murphaph

That is brilliant. Really coming together nicely

Ah from looking at the Railtec transfer it seems there's possibly a dash missing in Des' version, which would strongly suggest these yellow backed markings are inspection dates: https://www.railtec-models.com/showitem.php?id=1154

Absolutely. These are the 2 clearest pics I've seen of these things, cracking stuff. Interesting variation in the sash window frame in the guard's door also! JB you are probably right as usual. I think I will do none with the black band as it's clearly way too late for the mid 90s to be plausible. I'll do maybe one with the markings however, minus the black band like in Ernie's first pic. I really like that. I believe I have identified the yellow backed marking. It's visible here: http://georgedentmodelmaker.blogspot.com/2010/01/irish-generator-van-kit-arrives.html The marking is C 29-98 and there are three identical markings in Des' Dutch van transfer kit, so I suspect the same marking was on all three. Perhaps a type of lubricant? The other plain white marking I cannot identify. It doesn't appear to be in the transfer kit either and doesn't seem to appear on the George Dent image either, so I think it was a bit random and can be ignored for now.

That's a great pic Ernie, thanks for posting. However I think the paint job carried ever so slightly around the corner on both sides. It's just caked in dirt on the right hand side - you can see the warning flashes are completely obscured by dirt too The van is actually the same one in all three pics, 4602. Your pic shows that they started adding some stencilling before the black band itself was applied, which opens up another can of worms lol. When did they start stencilling those things on? Your pic clearly confirms the black band as being a much later addition, definitely into the 2000s which is out of era for me. The lower stencilling however needs further investigation as this could add interest to the kits I'm working on. Would you happen to have any other images that might help identify those markings clearly?

Does anyone know when the Dutch vans went from looking like this: ....to looking like this: ? The latter image was unknown to me until a couple of days ago. I had seen the black band on one of the vans in its condition as a brake van for the stock transfer trains but never while still in revenue service. I suspect this was quite late in their revenue service lives.

I wonder would they like their flash car given a similarly artistic treatment.

So I have finished the rebuilt Dutch vans I started working on a long time ago. These are destined for another member's collection. Starting point: After fabricating a chassis, adding the Silver Fox Werkspoor bogies, painting up, applying transfers, fabricating glazing out of a CD case and weathering appropriately (none of the pics I have found show them in an absolutely filthy state while they were in revenue service, so I haven't overdone it):

Theresa May came up with the famous Brexit means Brexit slogan. Now we know that Brexit means this.

Great stuff. Did the North Wall to Ballina block train go via Mullingar to Athlone or via Portarlington?

Cheers Noel, very insightful. So you reckon pre-98 you'd have a full fert block train to Ballina (what time roughly?) and post-98 they'd only have enough traffic to warrant tagging them on to the back of one of the liners? Am I understanding you right? I'm looking to model around '95. Roughly how often would a fert block train be sent to Ballina from Dublin?

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: