murphaph

That's a reasonable position IMO. There's other stuff to make that is more viable than a GSV right now and that helps to continue to grow the market in the meantime. As the market grows, the more niche vehicles become more viable. Though I would reiterate that the weedspray van will always be significantly less viable than any GSV. MM has already released EGVs and restaurant/buffet cars so such 'one per rake' vehicles are quite possibly viable already, notwithstanding the fact that IRM have other priorities and a finite amount of time to manage projects. It's a bit of an anomaly that the Cravens didn't have a GSV but that's presumably down to the lack of a Cravens GSV in the prototype. Trains using a mkI GSV can be much shorter than anything using a mkIId EGV and still be prototypical so a mkI GSV should be more viable than a mkIId EGV.

I believe the mkI GSV would be a lot more viable than the spray van, which is a one off on the network whereas every Cravens rake, no matter how short, would need a GSV to be prototypical. More viable doesn't necessarily mean viable of course but I'd buy half a dozen!

So the headlight can't be controlled with F8 like the 201 for example? Any cab light?

@Arran maybe you could reply here for the benefit of the wider forum?

Can anyone advise which of the C Rail containers would carry the correct livery for a mid 90s layout? I'm guessing not all of the available containers would have actually been seen on Irish rails.

Yep but two wrongs don't make a right lol! For TLCs the difference is probably irrelevant though. It kicks in when you start using the likes of Kadees where the knuckles can slip by each other if not at the same height.

The Park Royals would make a fair bit of sense. They had long careers, like the Cravens and even serve in preservation so you can have a modern RPSI train pulling a couple of them in the rake. I would certainly take 2 rakes of PRs if they were ever released in RTR. I would second Noel's comment about the NEM pocket height. If you look at the Kadee FAQ it says to the question "Why don't you make offset NEM couplers?"-"NEM pockets should already be at the correct height. Offset couplers look wrong so we don't make them". Hard to argue with them though the reality, especially in the UK (rarely with continental stock) is that NEM pocket heights can be hit and miss so I wish Kadee would sully themselves and just make the damn offset couplers lol.

Same here. The mkI version is too late for me. I'm going to have to somehow get the Bredin one. I bought the Weedspray train to strip the tanks and container off and place them on the 20' 4w flats that I'm sure IRM will release in a higher quality RTR model some day The 42' flats will be hauling containers!

It is hard to get 00 scale typically (cheap) Irish cars from the 80s and 90s. Cars in Ireland back then were invariably crappier than in the UK. A lot more Opel Kadetts and Fiat Ritmos than Rover 2000s or Ford Granadas. The typical van was a Hi-Ace or Lite-Ace, rather than a Transit, know what I mean? In fact a lot more jap cars full stop than the UK. This is reflected in the lack of these things in the Oxford range. Perhaps some day IRM can fill the void. I know you can get some of the stuff in h0 with the steering wheel on the wrong side but it's not the same.

Ah I don't but market forces and all that Dave. I would be surprised if nobody releases new and improved models over the coming years. The market seems to be growing as evidenced by the rapid selling out of niche models like the weedspray. I've an acquaintance in Potsdam and one in Berlin (both Germans) who own MM/IRM stuff. Perhaps I'm overly optimistic about how large the market can get though!

Some fairly greedy sellers looking for mad money on their buy it nows but funnily enough it's invariably the auction stuff that gets out of hand as people see the red mist when outbid at the end. I can only recommend that people use a bid sniper and set their genuine max price they'd like to pay and then ignore the auction until it's over. You'll win some and lose some but you won't overpay. Oh and ignore the mad money buy it nows of course! The market for Irish stuff is clearly growing. This stuff will all be released again at some stage or indeed improved versions thereof.

I assume the factory is now working on the remaining 121s or is that a naïve assumption? I'm interested in the 6 tippex ones specifically.

Great to see such a good uptake. I'd love to see 1990s Bus Éireann stuff, especially older CIE "patched" yokes.

If anyone has any WTTs from the mid 90s to sell I'd be interested in hearing from you. I'm interested in traffic movements in the Limerick area specifically so I don't need anything that doesn't cover that area. Feel free to PM me if you have any. Thanks!

I've taken a closer look at the shunting taking place in that video. It seems the train to Limerick was assembled in the siding immediately to the south of the main down line before being hauled out onto the down line, over to the up line then propelled along the up line, presumably to make use of the direct curve? Is this a correct summary of what's happening in the video above? If so, the train being shunted seems to leave the bounds of the control of Limerick Junction North signal cabin and enters an area under CTC. How was this handled from a signalling perspective?

That's very useful information. When you say LJ to Limerick local trip working, what do you mean? The bogie flats with containers clearly didn't originate at LJ. Would they have been taken off the rear of a Dublin-Cork liner, to also be included in this local working? Would the gypsum train have been a unit train all the way from kingscourt to LJ?

That gypsum train in the video was attached to a liner train. Was that also commonplace?

That's great to hear. I'm patient enough to wait . In the meantime I'm sure there will be plenty of other interesting items to add to the collection!

ILDA didn't help much either IMO but perhaps that's straying into politics. It is a crying shame how freight has virtually disappeared from the network. Can I ask for more detail on the steel trains: How did they transport the steel rod from Haulbowline to wherever it was loaded onto rails? Where did this happen? Very interesting that the Ennis road was closed in the mid 90s. My planned layout only has a very short stretch of this to be modelled, effectively a few yards after the turnout. It would be better operationally for me to send traffic via Roscrea as I will see more of it on the layout. I might model this closed period in fact. I'll have to seriously consider that option. So molasses came in from Foynes to Limerick yard as a block train, then got attached to the Limerick-Dublin liner train? How many wagons are we talking in each train? How much splitting/shunting of freight trains occured at LJ generally?

Are you talking about regular mkl GSVs or specifically the weed spray variant here? For the weed spray variant I think it may never be viable as RTR unfortunately. Nobody (or at least very few people) needs more than one of them. I would have thought though that there were rakes of MM Cravens out there waiting for their mkI GSVs. I know I need around half a dozen as the Cravens ran in such short branch formations in my planned era so even one passenger coach in the train required a GSV. It's not like the mkIId and mkIII stock where you can say a rake of 8 coaches to one EGV or whatever. I know other people also hoping for a quality RTR GSV for the MM Cravens stock. I understand that the market right now may well be too small to make financial sense (and I would hope nobody here would advocate risking the entire venture for a single model) but hope that in time as the market grows, that a regular mkI GSV would become viable. Please don't see this as me telling you lads how to run your business. You're doing a fine job as it is. I just wanted to give my perspective as a "recently returned to the hobby" type customer.

I want to correct my last post. All v5 US projects are FT enabled but that doesn't mean the 121s will be. Having said that, I believe it would be trivial to enable it if it (for some reason) wasn't enabled from the factory. I installed the EMD 12-710G3A LATE EXH T on my v5 decoder and stuck it in 208 with an iPhone 6s speaker. It is far far far better than the original MM sound. The prime mover sound is a near CD quality file on the decoder. I will use this file as my template for my 201s. Interestingly there is a EMD 12-710G3A LATE EXH T HEP for anyone considering modelling the Enterprise during the ill-fated HEP period. This is also a HiFi file, though I haven't tried it as I have no interest in HEP. ESU does not currently have HiFi files for the 8 cylinder engines but they are constantly remastering the original recordings for the v5. The v4 couldn't handle the high sampling rate so they didn't bother back then but now they have a reason to and as the Loksound Select is no more, all US model-railroaders are going to be going down the v5 path, so I expect ESU will have a vested interested in polishing these files up. There are 3 suitable 12 cylinder 710 v5 sound files, 5 suitable 12 cylinder 645 files but just one each for the 8 cylinder variants of the 567 and 645. I guess not many US railroads bothered with those smaller engines or something. I will use one of each of these as my templates for my A, 121, 141, 181 and 071 files. There's no good reason to use the v4 files as templates when using v5 decoders. The horns etc. can easily be copied to the Templates folder (best create a folder called 1-my-sounds or something, so the folder stays at the top) then you can easily replace US horns with the Irish ones when programming a new decoder.

Same here. Some weight to the box. Great job

Yeah I get that. It's just funny how a customs official will see essentially a nondescript box similar to many other nondescript boxes they will have seen while ravenous-dog like model railway enthusiasts this side of the world would sell a kidney to get them a day earlier lol. It's like my missus just sees a plastic toy and thinks I'm utterly insane for spending any money at all on them. Different strokes for different folks. Bit of a juxtaposition is all.

DESC: MODEL TRAINS. What an understatement!!!!

Thanks a lot chaps. Great info so far. How did the molasses and bagged cement go to the likes of Mullingar? Via LJ or Athenry? Any more info on the steel traffic? Years of operation, loads, routes?