Mol_PMB

Silver composite in a mostly black'n'tan rake in 1963, just a couple of greens in there too: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419680764 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54418626222 Another mixed livery rake - 2 silver seconds and a van, with 3 green coaches and a van, black'n'tan loco, also in 1963: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419866190 Silver loco and tin van, with coaches in dark green, light green and black'n'tan, one of each! 1962: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419876190 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419876160

IRM future steam loco plans revealed? https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419692139 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419707569 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419692149

See, there's a good reason for the oversize IRM/AS boxes. Otherwise your H vans would arrive like this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419477691

A couple of additions to the green van album in the latest IRRS upload, but as usual they're teasers - partially obscured and incomplete views: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419513421 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419477691

Another bumper upload (must be over 1000) to the IRRS Flickr today, thanks Ciaran! The latest uploads are mostly GNR and Northern Ireland, so something for @leslie10646 to be sure, though they span many decades. https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419492341 But there are a lot from the South too, primarily 1960s railtours, and I was pleased to see some nice shots at Fenit, of two separate railtours and two different summer Sunday specials! https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54418615712 A few links here that caught my eye, but there are hundreds more to enjoy, even narrow gauge and industrial so something for everyone: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54418653362 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419502136 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419503006 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419696639 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419887730 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419685054 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419879670 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419738053 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419876190 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419670884 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54418626222 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419867040 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419453021 I'll have to trawl through this new lot looking for additions to my diesel loco livery matrix, also green vans (I've found two already) and interesting containers. There's just the one more silver E class: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54419498891

Rail freight is more competitive over long distances. It may help that Ballina is a long way away?

I have been down a rabbit-hole looking at the rail-mounted cranes at Fenit, see the attached pdf: Fenit_cranes.pdf I also found this thread on a related subject from @David Holman which has a nice drawing of a typical crane: This website has a nice selection of photos and drawings of small rail-mounted steam cranes built by Smith of Rodley: https://tractors.fandom.com/wiki/Thomas_Smith_%26_Sons_(Rodley)_Ltd At first I thought the Fenit cranes might be by Smith of Rodley but after further study I think at least two of them were from Coles of Derby: http://uploads.worldlibrary.net/uploads/pdf/20150311065744coles_vintage_3t_steam_rail_crane_1879_10_03_15_sm_c.pdf https://tractors.fandom.com/wiki/Coles_Cranes Whilst searching I found these official documents giving the harbour charges (including craneage) for Fenit. The first one is dated 1954 when the pier had been newly refurbished, and the second one is some additional clauses dated 1970 when the new gantry crane had just been installed: https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1954/si/266/made/en/print http://www.legislation.ie/eli/1970/si/83/made/en/print

No need to apologise! I will do in future, and I expect that once painted in shades of brown-grey and ballasted it would be less obvious anyway. This is just a very quick plinth so I can safely bring the loco to Ireland next week, I don't need a perfect appearance for the track.

I have made some body armour for my Maybach... @DJ Dangerous may recognise the plinth and box from an IXO model. Added to that is a length of Rob R's track and a coat of black paint. I wondered about ballasting the track but decided that it might not travel well. A couple of long 12BA bolts are fitted up through the base and screwed into the Kadee coupler mount locations on the loco chassis. That should keep all your grubby fingers off my little toy train! Meanwhile on the body I'm in the final stages of fitting the LEDs.

A couple more Fenit photos I've come across recently. Firstly, posted in a couple of different Facebook sites byTralee Railway Terrace Reunion, here is "Paddy McMahon down Fenit Pier with the Deutz 1962"At this date it was most likely G617 but I can't be sure. Perhaps of more interest is this view from the Tralee & Dingle Railway Preservation Society on Facebook, entitled 'The DEUTZ shunting Fenit Pier, 1972' Most photos of rail activity on the pier are from the 1960s so this is a welcome later image. Again the loco is unidentified but it's in the black livery which narrows it down to G611, G615 or G616. It's not G611 or G615 because they had their roundels higher up, immediately below the cabside window. So it must be G616 which had the roundel lower down as seen here. I'll add that to my list of locos to model! Note that the modern gantry crane has been installed but there's still at least one steam crane in action unloading the ship, and a lengthy rake of wagons along the pier.

Which sort of 2600 are you thinking of? 1950s not 1990s for me!

I had hoped to use Railtec transfers for the loco, and had created artwork not just for E410 but for the whole class in silver livery. Sadly my repeated emails to Steve at Railtec have gone unanswered. So I've reverted to my other option of John at Precision Decals. He has older print technology and there are some limitations, but responds to emails within hours rather than weeks, and is very helpful. Hopefully the decals will arrive tomorrow and I can get them applied and then finish the weathering this weekend. So there's a fair chance I'll have a complete loco by the time I board the flight to Cork on Friday morning. Shall I bring it? Who's on the railtour that would like a closer look?

Good news. Hopefully this will restore the AS team’s faith in multiple unit models. I suspect a lot of the features developed for this and the ICRs will find uses in other future models. I look forward to the day when we have to through-wire our Park Royals to act as AEC intermediates

It got me thinking about the forthcoming * AS Class 40's! Except they still haven't been announced. Maybe the pairs of 20s will be coming first? (*unfounded speculation warning)

Super - that really looks the part!

I couldn't help noticing this over on RMweb: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/172809-the-class-89-by-accurascale-with-rails-of-sheffield/?do=findComment&comment=5792988 The Class 50 shipment fills multiple 40' containers. Even with generously sized AS boxes, that's a seriously large number of locos! A rough estimate based on box volume suggests there might be about 15000-20000 locos (sale price about 5 million quid) per container. I can see why the business crossed the water, and very pleased that it's helping to cover overheads to keep the Irish models coming too.

I've also now had a satisfactory result - my missing points have now been restored and I'm building up a nice balance to spend on the next Irish release. Many thanks to the IRM / AS team for getting this sorted.

I was going to suggest extending your period by 20 years so you could justify a Hunslet and a rake of Mk2's, but then you would need to demolish your lovely station and replace it with an inhospitable concrete bunker with windswept platforms... At least there was still some freight traffic in the mid-1970s!

That's looking very nice indeed!

It's possible. It would be nice to photograph it on the causeway at Fenit. But I'm a wary of taking it on the railtour where there is a high risk of damage if it gets handled by trainload of people who all want a close look. And I'm flying Ryanair so I should have built it in Z gauge to fit the baggage allowance. I'll have a think about it.

Superb and inspirational work - so good to see it all come together.

Some progress on the electronics. After seeking advice on RMweb I built a lighting board to allow me to have the required lighting functions. A connector from the decoder plugs into the multicoloured socket. Blue is the common positive while white, yellow and green are the 3 function outputs. White or Yellow give directional headlights (2 whites) at whichever end is the front. Green gives shunting markers (1 white and 1 red) at both ends simultaneously. The diodes enable one white at each end to be used twice. The board will be mounted in the top of the bonnet with the LEDs hard-wired. The other side of the equation is the decoder and stay-alive, which are wired to the chassis in the conventional manner. Thanks are due to my friend Matt who is better at very fine soldering and also has a lokprogrammer, for wiring these up and programming the chip: This shows how they fit within the bonnet. This is the incomplete second bonnet which is proving quite useful for positioning and fitting the internals. Note the plug top left, which connects to the lighting board. The functions and operation have been tested and the loco given its DCC address 410. The next thing to do on the electronics is to fit the LEDs into the cab and bonnet ends and route the wiring to the lighting board. The 2mm 'lighthouse' LEDs will need a bit of trimming to fit. But before that I need to finish any weathering tasks that need the cab and bonnet separated, because once the headlight wiring goes in they'll be joined.

Sounds like JHB has his outfit planned for the railtour? Is that a warning about the availability of toilets on board More seriously, will there be any refreshments available on the train, and if not are we allowed to bring our own

Super!

Absolutely - it was MGWR tank 560 that took on the Fenit job instead of 299.