murphaph

John, a couple of questions if I may... What are the black dots at the end of the plastikard "torsion bar" stretcher? Some sort or rivet? Or how is it held on to the severed half of the plastic bogie? Also, the brass etches you've made yourself, can the MJT ones be used instead? Is there a reason why you didn't split the original MM Cravens bogies and regauge those using plastikard? I've also read something about Bill Bedford bogies. Any information on those wrt 21mm? I'm thinking I may go the "middle way" and use the 21mm EM. I like the idea of 00 tolerances on my diesel stock but what if I want to add a kit built steam loco or two later on and I've built a helix to a too tight radius for any slightly longer steam engine to get around. I'm thinking it would be safer to bite the bullet now and re-wheel my RTR stock with EM profile wheels and accept that I need larger curve radii on Helixes and curves in general. Cheers, Phil

I'm not sure but like Jonathan I haven't noticed any issues on any other sites. It's not something that makes the site unusable or anything but it is noticeable.

Thanks guys. Yeah the correct width bogies especially highlight how off the H0 track gauge is. What's the consensus on replacement bogies on Murphy Models coaching stock by the way? I found an old thread in which MJT compensated ones were recommended but another on rmweb in which they were criticised.

I'm not sure but I also notice issues when I click on images to view the larger version. Also experience page timeouts from time to time.

Hi David. I was considering Peco code 75 FB as that's available locally here in Germany. Would you advise against it?

Rice recommends simply scratching the sleepers lengthways with a rough grit sandpaper to get a "grain", but IIRC says it's really not required. Again, at 2' in 4mm scale I can't believe you'd see the grain of old station area sleepers. I remember reading somewhere once that in reality wooden sleepers don't even look like wood after a short while in service. They get bleached by the sun and covered in oil and can be any colour from black to light grey.

Thanks for the confirmation all the same, odd as that may sound! I actually makes it easier just to plough on ahead without wondering "what if IRM do decide to release 21mm track next year". I guess Stephen's poll on the matter threw me a bit

Thanks very much folks and also to those who reached out via PM. It's much appreciated. Interestingly I was sitting on a spec of sorts all along. In the appendices of "Modelling Irish Railways" there is a table of three specs, adapted to 21mm gauge (OO, EM and P4). I never noticed this before. The EMGS one looks very close to yours John. The only difference being: WCG: 19.95mm (JM) vs 20.05mm EMGS Manual Otherwise they appear identical and what's 0.1mm between friends (probably a lot here lol) I don't want to scan the page in as it's copyrighted. I'm glad we touched a bit on OO standards for 21mm. I had almost not considered the idea or had considered it but didn't realises I was doing so (by hoping to just push the existing wheels on many of my models onto new 28mm axles. What is the disadvantage of OO 21mm compared with EMGS 21mm, apart from the look of the wider tyres of the NMRA 110 wheels? I know that LJ is a big undertaking for sure, but it is not planned to be done very quickly. I will try to do it in modules so I can enjoy running some stuff as I go. I will start with the long straights away from the station area to get practice in. However it will take several years to complete. I just don't want to look back and regret not doing it in the correct scale track gauge later. Who knows, maybe IRM will release 21mm flextrack and simple points to take the heavy lifting out of much of it. Just a quick note on the concrete sleepers. I was hoping to simply use copper clad strips for the whole layout and then "over" ballast the "CWR" sections as often seemed to be the case in Ireland, almost submerging the sleepers out of view, then in station areas lightly ballast so it looks like timbers with spiked FB rail. I think at 4mm scale the spikes would be invisible at 2' anyway so no need to really do anything by way of rail fixings

I'm going to start ordering stuff to get a start on this. I managed to find a copy of Iain Rice's pragmatic PCB track book. I think this is the perfect method for me (he said with absolutely no experience) for most of my planned layout. I'm thinking for a mid 90s Limerick Junction layout I can use FB rail on PCB with heavy ballasting to represent the CWR of the mainline. I would start with that as I believe it's easier. So, I need to know would I need 8'6" or 9' concrete sleepers for the mainline CWR in this area? What code of FB rail is most appropriate to represent the weight of rail used here? I really want to settle on the spec (not just gauge) and I'm confused. I don't want to build to an arbitrary gauge that "works for me" but excludes the possibility of guest stock running on my layout. Is there a documented spec anywhere? I do not want to model to P4 standards. I can't be bothered with compensation etc. The chosen spec needs to allow reliable running without compensation. Does this only leave the "Irish EM" spec (20.2mm)? Or is there another spec that retains the 21mm but without the tightness of P4?

I expect the answer is 'no' but did these ever get out of the factories onto the mainline at all?

I wonder would Hornby do the CSE livery themselves at some stage. I wonder are they even aware of the possibility. Easy win for them if they are releasing the model anyway. The Irish market is seemingly booming.

What was different with respect to coupling the swapped in/out Craven between the loco and Mk2d EGV as compared to simply attaching to the rear of the train? Did the EGV have different couplings than the passenger coaches?

Did it happen the other way around at all with mk2ds running locked out and empty? Does anyone know of any more pictures of this?

So it would have been regular train + coupled on stock move stock? Could passengers access just the regular part of the train?

There's a pic on eiretrains here of a rake of mk2ds and Cravens seemingly coupled together and coupled to a 201. http://eiretrains.com/Photo_Gallery/Railway Stations L/Limerick/IrishRailwayStations.html#Limerick_20061126_0022_CC_JA.jpg Was this just a stock movement if indeed these coaches were actually coupled together or what was going on?

What does R.C.H. stand for? By the way, a few "end on" pics would be great.

I took a look at Brazil but they only have one mass manufacturer it seems and it's all H0 scale stuff so 21mm would have no market there unfortunately.

I wonder is there also am opportunity to sell 21mm track into the Indian market. I believe they also model in 1:76 and with a 5'6" gauge they'd ideally have 22mm in 4mm scale but no such track exists. I wonder would they be happy to enough with 21mm.

If RTR 21mm track became available it would probably become the defacto 21mm standard very quickly.

Especially for the fiddle yard it would be great to be able to buy simple straight left and right hand points. An intriguing topic!

Hi Brendan. Where can I source such a track gauge? I want to build a bit of straight track as you suggest and then regauge a loco and some wagons. Do you have the full 21mm between the rails, not the 20.2mm? There are almost too many variants for an amateur like me here!

Does anyone know if I were to re-use the IRM wheels and use "Irish EM" what would the back to back measurement need to be on the remanufactured wheelsets?

Oh well that's even better. I am sure I read (perhaps in the NIL article even) that the "fixed" wheel couldn't be moved. Can I simply pull both wheels off the axle of an IRM Ballast wagon and push them on to 2mm home made axles?

Thanks again guys. The IRM wheelsets on the "early" stuff cannot be used as one wheel is cast with the axle or at least doesn't allow itself to be removed from the axle, is that right? I think I will first try to make my own axles using 2mm steel and filing to a point in a Dremel and re-use wheels wherever possible as the fineness of the wheels is really unimportant to me. Can I at least pull the insulated wheels off the axle and make up a wheelset from a pair of IRM wheelsets?

Which wheels would be suitable for Irish EM? I'm not a purist so the missing 0.8 mm is not a problem.