Flying Snail

To be fair, commerlad, Clare is a major holiday destination with good transport links. From Dublin it's only a few hours on the motorway, and Shannon Airport brings in visitors from across Britain, Europe and North America. From an Irish perspective, it's a little odd seeing all those references to "the mainland" - for many of us, Ireland is the mainland! That said, I think your post does highlight what is probably the more fundamental issue: scale. The Republic has around 5.5 million people compared with roughly 68 million in the UK. Even if you include Northern Ireland, the all-island market is still much smaller. That means a much smaller pool of enthusiasts, volunteers and skilled people to keep heritage railways running, and fewer local visitors making repeat trips throughout the season. Heritage railways don't survive on overseas tourists alone; they depend on local support year after year, people like yourself making regular day trips to their local railways. Tourism certainly helps (Clare attracts huge numbers of visitors) but tourism and heritage railways aren't quite the same thing. A tourist might visit the Cliffs of Moher once, whereas a preserved railway needs a loyal base of repeat visitors, members and volunteers, alongside tourists, to justify the ongoing costs of maintaining locomotives, rolling stock and infrastructure. Ultimately, I think that's the fundamental challenge. Heritage railways need substantial capital, continuous maintenance and, above all, a large and active community of volunteers and repeat visitors. With a much smaller population to draw on, Ireland simply has a smaller base from which to sustain projects like these over the long term.

... picked up a couple of Cravens to mix in with my Park Royals. We'll see what customs charges are involved in the next few days So, the three pre-owned Cravens arrived to my home in Dublin this morning. I ordered from the main Rails of Sheffield website, not their eBay store and they were sent via Royal Mail and An Post. VAT was paid at point of purchase, and that was it - they were delivered without any customs charges or handling charges. Couple of things to note: There were three items of the same type in one parcel, so for the customs declaration they were declared as 1 x model railway goods with a value of £208. This is allowed under the rules and as the package value was greater than €150, the new €3 charge did not apply anyway. Also model railway goods have 0% customs duty. As VAT had already been applied, there was no customs related processing required and no charges were applied by An Post. I bought from the Rails main website not the eBay store, and they may or may not be applying different processes on eBay for international customers - I don't know. But what I do know from having used Rails main website extensively since the demise of Hattons is that Rails have made themselves aware of the customs rules, and (like accurascale) they have processes in place to ensure that charges are correctly applied (and minimised for EU customers).

I think it would be hard to find a better combination of research into the prototype coupled with design and build of the model. There's some attention to detail here!

Rigorous, scientific method - I like it . I hope that it wasn't the result of frustration with the trouble you encountered. Hopefully you'll be able to work it out with the help of Rob and others here

You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment ... actually I can comment ... picked up a couple of Cravens to mix in with my Park Royals. We'll see what customs charges are involved in the next few days

2046? Historically, the open days have been for major milestones - 2022 was for the (delayed) 175th-anniversary. I'm pretty sure the last open day before that was for the 150th anniversary back in 96. Thats not to say that the powers to be won't decide to open it up again before the 200th anniversary comes along in 2046, but open days in Inchicore are rare so I wouldn't get my hopes up. Edit: The IRRS runs outings to Irish Rail locations (including depots and works) on a regular basis for members, so if you'd like to get inside one of the areas that are usually off limits to the public, then I recommend joining up. I'm sure they'll be back to Inchicore long before 2046 rolls around

May David rest in peace, my condolences to his friends and family.

They look excellent! Love the different shading on different panels on the ferts!

Pictures of derailments from the Civil War period can provide good views of underframes etc. Like this one from Laois: https://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000721943 There's a few in the NLI archive and other online sources

and this morning the thunder and lightning has made it to RTE: https://www.rte.ie/news/2026/0626/1580406-weather-ireland/

even better ... it made it to Carlow Weather: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1CxTL6weXY/ edit: its like strobe lighting on that video!!

I hope Roger is on the mend soon. I've thrown my hat in the ring for some 4mm kits, but this and the Worsley thread is a reminder that time creeps up on us all. I've long planned to purchase some more of Roger's card kits, I may get the finger out once he's recovered

Sure if you're ever cooking up up a few Mk3's for our friends on the big isle, would you stick a few on the pan for us too? (or is the market for Mk3's already too well taken care of over there?)

I'm seasick just looking at that pic!