Mol_PMB

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:

We'll need some complex gauge-changing stations between your 21mm / P4 module, my 21mm / EM module, and everyone else's 16.5mm / OO module... Oh, not forgetting Darius's Indian Interlude!

As well as some minor modification/detailing repainting like the one I've done already, at least one of my Park Royals is destined to be rebuilt into something else entirely. I will re-use the underframe and bogies, and perhaps elements of the ends, roof, interior and other parts. I haven't quite decided what to build yet, and I have a slight nagging doubt that IRM themselves may have the same idea and produce other body options on the same underframe. There's a surprising variety of coaches that used the same basic type of 61'6" triangulated underframe and 8' commonwealth bogies, as follows: Traditional-bodied 9'6" stock delivered in brilliant green with silver underframes: Compartment composite 2137-2161 (1954) Compartment second 1372-1378 (1954) Buffet car 2419-2422 (1956) Laminate-bodied 10'2" stock delivered in unpainted aluminium with silver underframes: Open second (7 bays) 1429-1443 (1956) Open composite (suburban) 2162-2171 (1957) Open second (7 bays) 1444-1448 (1958) Laminate-bodied 10'2" wide stock delivered in light green with black underframes and bogies: Open second (8 bays) 1449-1496 (1958-60) Brake open second 1909-1913 (1959) Oddments not in any of the above categories: TPO 2972-2978 (1958) Full brake 2549-2558 (1960) Dining car 2402 (1961) The story is further complicated because many of the composites (and a few others) were later converted to brake seconds, full brakes, or steam heating vans. So there's many different options! The easiest to do are the 7-bay open seconds 1429-1448, basically just requiring new sides and some detail changes. The interior layout was the same as a Park Royal. All the Park Royals were seconds of course, and I can see an advantage in modelling a composite instead, to provide some first class accommodation. Hmmm. I shall mull this over.

First IRM Park Royal on eBay, at something of a premium! https://ebay.io/m/zj1iAr

Only last night, @jhb171achill was saying it would be a horse for the next announcement... ... and now we have these workhorses! What other secrets does he know?

Musings on roof panels joints and ventilators (not liveries!).

Lovely to see - thanks Ernie! On a couple of recent visits to Ireland I've stayed in the Marine Hotel (just behind the trees on the right of the image at Sutton Cross) so it's great to see how it looked all those years ago. I've also walked much of the tramway route.

Just looking at the terms and conditions on the website. Whilst it does say that loyalty points are non-refundable, I can't see anything specific about suspending a customer account as a consequence of cancelling an order. The way these terms are written give the impression that cancelling an order should be a simple process and is an expected aspect of the business. https://www.accurascale.com/policies/subscription-policy https://www.accurascale.com/policies/terms-of-service

That is surprising. In the past, I have been given misleading information about order payment policy changes by the Accurascale customer service bot. I thought that had been resolved, but it’s still possible that the information you have received is incorrect. Or it may represent an extreme but unlikely case. If this is genuinely a new policy applicable to all then it should be briefed out properly to all account holders. Hopefully one of the IRM / AS team will clarify the position here.

Nah, it’s a Bury 2-2-2 as a counterpoint to the 800s

What a great post and I agree! Superb Hunslets and Park Royals landing now after much expectation, some more interesting models on the way, and hopes for what might be announced in October…

I have been rather neglecting 559 recently, and I'm about to head off on hols, but this photo I've just acquired will hopefully spur me to get back to the little tankie once I'm home.

Superb, takes me right back to the 1980s, especially with the Dutch van on the back.

No problems here on my curves or reverse curves, even when coupled to a shorter 4-wheeler. The kinematic mechanism seems to work very well, preventing buffer lock or the gangways fouling each other, while giving a nice close coupling on straight track. I have fitted Kadee #19s but I don’t expect that would make a huge difference compared to tension locks. Possibly they guide the coupler swing a bit better? On the other hand, my crossover isn’t as sharp as a setrack one.

The coupling is mounted on a mechanism that should allow it swing it sideways when the bogie pivots. If you try this when the carriage is held upside down then the coupling hook can catch on the bufferbeam detail and stop it swinging. I wonder if there's something else catching in the mechanism that's preventing the coupling swinging sideways?

Quite a lot of kits have been made in the past but are no longer available, including John's JM design wagons and most of Leslie's Provincial wagons range. Leslie may still have a few resin kits in stock: KITS Available – Provincial Wagons Enda's Past-Avenue / CK Prints includes some interesting wagons and hopefully more to come, some of which have their origins in John's or Leslie's designs. ckprints.ie Pre-Grouping Railways a couple of nice GNR(I) wooden opens; the 6-plank one can also be gently modified to MGWR or GSR types: Irish Railways – Pre-Grouping Railways https://irishrailwaymodeller.com/topic/17455-voiding-the-warranty-mols-experiments-in-21mm-gauge/page/4/#findComment-262452 Bitumen tanks got everywhere in small quantities and there are several options to modify them from RTR For the later period, almost everything was based on a standard 20' chassis (though these weren't all identical - there are variants of brakes, W irons etc). Originally the idea was to build around a thousand 20' flats and a whole load of different types of containers / swapbodies to fit on them, each suited to different traffics. In time, this evolved and many of the flat wagons were permanently fitted with bodies to suit a particular traffic. And more wagons with dedicated body types (especially for bulk minerals) were built. IRM have modelled some of these, and Enda has produced some of the flat wagons as 3D prints, which could be used as the basis of scratchbuilt bodies. That should be enough to fill your stash for a bit!

At the right price, those Heljan models seem very popular! From the sale, one 48DS is enough for me - my O gauge layout is only small and industrial, and I already had a Heljan 03. I need to save up my money for a fleet of IRM 4mm scale C class locos...

Those two were resin kits from Provincial Wagons (Leslie), slightly modified. They represent the 20' 27101 class, basically the same as the chassis for the later type of beet wagons. I also have three other types of 2-axle container flat, none of which have been completed yet! Old MIR whitemetal kits, these are the 22' 27301 class. Etched brass kits from J M Design (Mayner), these are the 20' 25436 class with floors. A sample 3D print from Past-Avenue (Enda), which represents the 20' 27101 class. I got all these with the intention of making a 1970s liner train, but my interests have drifted back in time and they have remained in the stash for now. I do intend to finish the 25436 flats fairly soon (they are the earliest prototype).

In a similar vein, this was an RPSI 'Mince Pie Special' in late December 2007, and here's 186 at Whitehead excursion platform with a direct train to Dublin Connolly: 171* did the shunt release in Dublin, and after a bit of a chance to stretch our legs, 4 took us back north: Both locos put in a superb performance, I think the driver must have hung his coat over the speedometer... * the diesel, not another kettle!