Flying Snail

Nice looking loco!

It looks like a couple of J15s had gearbox issues in Raheny in 2022 ....

They're moving fast, I see 186 is already out of stock and three more are already down to single digits!! I have a few on their way to me, but I was holding out until pay day to see if I would grab a couple more .. looks like I'll miss that train

Bulleids looking very well in a wonderful setting: Borris looks excellent. The A class weathering job looks class too!

I've bought recently from Rails. Its relatively straight forward - no customs charges (and no UK VAT), but you will have to pay Irish VAT and the customs handling fee

I'd buy that too DJ! It will be 80 years since the foundation of CIE on 1st Jan next - wouldn't it be a nice way to celebrate the anniversary by putting out a real-life 201 in a lined green livery with flying snail logo? Maybe some of the IE employees on here can stick that in the suggestion box next time they're passing the Board Room?

I got in touch with Rails' customer service today to see if there was an update on the pre-orders for the Hattons Genesis coaches. This was their response: "We haven't yet started to raise the orders for the Genesis coaches but will be doing so in the near future. As long as you had a confirmed preorder with Hattons, we will fulfil this preorder." So, no updates yet but it looks like we can expect to hear from them soon

I've just seen the email too. Great to see the 071s on the way later this year - I had thought they'd be behind the 201s given that that 201 liveries had been announced before

Nice, very nice indeed!

FOI is Freedom of Information. In Ireland, the FOI Act provides the public with: the right to access official records held by Government Departments or other public bodies as defined by the act. the right to have personal information held on them corrected or updated where such information is incomplete, incorrect or misleading. the right to be given reasons for decisions taken by public bodies that affect them. A quick search on Google for "Irish Rail FOI address" threw up this: https://www.irishrail.ie/en-ie/about-us/company-information/freedom-of-information/request-records. There's a subsection for FOI requests on the fleet. It's quite the treasure trove actually - thanks @knawa and good luck with your project @IrishTrainScenes!

Its his IP that has been stolen, and it has a value. The copies are distorting the market. Yes, that means cheap locos for some now but if it makes it unviable for him to do future reruns then that could impact whether or not he stays in business.

Given that OOWorks charge £315 plus P+P for the current run of J15s, I don't think the mark-up here is unreasonable at all. The 650 from JM Design doesn't seem bad value either. Good luck to the seller, and whoever buys them.

Excellent choice of locations - really lends themselves to a wide variety of stock. Best of luck with it!!

Hi Stoby and welcome to the forum! There's a number of track planning tools that will help you here. I use this one (I'm a Mac user): https://www.railmodeller.com/express-edition-en.html Most of them will let you specify your layout's dimensions and will let you layout set track pieces from popular manufacturers. Like Railmodeller, most of these tools have a free version with a limit on the number of track pieces you can include before having to pay.

Forcing mainline passengers from services terminating at Connolly and Pearse to then switch to the Dart for one stop before switching again to the metro just seems shoddy. I know its probably cheaper and easier to build, but still ....

Go anywhere, do anything ... .. at least that's what I four-see anyhow

I haven't heard anything back from them since my Feb 21 post.

I don't know what a tracker mortgage is ... .... am I the only one here who is reminded of that Ad when reading this topic? For those too young to remember and/or are not based in Ireland, it's an ad from back in the noughties (when Irish financial watchdogs were too busy making ads to bother regulating the financial industry). It's got a double-decker bus in it though, and there's plenty of bus fans here too

I believe he frequents this site. I have a couple of James' books and follow him on Youtube, I really like his focus on the aesthetic and the sense of place.

Just ordered a few Flying Snail opens myself now (well I had to, didn't I?), and a couple of packs of the flats. Are the flats also finished production or is it just the opens? Also .. at the rate you're going, the new "Project Status' page is going to look empty soon, probably no harm in announcing a few more products to keep the bare look off of it!!

Great article and well done North Down!

Given that it already has (some quite important) items from across Ireland, surely the most cost-effective solution for an "Irish Transport Museum" would be for the Irish Government to part-fund the Ulster Transport Museum under something like the Shared Island Initiative?

Interesting concept - I'm looking forward to seeing this develop. Best of luck with it!

I saw them in Malahide on Sunday for the first time (first time out there too - kudos, @jhb171achill on the work you and your colleagues have put in), and I thought they looked very well indeed. Its a very eye-catching livery, and I'm almost regretting not picking them up when I had the chance - even though my interests lie more along former GSWR territory. You've built up quite the fleet there @Noel!