Flying Snail

Wow - goes to show life can throw curveballs at any time. My condolences on your FIL's passing. I'm glad your incident wasn't more serious and I hope you're feeling better and that things settle down for your family again soon. Also, well done to your son, hopefully his capable response will turn out to be a helpful experience for him too!

Nice to see another 90s livery rolled out. It really pops, especially in today's green 'n' grey world!

Speaking of possible coaching stock to run behind the 800s. One of the pullmans wouldn't look out of place behind them. Would the four pullmans sent to Ireland in the 20s have been constructed to Irish loading gauge? I know they had Irish gangways and the bogies are probably different too, but would they have otherwise resembled their British contemporaries?

They do indeed, thanks for sharing! I've just sent @Weshty an email expressing interest.

Returning to the question of whether the 800s can be converted to 21mm gauge. Paul Isles had this to say about it over on RMWeb ..... "The design is 21mm friendly, in that that all the bodywork, frames, valve chests etc are scaled to the prototype, and with the wheel sets being 00, there is room to 'expand'. The con rods etc have been spaced out from the wheels in an effort to maintain the look of the prototype, while ensuring that they operate reliably, but this will be subject to further testing. The EP that was running at Malahide was the very first example provided by the factory, and has been updated since (although the updated version is with ESU for PCB design). HOWEVER, Finescale 21mm modelling is even more of a niche in Ireland than it is in the UK, so any 21mm friendly attributes are there purely to give the right appearance to the locomotive, rather than to directly accommodate 21mm modelling. If that's your 'thing' then I will wish you luck, and look forward to seeing what you do with the model."

That's an absolute unit!

If they could be re-gauged to 21mm, IRM/AS would have stated it in the specification/common features for the loco. They haven't stated it, so I'd be highly surprised if its possible - especially with that valve gear. (if you take a look at the Hunslet on their web page you'll find confirmation that it can be re-gauged. No such confirmation for the 800)

If they could be re-gauged to 21mm, IRM/AS would have stated it in the specification/common features for the loco. They haven't stated it, so I'd be highly surprised if its possible - especially with that valve gear. (if you take a look at the Hunslet on their web page you'll find confirmation that it can be re-gauged. No such confirmation for the 800)

I'd say there's an opening now for some of the skilled CAD and 3D print enthusiasts here to produce GSR/early CIE/GSWR era rolling stock! Especially so as the prototypes were often produced in small numbers

The FS stands for 'Flying Snail' ... some of the dark green CIE liveries don't have it, some do

There were fancy cream crackers - octagon shaped, and cheese and various meats to go on them. And chicken goujons .. and plenty more besides

Just back home from Malahide ..... all I can say is wow! Well done to the IRM lads on 10 years in business - what a model to celebrate! The sample looked well on the layout I have to say. Also, thanks to you, and all at the museum for hosting us - it was a really nice evening!!

As @Mol_PMB says - RPSI coaches are out there, including IRM's own Mk 2s. Any chance of a train set like the LMR one Accurascale brought out?

Another source of information is the ESB. Many of the bog railways were built to bring fuel to the power stations of the midlands. The ESB owned its own fleet of locos, a few of which have made their way to Stradbally - including their maid of all work Rusty

Very creative!

Its possible, but not straightforward As we know, there's lots of alphabets each with their own characters - Latin, Arabic, Cyrillic etc. There's far more possible characters out there than there is space on our keyboards. Computers get around this problem by using text encoding standards where each letter, digit, or symbol is assigned a unique code. One of these standards is called Unicode. Unicode uses a hexadecimal based code - its code for ḃ is IE03 and the code for ḋ is 1E0B. I've set up my computer keyboard so that I can use Unicode Hex Input - when I hold down the ALT key and enter the four digit Hex code I get the character represented by that code. Of course, you have to know the Unicode codes for each character you want to use ... and you have to first configure your computer's keyboard/input device. Without doing that you most likely won't see a ḃ when you type IE03. Of course, this is all even more awkward if you're using a phone/tablet instead of a computer with a keyboard. However as an alternative you can copy a word like Maeḋḃ from another source - say a web page or a Word document, and paste it into your post here - the ḋ and ḃ should display properly then

Well, other manufacturers have done it ..... ... good use of the old grey cells @mphoey

How can you forget Maeḋḃ's third livery ... the "preservation" livery of CIE lined green with GS lettering? There's been some very persuasive arguments for the 800s and J15s, and given the location I wouldn't be surprised by a GNR 4-4-0 ...... ..... but I'll stick with the jeep as my official guess! Now whats this about it in a red NCC livery??

Well, Malahide is on the GNR's mainline ... maybe we'll get a dose of the Monday blues?

Just saw the email pop into my inbox! Looking forward to this

I love the weathering on the goods shed and the Esso silos!!

oooohhh .... are any of those powered?

https://irrs.ie/irrs-membership/ ... its all laid out there

Actually there's still a few of the dark green flying snail liveries still available. Disinformation or wishful thinking? ... you decide (the 071s would look good in it)

Nice pics @Irishrailwayman - looks like a good show! Model Rail Scotland have some videos from it too on Youtube here. I thought York (in your pictures above) was really eye catching with the cut away view into the station.