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Excellent programme of the history of the Inter-City 125-one of my favourite trains I remember getting a present of the Hornby 125 train pack that was released in 1980/81, And I'm looking forward to the re release and upgraded blue/grey livery 125 in November by Hornby, I'd like to do a nice small blue/grey British rail 1980s era layout in the future.

Still undergoing an overhaul at Inchicore,possibly back in traffic in early 2013.

Well done Des-It looks great,looking forward to getting mine.

Hi Frank, From my experiences on working the Claremorris ESSO liner trains in days gone by, It was always a requirement for those trains to have a barrier wagons front and rear, The ESSO liner had its own dedicated two axle barrier wagons-one had a 20'orange CIE container on,with the other being just a skeletal flat, Any type of flat/Guinness/bogie wagon could be used if those dedicated wagons were not available, On one occasion I remember having a spare 40' 30XXX type bogie wagon behind an 071 loco from Ballina to Claremorris and then used as a barrier for the oil train onwards to Northwall. That bogie wagon was left on the oil train for a number of weeks before being replaced by the normal two axle wagons.

Brilliant Anthony,those market lights are a big improvement on the loco, I found them to be poor on 220, The beast of Ballykay is looking great in the background also....

Excellent job there Anthony,-a beautiful livery,well done. Sorry to hear that your ill Rich,hope you have a speedy recovery.

Nice work there Gareth....look forward to more updates.

Very true Vincent In the days before H&S,that particular GAA special had only the rear four coaches on the platform at Ballina,and one of them was a steam heating van....the locos were up the line past the signal cabin, The idea was that Ballina and Foxford passengers would occupy the rear coaches and passengers from Claremorris and Ballyhaunis would occupy the front nine Cravens, The same thing applied on the return journey with passengers for Foxford and Ballina being moved up to the front of the train before arrival at both stations. Only a three piece ICR can now only operate on the branch due to the short platforms on the branch nowadays.

Excellent stuff Ritchie,just what I needed,thanks for posting.

Great work Ritchie,that Sperry wagon is spot on,well done.

Evening lads I finished the Mk2 Supertrain coaches yesterday and gave them a trial run behind locos 181+177, 181+177. I've also put together a four coach CIE mail train based on the one that used to operate between Dublin and Cork and Dublin-Galway during the 1970s-1990s, As a bit of a novelty I bought the Hornby operating mail coach and repainted it into black and tan livery along with a Bachmann TPO coach, The train has two mail coaches (2976+2977) a Cravens passenger coach (1515) and a BR type steam heating van (3177) hauled by 160+156 Passenger accommodation was also provided on some mail train e.g 05:50 Dublin-Cork,15:00 Cork -Dublin, I've also uploaded two videos to YouTube of the mail train picking up and dropping off mailbags at speed, Here are a few photos.... 160+156 haul the mail train passing the Mk2 Supertrain. The mail train stops at Central station for a crew change.

Brian is a gentleman and is very knowledgable on the American railroad scene, He has also provided some excellent articles and photos in recent IRRS journals on the history of the 121/141 locos I met Brian last week in Dublin and his advice and expert help on photography was much appreciated.

Hidden-agenda-the IRRS journal of February 2006,No.159 contains an excellent article and photos-"Past Scenes-Freight that was",on page 408 it has a rare colour photo of the Asahi liner hauled by 042 in the loop at the Hill of Down which shows the Asahi tanks in the red/silver livery, As far as I can remember that liner was used for an emergency exercise in Ballina at that time,as there are no bogie wagons next to the loco,only a two axle barrier wagon,then the chemical tanks.

A fantastic job there Eamonn-a typical daily Irish scene,I love the phone box with its interior detail and open door,well done.

On the exit of the train are depot-blocking in several ICRs that were due to go to Dublin for evening services Check out the rail safety commission website, It has more detailed information on the accident, and exactly where it happened....

Set 33 was involved in the underfloor fire in coach 22633 last September 2011 near Athenry-and has only recently entered traffic with a refurbished First class, Check out the Wanderers website for details etc.

Best of luck with your new site, Lots of interesting and useful models, I'll be in touch in the future....after I get my hands on an 071/112 loco.

Great work so far Stephen-look forward to more in the future.

Thanks again lads-Now that i've got the hang of uploading videos.here is another featuring my ICR, a Mk4 pushed by 209,a Mk2 in the"Galway"livery hauled by 221 and 181+156 hauling a Supertrain liveried Mk3 set.... [video=youtube_share;uBwyOL2dlMo]

Excellent work there Eamonn-well done/

[video=youtube_share;lfmq8SI2XeM] Many thanks Gentlemen for your comments, Baby GM-all of the workers are from the Bachmann Scenecraft range, Lads,I've finally managed to upload some videos of the layout to Youtube-(if the above link doesn't work.then type in"Trains on Tara Junction"on youtube and see what you think..