany's smallest Postbank outlet and sells stamps and other postal services to customers: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postkahn (sorry German only) All change at Cottbus, where a track measuring train sits idle in the yard: DMU traction now all the way to the end destination. Next point of interest is the border station of Görlitz. Presumably they needed many more platforms at one stage to perform customs checks on trains arriving from Poland. Now abandoned: My temporary rail terminus on the mainline system for today, Hagenwerder, where we changed over to a bus replacement that was waiting for us: And now a few images from Zittau itself, including what appears to be an old ballast wagon: Loco running around in the bus station in Zittau: Arriving Zittau Vorstadt: The junction station of Bertsdorf now: The terminus at Oybin: And now the other terminus at Jonsdorf and some snaps along the way back to the junction at Bertsdorf. Note the signal cabin is located slap bang in the middle of the junction, controlling it by way of semaphore signals still: And for the sake of completeness a couple of snaps of Berlin including Hbf as I did pass through here too. The station is two level (excluding the U5 U-Bahn and under construction underground S21 S-Bahn), with 8 low level platforms running north-south and a further 6 high level platforms (4 for IC & regional, 2 for S-Bahn) running east-west, connected by the world's slowest lifts (pro tip, unless you have really awkward luggage, take three escalators rather than waiting for a lift). The station is (in)famous for its huge glazed roof being too short. The contract was poorly defined and the contractor was forced to end the works prematurely so the station could open without scaffolding for the 2006 world cup. The roof contractor sued and won his case and he has a legal right to come back and finish the station roof to its full length (presumably when times are hard again in the building trade!). The low level platforms taken from an intermediate level: The east-west tracks are supported by those columns. The bridge in the very top of the foreground is carrying the S-Bahn tracks left to right: CD operated Eurocity train from Prague to Hamburg departing from the same platform my RB10 will depart from shortly. Loco appears to be leased from a German owner however: A Talgo "Bumblebee" (Hummel) shunter at Bhf Warschauer Straße (Warsaw Road Station). This depot did at one stage service Talgo coaching stock but I haven't seen any here in a while: Videos of the steam part will be uploaded to YouTube and linked in a subsequent post Edit. The editor decided to insert these images without me clicking "insert". I don't know if that's expected behavior but anyway I'll just leave them. One of them I actually forgot to add so I'll comment that as it's rare.... A diamond crossing of an unusual type. The track we are crossing over is standard gauge mainline rail belonging to the Deutsche Bahn. This requires communication between our conductor and the DB signaller, which is what is happening in the pic below where he is standing at that yellow DB post on the little halt immediately before this diamond: This viaduct carries the mainline rail we are about to cross over. Strange arrangement:

Fascinating details that the working timetable doesn't provide Noel. Thank you for them! Was Ballina the only destination for block fert trains or did they also go further south? Has anyone got more detailed pics of the actual pallets? I am working on some custom transfers based on net nitrate pallet loads I've found on the internet but the pics are few and far between. The first attempt was simply a cut out of a jpeg from an old IFI brochure I found online but the resolution was very poor so I created a vector graphic in GIMP to get something a little sharper and from 2' away it's absolutely fine now. The first (very pixellated) attempt can also be seen for reference:

IRM's commitment to re-runs earns them a huge gold star. It means nobody is under "pressure" (imagined or otherwise) to buy for renumbering. They can just wait until the next run and buy one rake again. That's my plan anyway. One rake from each run and then wait patiently for the next one.

Did they transport peat as well? Anyone got any pics?

Now I need to buy more wagons.

How many fert wagons typically ran in a fert block train on the GSWR?

Sorry for your loss bufferstop. She sounds like one great lady indeed.

Fabulous. Very atmospheric indeed. I really like it, shades of Dugort Harbour about it. I'm no expert on backsecenes, having never made one but would a blast of matt varnish be an idea to reduce the light reflecting back from the lanterns?

The NIR buffet, generator vans and driving trailers are super niche as well and share little with the GB mk2's. If those things are viable then most stuff is I'd say.

My oh my that looks like a tricky masking job George. How are you doing it with the variable width swooshes, cutting them out by hand?