Mol_PMB

Yes, I do have more photos, but I’m away from home at the moment. Remind me in a week or so! cheers, Mol

DPD. After I had specified a delivery date when I would be at home, and they had acknowledged it, they ignored that entirely and threw it over the gate 2 days early. Didn’t even tell me they had done so. It was raining a lot too. Anyway, the loco survived thanks to its large and well cushioned box.

My Hunslet was thrown over a 2m high gate by the courier, landing on hard paving, and survived intact and working. That’s a seriously good box. Well done IRM / AS. PS These are big boxes…

Some unusual containers for you - I think these are 20’ x 9’6” bulkers loaded with a mineral of some sort. They looked heavy when being craned on board my home for the next 10 days, and went low down in the hold. Not Canarian though, I’m in Hull.

Good source of power bogies for an 80 Class…

Yes, etches.

Ah, I realise my memory was wrong. The silver coach on the West Cork in July 1957 was a standard, not a compo. https://flic.kr/p/2qE5gYJ I may well draw up the sides for one of those as well, they have the same interior as a Park Royal.

I’m glad you mentioned Vic. Although not a relative of mine, we do (did) share a last name and a penchant for destroying rolling stock. Aware that some people are of a nervous disposition I won’t show you what I’ve done to a Park Royal today…

DJD, they're the wrong scale for your mythical O gauge 071s. You need something more like this: https://skytrex.com/products/mkiii-coach-2nd-class?pr_prod_strat=e5_desc&pr_rec_id=9060bb077

Indeed. Though the profile of the middle of the Park Royal is more like a laminate. If I fit laminate type sides (e.g. the suburban compo) I will need to widen and reshape the ends a bit. Alternatively, if I fit the conventional sides (e.g. the compartment compo) then I will need to narrow the bottom of the ends slightly, and also narrow the floor of the underframe unit slightly. I think the roof profile of the laminates is very similar to the Park Royals. The bodies of conventional construction I think had a slightly different roof shape. So at the moment I'm thinking the laminate compo is probably the better choice for re-bodying a Park Royal. A nice pic of one of these from Ernie, in the company of Park Royals: Closeup of a very clean one: Some were through-wired for operation in AEC railcars, there's one near the far end of this train: They weren't just Dublin-based, there are photos of one at Albert Quay and reports of it running on a special on the West Cork (though I'm struggling to find it right now)

A couple of options for replacement sides for an IRM Park Royal. Upper: compartment composite; Lower: suburban open composite

You're giving me ideas about a working model rail grinder. A couple of Dremel discs and some high speed motors mounted on a wagon would soon sort out your flangeways...

No. They'll be out to get me now that I've started counting vents!

I'm going to end up moving some vents and sanding off some ribs... IRM have placed their 9 pairs of vents according this drawing, published in Autumn 1954. Unfortunately, Inchicore chose to fit 10 pairs of vents when they they built the real thing. Some of IRM's roof ribs are in the right place. To be fair, I haven't found any drawings showing the roof ribs, or the correct vent positions. But it can be worked out from careful study of photos - there is a logic to it. Edit: I'll probably only bother re-doing the roof on one of my carriages, it's a lot of work for a very small change in appearance. But I want to do one with a green roof as originally delivered, so I'll make the effort to get that one right.

Getting back to Irish-ish locos, I'd prefer an XA: