murphaph

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.

That's what I have in my 141s and 121s (or the Lokpilot 59619 which is identical except no sound-useful in semi-permanent 121 consists maybe) Cheers for that

That's interesting. I hadn't planned on this mod as I found the 121s pretty good and much better than the other factory fitted speakers in older MM locos. But I have a dozen double iPhone speakers in an envelope. They were originally destined for my baby GMs but it sounds like (sorry!) I should try a set in a 121 for comparison.

I haven't committed to anything yet to be honest. I am a bit concerned about the "P4" (21mm) route as I don't fancy all the extra work that seems to be required to avoid derailments. I had originally only considered EM (21mm) because of the looser tolerances and the fact I am not bothered by deeper flanges etc. What I dislike about 00 is simply the space between the rails. It just looks off to me and I will be viewing my layout primarily from above so can't hide it. I think I will still go the EM (21mm) Can we call this TOM?? and just put in the extra effort on the conversions for an easier life later on.

I'd appreciate that!

Ah ok. I thought the tyre width of the P4 wheels was narrower than EM, therefore requiring less overall width, even though the back to back may be wider. I'm a bit confused lol.

Thanks very much folks. I am still minded to "make it work" as the 5'3" effect is just so cool. I think If I'm understanding things properly it looks like the ballasts need disassembling and shimming and then a bit of painting and weathering to cover the shims. I think I can do that. The bubbles seem to be able to take P4 wheelsets but would not be wide enough between the axle boxes to take "EM" wheelsets. Is that correct? If I use P4 wheelsets I assume I must be more accurate in my track building endeavours or is that a misapprehension? The ploughs seem to be the trickiest of all but also the least numerous (I only have the IR and IE sets).

@irishthump I'm just using the old files. You only hear the horn for a moment every now and then anyway. As you know by far the more important issue is the quality of the prime mover recording and sampled file as that is running the whole time. Might be worth looking through the ESU files for a suitable improvement though. That's a job for a rainy day if ever there was one!

Thanks for the tips so far guys. The NIL article suggests doing what I suspected might be required for the Ballasts: disassemble to kit of parts and insert plasticard shims into chassis. The bubbles look trickier and the plough vans the trickiest (though for me lowest priority). Any further insights are most welcome. I haven't finally committed to going down the 21mm path as I have a fair few of these wagons (2 gypsum rakes, one rake each of the original ballasts as well as the new IE and IR ones and iirc 27 bubbles.) Learning to make track by hand doesn't scare me as much as regauging tbh.

Sure. Fire me a PM @DiveController to remind me to send a file tomorrow.

Perhaps there's a thread already and I missed it. If so my apologies. I'm just wondering has anyone regauged the Ballasts, bubbles and plough to 21mm yet and if so can you report on your experiences or give any idea of how much effort we are talking to regauge several rakes of each. Cheers, Phil