Horsetan

He must have felt Eiffel.

....and to think there were just a few months left for the West Clare.

Nope. As I have a trio of Murphy RPSI Mk2s here, will be interesting to compare the IRM bogie and mounting design with that of Murphy.

I'm just after getting a flashback to this:

My set hasn't arrived yet. Is listed as having shipped, though....

Out of sight, out of mind.

Very occasionally these reappear on eBay. Values fortunately not high because minority interest.

Society has become a lot more feral since then. Now they're burning down any buildings suspected to be for asylum seeker / refugee accommodation.

What is IR's current inspection vehicle - the one that looks like a flying Portacabin?

Presumably this isn't duplicating any of Richard's extensive drawings work at the IRRS?

Nothing has changed there in the last 20 years....

If they could tap the guff coming out of Daíl Eireann, I'd say they'd have an inexhaustible supply of wind.

Ultrascale wheels on this one - they're very distinctive.

All helping to make your buildings more, er, contemporary....

I'm just after putting in an online order for the RPSI trio set. Paid by PayPal. Hope there's enough left....

For extra authenticity, you'd need some of the modern buildings to show signs of mica damage....

I went in 2000. It was the first and only time I ever attended. There were so many people that the only thing I can compare the crowds with is Bombay's main railway station at rush hour. Teeming humanity, and all too human smells. Never dared go back after that.

Wild Swan's LMS Locomotive Profiles book mentions that, rather than cast new wheels, they turned the existing driving wheel castings around so that the backs were now the fronts, with a flatter face than previously. This had the side-benefit of automatically rendering the converted wheelsets suitable for the wider gauge, with just the tyres to be fitted in the normal way.

...or everlasting peace in the Middle East

Maybe you might want to develop the idea proposed by Pilot Developments years ago, when they were asked how they would get something the size of Flying Scotsman to pass under the M11 motorway, if the engine was to run on the Epping-Ongar line in Essex. Pilot thought the best way was to - in their words - "hinge the stack", so that it would swing away from the smokebox in order to gain the clearance necessary.

The likes of J.P. McManus et al prefer to put their money into racehorses, the GAA, etc.

It goes with the longstanding culture of being able to extract something for almost nothing wherever possible. I'd say Germany runs Britain pretty close in the heritage stakes, and they have loads more steam locomotives to draw on mainly because they built standardised classes in the hundreds, and some in the thousands.

The Irish market, such as it is, has deep pockets....and very short arms.