murphaph

These aren't the worst wagons to have an issue on the NEM pocket heights luckily enough. They ran in fixed rakes more or less. You wouldn't be (prototypically anyway) shunting these things individually I would have thought. They were all going from point A to point B. Either unit train gypsums from Kingscourt to a cement factory or ballasts that were loaded together at one point and brought together to the works site. That's the case for me anyway. I'll modify the end wagons in the rakes a la Noel's Kadee fix and use fixed couplings on the intermediates, using the NEM pockets as they are. For me at least there will be no need to modify all the wagons. I had ordered the IE bundle, all the IR wagons individually (as I have the IR ploughs) and the ore bundle but then I realised I need two ore bundles, one for the laden and one for the empty return workings to Kingscourt! Don't forget your empty workings lol. Another ore bundle ordered so!

Great stuff and fair prices. The effective 75 for the ploughs in the bundle is particularly fair. I wasn't originally going to buy the IE ploughs as I have the IR ones but at that price it would be rude not to lol.

Hi all, Does anyone know of a source for decals for the MB 709 imp (as used by Bus Eireann on local services). Cheers! Phil

I had a look around the German speaking interweb and if the information I found is correct there won't be any new Profigleis anytime soon. A guy said the machine is broken (presumably) during the move of production to Romania. "Nachtrag Oktober 2018: Die Produktion des H0 profi-Gleises wird nach dem Umzug der Formen nach Rumänien aus technischen Gründen nicht wieder aufgenommen. Die Fertigungsanlage ist wohl defekt. Es gibt aber noch großen Lagerbestand im Handel." https://www.modellbahn.net/index.php/startseite/news-modellbahn/335-fleischmann-h0-wird-2019-eingestellt

Is that a three aspect colour light signal just sitting there on the ground?

Is TT gauge as popular in Poland as it is in the former GDR? I live outside Berlin in what was the former GDR. Half the stuff in my local model shop is TT but over the "border" in the former West Berlin you don't see nearly as much, even 30 years after reunification it's still N and H0 there!

So just for my own benefit, the NIR FKs were all converted to open standards by say 1995? Did any FKs survive as corridors, perhaps indeed as firsts?

Were these BR FKs not converted to opens like their counterparts in the Republic?

Yeah they'd fill a 20' sized hole in the market.

Yeah the 20 foot flats would fly out the door I reckon.

In my dreams Dublin Corporation refused CIE permission to run those wagons through the city and they had to come in via Waterford and Limerick Did these wagons ever ever ever actually make it to Limerick in reality? Even for maintenance? I'm guessing no. If Arran did manage to produce such a niche container (perhaps in cooperation with IRM a la P42) I'd be hard pressed not to buy a rake too even if I had to use a little fantasy to get them on my layout! They'd be an awesome sight of silvery goodness.

I'd take 40' Bells as well and if the pair that went for £88 + shipping on eBay two days ago is anything to go by there is some pent up demand for them.

Well that's the best story of all Edo. Really fantastic. And some people dismiss our hobby as pointless!

There's this mention of a new livery in that thread: "Looking again at the journals, the new NIR InterCity livery is mentioned as being introduced progressively in the Feb 1989 issue. Turning back to the 111 Class, 113 is mentioned in the Oct 1989 journal as having been 'repainted in the new "InterCity" livery - a deep medium blue with yellow end panels and red buffer beams'." I guess that's it, right? So do we have any idea when the last mk2s were repainted?

Yeah congratulations. Long may it continue!

Was there a change of plan or were Hattons just mistaken Dave?

So I think those frames are all still silver and the coaches are still in IR livery. The IE 201 shows this video is from 94 or later. I really strongly suspect now that with the livery change to IE these coaches had their window frames painted black.

Thanks for going to such lengths Ben. I have a gut feeling the silver window frames disappeared with the change to IE livery. I haven't found any pictures with silver window frames + IE logos. It would be nice to find even one picture disproving this gut feeling.

We're deffo overdue a bit of news alright. Hattons email alert a few weeks back said they expected the IR ones in t the end of September and the IE ones end of this month. Who knows, maybe the factory is under lockdown again. Numbers going up worldwide more or less

@Arran do you have any plans to produce the 40' Bells again any time soon?

Thanks very much. A bit late for me so. I'll have to avoid those high cubes unless someone can confirm the loading gauge allowed 40' HCs on the 42' flats.

Thanks a lot for checking Ben! There are photos from 1999 (I think kindly linked above in this very thread) of the mk2As and they had already been painted black by then as well. http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/ie/car/IE/pix.html That's a mk2b or c in your pic though, right? (I'm no expert but from what I know only from the b series on did they get those classic wraparound doors, the mk2 and mk2as still having "normal" doors)

When were the grey ones with the blue stripe repainted to the later livery (corporate is it?)? Pictures I have seen suggest it was done in the late 80's already. Did any of the earlier ones survive into the 90s? I kind of prefer the earlier livery as it is kind of reminiscent of BR blue & grey which I have a soft spot for.

Sorry to revive this old but fascinating discussion but it's better to keep all this information together. Does anyone know if and when the mk2as with the silver window frames lost those silver frames under black paint? The nice Bachmann mk2a models show silver window frames but with IE decals. Did such a combination ever actually exist in reality?

Yeah that's what I was thinking but I'd like to confirm. What year did pocket wagons first enter service?