Blu Bianco

Beautiful models Leslie. Time and effort well spent there!

I love the little yellow loader in the background. It adds that extra touch to the whole proceedings.

Great pics. Miss those type of double seats and the softer kind of yellow-lighting inside the trailers. Compared to the more rigid, single-style seats and harsher white-lights nowadays.

Totally agree about the railways aspect. However, on the second aspect, if I were a tree I'd just have shed my leaves at that thought!

Just thought I'd offer my congratulations on a superb model, as no one else had commented as yet. Can tell much work has gone into it. Used to never need to use them, as I didn't need the routes they were on. Then all of a sudden, I'd get one home from school because they introduced the 'CitySwift' service on my regular route. But it was overcrowded most of the time due to them being single-deckers and this little City Imp baby was always sitting unnoticed and empty at the terminus across the road! When I went to college, I again used one when the 19 failed to show, which was often enough sadly. Then they were removed from service and I don't think many people missed them, which was quite sad because they did a fair amount to reduce congestion from many other main routes.

Anyone who has to drive the parts of the N4 daily, near or into Dublin, may have an issue there! I know it's not strictly a motorway, it's a national road, but many have to use it to even get onto the motorway. Once it intersects with the M50, the motorway itself is often choc-a-bloc. Back to the N4, at many times it can't even cope outside of the main rush-hours. Whilst perhaps the surfaces themselves, and no doubt the 'new' motorways through Meath, Cavan, Carlow, etc, are great, it is quite clear the basic infrastructure, notably traffic signalling once you get near any major conurbation, is absolutely sub-standard. They can't cope in that area and it's getting worse despite the 'promised' improvements.

My old local route! Brian, well done, that's great news. Do you know yet if you can put your name down to reserve one (if you can, then count me in for 1) or will they be available first-come, first-served basis at the shows, etc?

Thank you everyone who posted for your support. I'm not on anyrail yet 201bhoy, will see about downloading it or another way of putting plan up when get the time. Its going to be DCC, sorry, forgot to mention that! Appreciate the comments on the insulfrogs too, gives me a bit more confidence to go ahead with them. Happy belated birthday by the way! Hope you had a good one. Totally, once you see something down in front of you, it gives you that extra push to move on ahead and see how its all going to look in the end. Though your mind's eye and what actually appears in front of you as it envelops maybe an entirely different thing but I'm going to try and keep to my ideas as much as I can.

I've been a member here for a while and not put up anything about a layout. That wasn't intentional, its just I don't start things until I've got some sort of concrete idea, have all the materials to hand and most of all, the time to do it. Sadly the time has been much constrained but I'm nearly there now. I will warn you though that progress on it may not be as quick as others on here due to said time constraints but I will get there, and keep you updated when things do happen. I've managed to get upto a 10 by 4 foot layout. Although not huge, it is a far better option that what I thought I was limited to before. (Baseboard) Dave kindly constructed an excellent baseboard for me. I'm planning to go with ballast underlay for the tracks, mostly due to noise absorption, for reasons I won't go into. SCARM is an invaluable tool in layout design. I wanted at least a few sidings and lay-by tracks, along with at least two main-lines. It is a purely fictitous representation of a station/sidings/general country area in Ireland. Although you will see the creeping of the 20th/21st Century as the townscape begins to look a bit more industrialised! I'm not as talented as some on here who go for all out realism. I've had to make do with what I can, therefore there maybe English type stations and signalling, etc, present, which I hope in time and that if I wish to, to be able to amend to more realistic Irish stock. But again, be pre-warned that I am in no way stating that this is 100% realistic, its just Irish-based and set in no particular era, although there will be no railcars, steam or 201's present. I'm calling it Arlamine, which is 'somewhere' in South Wicklow. Maybe a small town, slowly growing or hub for goods/freight in the middle of nowhere with its typical out of the way station in relation to the town! Its name gives away its one-time association with the long since gone mining industry. Remnants perhaps maybe visible, who knows! I hope to be able to fit all or some of the following in, works/mills, along with a passenger station, a goods/diesel depot, cottages, encroaching industrialisation of the scene and some greenery/countryside. I'm working on getting some pictures together, which will show the work in progress. I hope to take them and add these over the coming weeks. For now, I've got the track down and am starting on the ballasting. Currently I have 13 points on the layout, all insulfrog. I am aware of the issues with them that have been discussed on here, however I was bought the bulk of them as a gift and it seems a shame to waste them, if I can get them to work. My stock, engine-wise, will solely be 141's, 181's and 071's, and with the length and weight of them, extended wheelbases, etc, I'm hoping with a clean track, level baseboard, etc, that running over these points should be alright. Any thoughts? However, I am looking into the possibility of slightly altering the layout to replace these points with Peco Electrofrogs, however that is a cost issue and if I can do it at all it would be unlikely I'd be substituting all 13 points! I would have to bring the points down by a few. But the issue I'm encountering with this is the different Radius. All my track is currently Hornby. Given the different Radii of the Peco Electrogs, this naturally throws everything out of kilter. I've managed to get 95% of the layout designed (within the confines of my layout size), piecing together ok with Electrogs, but then the last 5% about could be out of line and I can't get it to join up. I can't afford to replace all my Hornby track with Peco track and thats why I would hope to be able to use the Hornby straights and curves to some effect with the Peco Electrofrog points, but it is proving troublesome. Anyone got any tips here? Or should I just press ahead with the insulfrogs? Thanks for reading this and I hope to be back now and then with updates.

Thanks again Dave, will have to look into that. Going to do a bit of a redesign given the longer turn on the Peco's are not a direct size replacement for the Hornby points. Hopefully it won't alter my existing layout design too much. I presume theres no issue with running the Peco electrofrog points with the Hornby regular track/straights?

I'm hoping to eventually get down to putting together my layout. I keep saying this I know, but various things haven't permitted me to have any decent run at it. But this is my issue now. I was gifted a fair few the more modern 8072/3 Hornby points at the time and bought a few more to complete what I needed. This was before I really got reading 'into' the whole modelling thing and was unaware of the whole Peco V Hornby aspect regarding points. I'm in a quandary now as to go with the Hornby ones and hope it all will be ok. I've heard some who have had no bad experiences, therefore its hard to know. Or do I change to the Peco Setrack ones instead. Naturally though that means having to buy over 20 new points!!!!! Any advice or further experience with the more modern Hornby points, would be welcomed.

Darn, missed it passing by about 30 minutes! Great photos The Wanderer. You don't get many 071's on this line anymore, and as for the orange Craven's, even rarer. Be good seeing it though, when the time comes, on 'Moone Boy'. Didn't watch it the first time around but Sky are repeating first series on Sundays now, and enjoyed the first episode.

Another great piece of work GSI345, would be brilliant to see this as a commissioned model sometime. Yeah, when it went over a bump, or a ramp, the whole bus would shudder, it felt like the whole thing was held together by one long rod underneath the floor as there was no give in the suspension, and if you sat near the back near where the wheel arches came up, well good luck to you if you were any way tall! All the same, recall when they were first launched on my route and it was something to be proud of that back in the day when things like that seemed to matter and progress seemed real. Derek, these just for show or will you have any sale models?

In an ideal world, perhaps. But this is Ireland. While I don't disagree with your statement about the Irish government needing to wake up, I don't think privatisation is the answer for here. This is not due to the essence of privatisation itself, more down to this country's specific way of handling things and how badly it would be managed onwards. England is not faring very well with their escalating costs. They were promised fares would come down when it was privatised. But year after year, they are going up and up, to extreme levels on some main lines. The excuses are that its costing the railway management companies more to maintain the tracks, etc, just like above, and as there is no real government control over them continually hiking the prices up, it just happens. Its cheaper to fly between many cities in England than get the train now. I'm not saying in Ireland that the transport regulator here wouldn't allow prices to go up, they generally always have but it is somewhat tempered due to the knowing outrage it would cause if it went up 'too much'. I feel if there was a private company, the increases would be far more substantial. Sadly its a Catch 22 situation. Mismanaged state company versus mismanaged private company, take your pick. Either way, you pay. Be it through subsidising a state-run (or partly state-run) company through taxes and slightly-lower ticket prices, or if privatised, through the inevitable exorbitant ticket costs. No matter how strongly a promise to run things properly here was made, the fact is mismanagement and a general laissez-faire attitude has always pervaded too strongly across the board here. If we are going to have privatisation of the railways, that works, then we are going to need a total clear out, of everything, and I can't see that happening. Another point to note is that it is also silly season in the media nearly full time now, due to the upcoming Budget. Theres been all kinds of stuff printed and published at various times, to try and generate responses, one way or the other. Its being dropped now for a specific reason. Perhaps Irish Rail are hoping it will generate enough concerns within the public that they will get on the backs of their local TD's, who will in turn 'try to influence' the government to finally part with the extra bailout funding that Irish Rail are looking for throughout their recent 'discussions'? Of course they will part with it and when it does happen, they can continue to cut our pay and hike taxes but at the same time pretend they are throwing us a carrot by giving funding (our money) to Irish Rail, to protect our safety. IR get what they want, as do the government, as do the media. I scratch your back, you scratch mine, etc. Just a thought.

I would say one of the NIR GM's hauled it back to York Road after the fire and she has been sitting there ever since. Perhaps it was decided to take it that way as by time it was ready to haul, there were more traffic implications going towards Dublin than the other way. Also maybe she wasn't seen around York Road before as she could have been in a shed awaiting a decision on removal/repair and only became visible the other day in preparation for the journey south with 112.

I've seen a picture of Oranmore too, a song and dance about opening it but its not much to look at and the cost of a fare to Galway as you say is somewhat prohibitive. We don't have a clue, sadly nothing new with this place. Do they want to fail? Even on the 'profitable' or 'more well used lines, they are wasting resources. We have the 'brand new, looking sparkling even after a while being built' Navan Road Parkway. Theres a reason it looks new after all this time, because it isn't much used and now theres rumours of a new station at Ashington, which doesn't need it because you have Navan Road Parkway, Ashtown and Broombridge all in quick succession in that area. The train barely moves before it has to stop again! Then we have the debacle that is Hansfield and its been heard around that the utilisation of that station, after its much-heralded late opening, is actually worse than pathetic. Yet, there is a crying need for a station up in Lucan which would be really well utilised as Lucan is hardly small and most people who live there would benefit from it because they find the station at Adamstown on the other line useless because it is not really that near to most parts of Lucan and it only goes to Heuston anyway, and most people don't just work up that end of town, and then have to pay more fares to get where they want to from there. But they won't address that or build it when there is more of a chance they would make a profit from that, than the other planned station, or recently opened ones! They destroy perfectly good original features, such as the station at Clonsilla, which was rumoured to be protected, don't know how reliable that info is though. But all the same it was a lovely building and better than the typical metal shelter Celtic tiger job as referenced above in Oranmore, that is there now. Probably cost more to demolish that and set up the metal waste than utilising the existing building. The list goes on.

A wonderful model Brian, number 4 is stunning. Bottom line is, without people like yourself, there are very little others who would, be either in a position to, or would be even bothered to, stand up to try and get such an item commissioned. Well done and your work is very much appreciated.

Sitting outside the old Connolly workshop in Dublin yesterday evening. Was connected to 072, itself looking fairly battered and forlorn, with half its IE logo worn away and an orange side door from a 141 atatched. But at least its working! I saw the other side of 230, to the one in the picture, the engine door is laying open and the burn/smoke damage is actually worse there, and from there it goes across the top of the loco. I imagine it maybe transferred to Inchicore in due course by 072.

Always preferred the MK2's over the MK3's but the MK3's were great all the same and very comfortable. The MK4 things just don't compare. Its endemic, in the wider scale, of this country's incessant wastage, greed and failure. People will always say progress has to be made and the old must go out for the new but when the new is this much inferior, and costly, then I think this is far much more than rose-tinged nostalgia.

Only just able to post now but was going to refer you to the Murphys Models homepage but see you have found them anyway since! ---------------- Based on this, it appears the running numbers (using the old, and proper, format for a moment) 071 and 078, are the ones released in the new livery. Can anyone confirm? Be interested in 071 if this is the case. I think they are quite good, and this is coming from someone who doesn't like the new livery! Yeah there are a couple of things here and there but I'm not bothered. Thanks for bringing it to us Paddy.

Ta, it works now! Cool vids. The 075 one is a new one to me. Just a guess but sounds like a typical software update, in-house with them, which has jumbled things up for some!

Good pictures:-bd Of the current 071 liveries, glad to see this one! Was it 083? Can't make it out from the picture. Ah well, given we don't get to see it that much, I think we can put up with it

About time too! Given the look of the other platform at Wellingtonbridge, the inevitable weed encroachment is in full swing. All it takes is a bit of ground growth and next thing, its all over the sleepers and tracks. Great pictures and excellent to see some activity on the line.

Looks pretty normal to me, the cab always moved around fairly freely on the 141's/181's and I'd imagine it looks worse inside than it does outside. Wig, maybe its just happening for me but that video you posted is coming up with the message 'This video is private', and won't let me view it.

As Dave said, I think these are quite a long way off. Until Paddy clears the stock he has in the warehouse of 201's, the remaining Cravens, the MKII carraiges and the 071's, then he won't be going anywhere near production of the 121's. Indeed, agree on all points. Totally adore the 141/181's, Cravens, MKII's and the 071's and glad they were released. But as you more or less refer to in your last sentence, even taking the subject of the 071's on their own, to me there are more left in stock than I would have imagined at this stage, given the initial excitement and anticipation of their arrival. Perhaps that is due to typical talk and the inevitable less take up and/or the cost factor of them all combined. But conversely, there was such a clamour for them to be released, the consumer got what they asked for.