murphaph

I'm going to try those vinyl stripes anyway. They might work ok with a coat of varnish over the top of everything. I've also ordered a single set of the Railtec ones to see if they are worth the money. I do highly rate the Railtec stuff. The transfers I used up thread on the IR mk2b's are all Railtec. I've also ordered a selection of thin masking tapes from Jammy Dog so I have three possible ways to skin this particular cat. It seems like NIR also modified the corporate livery in some respects. I have pictures of the roofs in a medium gloss grey as well as a matt black. Was there any pattern to this or was it random? I've also seen the window frames unpainted and painted around the outside. Same question. The cantrail is also painted the same light grey as the tumblehome, unless it's a first or diner, in which case it follows the yellow/red convention. Correct? I believe the gutters were painted the same light grey and it wrapped around the end of the coach, unlike the cantrail stripe. Most pics show the gutters very dirty, almost black, but I do believe they were painted grey initially. Could someone confirm? The Lima mk2b coach roof has a little ridge to represent the gutter which could be painted I suppose.

Thanks for all the pointers guys. I think those vinyl stripes are surely worth a punt at that price. My only concern from the pics is that the white stripe looks very thin relative to the black. From looking at coach pics I reckon the white stripes were half the height of the black and yellow stripes. I reckon the white were 2" and the black and yellow were 4" but that's just by looking at them relative to the grab handles and comparing to the 3" lining used by IR. I suppose in the end they just need to pass the 2' rule though.

Thx iarnrod yeah I'm aware of them but they aren't cheap. They cost twice as much as the donor coach lol. I will be looking to do a couple of rakes if these in time so that adds up. Nevertheless I'll order one pair to see if I can justify the expense and to see if I have the skills to apply such a long transfer in a straight line!

I really like this. The blue carriage cleaning depot or whatever it is screams Heuston. It would be well worth weathering the rails as David suggests.

A first attempt at a colour test of the NIR corporate livery: I paid little attention to the masking hence the bleed in places. I'm happy enough except for the lower grey band. It should be a touch darker than the Vallejo insignia white I've used here. I didn't bother with the bottom black band and I can see the stripes are all a bit too thick. I've ordered alternative masking tapes for this. If anyone knows the actual thickness of the stripes that would be great.

I've seen a pic or video somewhere of two rebuilt Dutch vans topping and tailing a long mk2z-c rake. I think it was probably a special. I had always just assumed the whole train was electrically connected when running in this configuration but of course they could just have been running split like when the tpo mk1 egvs ran with the mk2ds.

I stumbled across a couple of interesting pics of the 1991 Foynes Phoenix railtour. The pics show that the above coaches formed a rake hauled by 170. The coaches were all air braked so compatible in that regard but what about the electrical systems? The pics show an NIR EGV at one end of the train and an IR rebuilt Dutch van EGV at the other end. Was the Dutch van there just to provide extra power to the whole rake because of its length or were the electrical systems incompatible, requiring two separate EGVs for each part of the train? https://images.app.goo.gl/Jrwkm7AsNBvDKSr49

I humbly suggest an open top double decker bus parade (resprayed into a more appropriate Italia 90 era two-tone green of course) winding its way from Dublin Port to College Green with the first examples taken out of the container and held aloft by the IRM team up front, being showered in Champagne by the crowds below. Too much? Ok, then replace the Champagne with cans of Dutch Gold

Even the far cab on this side of that photo was still in IR livery. It's a real pity it never ran in service like that. It would make a great model. The amazing thing is that even after seeing that hideous paint scheme full size, the management ordered it for the 201s anyway. They would have looked a million times better in tippex.

Shades of Monasterevin for me. Love it.

I hope the baldy bearded look does suit me cos that's where I'm heading lol!

There's a bit of a look inside on this youtube video:

We'll all descend like vultures on Bray if we're still around. I suppose that auction should remind us that we should leave a note for our loved ones with the real value of all this stuff, just in case we are hit by a bus in the morning! If it ended up in an unsuitable offline auction it might fetch far far less than it's worth. I'm sure I'm not the only one that downplays the cost when a parcel comes through the door lol.

Yeah it sure does work. I take no credit for the idea however. I believe it was in Dhu Varren's NIR conversions thread that I remembered seeing Revell 52 mentioned for this blue, which is probably the most critical colour to get right, but I think it was the enamel version. I don't want to start using enamels though. I have tried to colour match some alternatives for the light grey, red and yellows also required. They are on order but if anyone has exact codes please just shout. Does anyone know if the grey on the roofs of the NIR mk2 stock was the same as BR roof grey? There's a Humbrol water based acrylic I could use (at least as a reference) if so, RC412.

I happened to be in a toy shop yesterday and saw they had the Revell 52 in Aqua Color (that's their water based acrylic range). I decided to just pick it up and see how it behaved with my Vallejo thinners etc. because they are also water based acrylics. It seems to work just fine. I test thinned it about 50:50 and test sprayed a bit to check how close the aqua version is to that deep NIR blue for the mk2 coaches. I think it's definitely close enough.

Went for €403 the baby GM + 2 Cravens including the auctioneer's commission. That's more than eBay sort of money I'd say, and that's assuming the loco is in running order. Prices have exploded of late but that's just mad.

While I'm waiting for Shawplan to return my enquiry about etched window frames I'm a little blocked on further progress as if they worked well for me I would want a uniform fleet of them. I'm thinking about spraying a single test coach in the NIR corporate livery (bumble Bee). I am trying to gather model paint or RAL colour codes of close approximations to the real thing. I've seen Revell 52 mentioned for the dark blue. What about the yellow and grey? Anyone got any codes. I'm afraid mentioning Ford Dove Grey etc. from Halfords won't help me as I'm over in Germany. Any help much appreciated.

Yeah the gantries are the biz.

The plan is (if they work well) to install Keen systems close coupling with the floating corridor connectors so nothing of the actual door should be visible on intermediate coaches. The door in fact needs to be drilled through to fit these units.

Slightly related (just about) but I've seen youtube clips of Kildare in the 90s or early 2000's before the modern PW depot was built showing a timber train waiting in the siding rather than on the middle road to reverse. I wonder was this a failed train or a regular occurrence during busier periods.

A brutal close-up of the end reveals another reason why it's better to spray the orange before the black (apart from the fact that light before dark makes sense). In this order the masking around the ends is easier to get right as the door jamb moulding provides a natural barrier and the masking tape can be applied to the outside edges of it over the orange rather than masking over the irregular relief of the door hinges if masking the inside edges. I will probably stop spraying the gangway doors on most of these coaches now as they will eventually end up close coupled in fixed rakes so only one coach per rake will actually be seen.

Ah yes, I did read about putting the can in a bath of warm water prior to use. I might try them again using that technique. My biggest problem is the sheer amount of paint I needed to get a fine coat on. I had to keep so much distance that 90% of the paint was going over or under the model. I was using like a quarter of a 400ml can of black or orange whereas with the airbrush I used maybe 2ml of black + thinner + flow improver. Anyway, I've ordered a second inexpensive airbrush so I can have them permanently fitted with the 0.2mm and the 0.5mm nozzles, rather than faffing around switching nozzles. The airbrush is only €28 so it's easier to do that and I've read in the reviews that several people have bought additional units to do just that. It has also been suggest to polish the needles of these cheaper airbrushes to improve the finish. Allegedly much of the cost of expensive airbrushes is in this step which you can do yourself with a drill and some very fine wire wool, though for the purposes of spraying coaches it's probably not necessary.

Thx popeye. Having seen your other work I'm sure they'll be masterpieces too. For me the airbrush is kind of insurance against my clumsiness. I can accidentally bring it too close or spray "too much" and because so little is coming out to begin with it's not a problem. I'm thinking I will use the remainder of my rattle can paint by decanting it into the airbrush and spraying it that way.

It worked for me a few minutes ago. I can't explain it either but I have been experiencing the 200 errors. Next time it happens I'll record what it was exactly.

So the big airbrush experiment has ended and I declare it a success lol. The first unit would actually be ok in a layout I reckon. There's a bit of wonky masking around the vent which in hindsight shouldn't be so chunky, but rather flush with the body. The door bumpers are in the right place relative to the door hinges I swear but sadly something is off on the model so they almost touch the lower tippex stripe. In reality there was a few inches between them. I masked off the bumpers and the door stops along with the window band. The overall result is much finer than with the rattle cans (at least in my hands). Much more detail is preserved with the airbrush.