Railer

I hear 074 was taken off Tara duty on Wednesday and sent to Inchicore for it's overhaul leaving 086 as the final freight livery 071. Delighted to have got both these locos on the Branch line tour earlier in the year. 086 in particular with some great performance, noise and smell. It's taken little over 5 years so far but the fleet is almost there.

They're getting a very positive response over on RMweb right now. More so than the HUO launch. Going to be very popular from the looks of it, and think they will break the UK market with these for sure.

Just discovered this this morning. Gives a nice look at the wagons and detail. Love the part at 12:45, he's actually laughing in amazement at the level of detail that's in this.

Got a DVD recently that featured the loading and unloading process of the wagons. Very fascinating to watch, the unloading process is painful though with the amount of shunting required with the limited space at Alexandra Road facility. Must be awful tedious on the drivers. Also due to the axle loading gauge limit on Irish Rail the wagons are all basically only half filled, otherwise the laden wagons would well exceed the per axle tonnage of a 201 loco.

Oh yes Can't wait see them Sunday in the plastic so to speak.

Glad these vans have proved to be a success so far and despite being a risk will hopefully grow confidence in bringing more niche, low mass models to this market space.

This exactly, This time last year a full tank from empty was €50 and in the past few weeks it's knocking on €70. Starting to consider public transport again to get to work capped at €40 a week. Costing me around €90 a week with toll tag to and from work. There's alot of inflation but wages are not matching it. Cost of living for me gone up drastically this year, find myself having to cut back more and more.

Condolences to all his family, friends and work colleagues. RIP

RIP Jim, always a familiar face at Marks.

Any info about the different buffers and when they were fitted. I notice the Oleo only seem to be on the post 1965 examples and 2 wagons in the pack J even have different type buffers on each end. Also noticed alot of spindle type buffers surviving till later years.

Yeah and they seem to really dig the presentation and packaging too. Has a real quality look to it. Think I'm going to have to get myself a pack. Might get a TOPs pack and run it with NIR 111 in a 1980s theme where they are trialing ex BR hoppers regauged as a possible replacement for the Seacows. From looking at the RM web customer pics up recently these wagons look a step up again in detail over anything released so far under the IRM branding which I did not think was possible. These HUOs seem to be rammed full of tiny over the top detail most people would never notice but it's all there. Just amazing what they have achieved with these in the 6 months since they were announced.

I believe tomorrow morning will be the last time the CPWs depart Sally Park yard until/if a new freight flow from the port is set up. So long DFDS after its come back only a few years ago. Think they are going to be sorry they removed alot of siding space at Limerick in recent time as they are going to need space to store all the CPWs. Think one is dumped in Northwall yard, the oddball CPW 003 with the yellow handrails at each end.

Can't wait for these wagons. For me it's been a long wait since they were first teased at Raheny 2016. I'm sure the time invested in the development and design will be worth it many times over. They're an iconic wagon for me growing up. Hoping that the buffer spokes (thats what I think they're called anyways) are beefed up in the next sample as they are very thin on the cyan sample released. Hoping they will be thicker like the self contained buffer spokes on the HUOs. The spokes on the Tara buffers look too thin compared to the buffer housing. Compare the pics of the sample above to the prototype pics above. I thought this was a compromises of having sprung buffers but the HUO heavy duty buffers don't suffer from it and are very accurate.

Congrats lads. Amazing service from DPD too. If you shipped stock here on Friday to an an Irish customer they would get it today at the earliest yet customers in the UK had them Saturday and Sunday morning. The UK really do have great delivery services compared to here.

Think there were clearance issues on the line with 9'6 high cube containers placed on standard LP or LX flats so they use the CPWs.

Wow, that escalated quickly. Looks like half the CPW fleet will be going back into storage along with the rest at Limerick. There's going to be a big loco surplus now with almost all the 071s finished overhaul and the 201s along with 225 making a come back this year.

I believe the pre TOPS units are due end of this month. With the TOPS and pack L due September. All must be very busy at IRM towers.

Just wanted to comment on the range of HUOs that's now built up under the Accurscale brand. While I'm not really into. UK outline anymore they look great. The black and gold box art typefont is simple but effective and really stands out. With D day incoming it will be interesting to see how well received they will be by the UK market and their feedback. Hopefully the production Taras will not be too far behind once the HUOs start shipping to their new owners.

There was just the 5 of the 1970s design that IRM are doing with a few of the older type. Think one was still wearing the IR logo up to around 2003. The two that IRM are doing in the IE livery still exist stored at Northwall Yard.

Should throw in a MM 071 in ST livery seeing as they were DCC ready out of the box and built in speaker, the BGMs requiring mods.

It's kind of being going that way for a while. Almost never see a fully loaded CPW train. Will that mean the DFDS service moving back to Dublin Port competing with the IWT, can't see that happening myself. The way IE is going they may well disconnect Waterford Yard by lifting the line at Waterford station if the DFDS flow ends.

The bogie fert section seems to be empty too... When is that going to be fixed.

Hi team, just looking at the new site. It lists the Plough Vans for July delivery now instead of August as first announced. Have these been moved up by any chance?

Always wondered when they were going start work on those 2 Mk3s they saved from Waterford. Probably just kept as a fallback option but if the MPV is not as "go anywhere" as you say then it may force their hand.