Flying Snail

Definitely causing quite the stir over on RMWeb. I see Marks Models have issued the joint statement from retailers on their socials now too.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but do the bigger retailers not request discounts from the manufacturers? I would have assumed a large retailer that moves significant volumes would "negotiate" with the manufacturer regarding discounts - in much the same way as the supermarkets do with their suppliers. i.e the big retailer protects their margins by passing the pain back to the manufacturer

Very interesting news .. and very exciting plans. Best of luck Accurascale and Heljan!

Now thats a nice collection! How deep are the shelves?

Love the weathering on show here - especially the bitumen tanker. Its clearly a working wagon with the grime that goes with doing a dirty job, but still not OTT!

It looks really great Kevin!

That looks more than okay. Very nice cabin!

Whats schmozzle in Mandarin? I don't blame you Fran - after all the work thats been put in, it must be incredibly frustrating to have that happen just within touching distance of the finish line.

I’ve only ever had good experiences with Marks myself. Fair enough, it would be better if they gave you the option of swapping an out-of-stock item before sending the order, but I wouldn’t say what they did was unreasonable either. What sounds like “a quick email” probably means more than that in practice. Once they contact you, they then have to wait for a reply, maybe send a follow-up, amend the order, and keep the rest of it sitting there in the meantime. None of that is a major drama, but for a small outfit it is easy enough to see why they would just send what they have and refund the missing bits.

Very novel approach ... and I'm sure I'm not the only one that thinks this would look at home on it: https://www.accurascale.ie/blogs/irish-railway-news/only-the-one-shade-of-grey-800-in-photographic-grey-livery-completes-our-goddess-line-up

Thats a decent price ... and interesting loco choices. A hint of things to come???

Much as I'd love an 071 for the shelf, I'm think its probably too big to sell well. The 141/181 would be a better candidate I think. An A Class might work, but its still 51' - would that be too big?

Welcome on board Bullet_Wanderer!

You needed to get it up to 88! Very nice to see a garden railway, looking forward to watching this develop - is the track powered or are your trains battery operated?

Two things: First, it might be worth checking first whether your O2 plan includes international calls, just in case — that can sometimes be the reason a call won’t connect. If international calling is enabled, you should be able to dial Ireland using the standard international format: Start with + or 00 Then the country code Followed by the area code (without the leading 0) And finally the local number For Ireland, the country code is 353. Dublin’s area code is 01, which becomes 1 for international callers. Second, Marks Models has two Dublin numbers: 01 6715809 (city centre shop) 01 4124829 (Greenogue HQ, warehouse and shop that has pre‑owned stock) You should actually try to ring Greenogue as there's more staff there to answer the phone, and more importantly thats where their pre-owned stuff is located. So, from the UK to call Greenogue you’d dial: +353 1 412 4829, or 00353 1 412 4829

Thanks for sharing, definitely inspiring to see the evolution of the layout - and what a nice layout!

Very nice - definitely has a Heuston vibe to it

It looks fabulous - will you be able to get a few pics of it on the layout for us?

RIP Paddy Murphy. My sincere condolences to his family and friends. He leaves behind a great legacy with the Irish railway modelling scene - Go raibh míle maith agat Paddy

The main thing is that it comes with its air wing. We can leave the carrier itself parked in Dún Laoghaire and the lads can use the jacks in the DART station

I think its a combination of factors. Agree that there's likely an impact from other IE stock being available. For me, in terms of CIE/IR/IE nostalgia both the Cravens and aircon Mk2s would be ahead of the ViC Berry Mk2s (all of which are behind the Mk3 for me). But also there's demographics to consider - in addition to the potential pull of NI for other UK based modellers, my understanding is that traditionally theres been a bigger modelling community in NI than in the Republic (the distribution of modelling clubs seems to bear that out) which would naturally lean NIR. Then there's the fact that the NI Mk2s came south of the border along the most heavily populated corridor in the Republic, so there's also a substantial part of the market down here that remembers them.

I'd be interested also - I'm thinking one or two might be suitable stock for my (on order) IRM model of Maeve in GSR Green?

That piping looks very tidy. Nice!

Back in the day, the station was called Kilmainham Wood. Today, however, its name is Kilmainhamwood as per https://www.geohive.ie/ and https://www.eircode.ie/

Also, the Irish Railway Record Society has at least 12 shots in it's members' flickr archive, including a couple of steam. Speaking of Steam, Ciaran Cooney from the IRRS posted this on Twitter: https://x.com/irishrailways/status/1428692043627483141