lucas

For the C class, I believe all lost their sand boxes by '58/'59 or so. At least I don't recall seeing any evidence showing sandboxes still fitted after this period. So it's news to me that some As still had theirs in place years later! Actually in your last photo, both A32 and the B&T loco in the background both appear to have a sandbox still fitted. I'm not sure what the exact reason for their removal is. CIÉ weren't using them, but surely there's no harm in keeping them in place? At least on the C class there was a lot of swapping going on, so I reckon the same was probably true of the A class. For the C class there are a couple of variations of the bogie casting which makes it easier to tell. There are at least 2 main casting types, more like 3 or 4 types if you start nit-picking. Which loco has which type(s) varies a lot over the years, in fact a mismatched pair is not at all uncommon. It's actually quite difficult to tell exactly how often they are mixed around because many photographs don't have the level of detail to accurately determine the bogie type. But I reckon a swap would've happened at least every 5-10 years if not more often. Not sure what the reason for the swap was. Could be that they regularly had multiple locos in Inchicore and they naturally got mixed, or it could be that locos were intentionally swapped out with a different pair when the bogies needed maintenance. I haven't been able to find any more information on this. The frequency of swaps seems to be fairly consistent over the years. The earliest evidence I've found for a swap was in the early 60s, and bogies were still getting swapped in the 90s on the NIR locos. I plan to make a post outlining the details, but I'm currently preoccupied installing flooring in my new house so I haven't had much time for modelling! At least based on photographs they appear to be identical in shape and size.

There's a nice photo of a Maybach B233 working multiple with B192 on p36 of Barry Carse's book 'Irish Metro-Vick Diesels'.

I was planning to pass on the ICR. It's way too far outside my chosen modelling era to justify. And I haven't travelled on nearly enough of them to have developed the same affinity for them as I have for the Arrows, for example. But every time I see more photos a late night impulse buy becomes increasingly more likely

It's great to see the C class finally be announced! I've pre-ordered the green and silver variants already. I am a little disappointed there's only one green variant, I would've loved to see both lined and unlined green being offered. Although I guess it makes the livery choice for my scratch build a lot easier.

Apologies for the lack of updates on the cab, I have been mostly busy preparing to move house shortly. But I have managed to find a bit of time to improve the model of the cab. Here's my current iteration, void of any detail, showing the curvature: It's still not perfect, but it is definitely an improvement over my previous attempt. This picture of the framework shared by @Mol_PMB actually helped a lot in understanding how the curves were formed on the prototype: The curvature matches the drawings as close as I can get, but I'm not sure how accurate the drawings actually are in this regard. I'll start adding some basic details like the buffer beam, wind shield, and headlights and see how it looks then.

There were 5 between 1879 and 1893. The C&BR had Albert Quay. C&MDR opened their own terminus at Capwell in 1879. Previously they had also used Albert Quay, but they closed their link with C&BR after building their own station. GS&WR had Penrose Quay and C&YR had Summerhill. After purchasing the C&YR, the GS&WR built a new 'combined' Glanmire Road (now Kent) which opened in 1893, replacing the two previous stations. The fifth was the CB&PR's Albert Road station. It was still using 5'3 until 1900 when it completed its conversion to 3' gauge.

At least 22 still retains the drive box on the outer axles, but only the inner drive box is actually connected. According to the description of this photo on Flickr: This modification had presumably already been made by the time the Irish railcars were built, which explains why they only had one driven axle per bogie from the factory.

I was mostly thinking of the unintended seams where brass and 3D printed parts join, but I guess it's nothing that a bit of model filler can't fix. Also, moving the discussion about motor bogies here: The High Level LongRider would've been ideal with 40 mm wheelbase, it's a shame it's not made any more. I am in the process of making my own etched motorbogies for my C class build. They're designed around a Mitsumi motor with a 30:1 gear ratio (the largest gear ratio I could find for a single stage worm) which should give a nice slow top speed of ~50 scale mph. I had already built the first set, but I miscalculated the clearance so the gears bind up pretty badly. I need to get them remade with a bit more clearance. I have attached some pictures below. Some of my thoughts: My design only works for 21mm, it's too wide for OO gauge. You would either need to have a design where the motor isn't contained within the side frames, or a teeny tiny motor. High Level discontinued the LoRider/LongRider when their supply of Mashima motors ran out. There aren't many sources of good dual-shaft motors anymore which are required for motorbogies like these. I'm using Mitsumi motors I bought in bulk from China for cheap, but there are definitely a few duds in my batch. I spent half an afternoon testing and measuring all my motors to make sure the ones I'm using are good and well matched, but not everyone has the equipment to do that. And I have no idea about their longevity. As far as I know Black Beetles use Mashima motors too (or at least did in the past) so if you're planning to use them it might be worth checking if they have enough supply available. Motorbogies aren't very powerful, so for a railcar with 2 intermediate coaches you would probably need at least 2 of them. But it might be worth doing some testing through tight curves or an incline.

I agree that etched kits always look a lot better for coach/railcar sides. A hybrid etched/3D printed kit would be my preference too. Not sure what you want to do with the roof? The front section above the cab would need to be 3D printed. The rest could be brass but it might be tricky to get the curve to match up perfectly. We could also print it and get the curve exactly the same, but that would probably have to be printed in a few sections giving a few more joins to clean up.

Absolutely. I was mostly just eyeballing it so having some proper cross sections would be a big help

I had actually thought of doing something similar. I'm sure you're a lot more experienced with etch design than I am, but I'm happy to help with the CAD/3D printing. I had started messing around in CAD some months ago to try and get the cab shape right, but haven't worked on it in a while now. Below is as far as I'd gotten. It doesn't have any real detail, and the shape still looks a little off to me.

There's one still standing in the far corner of Kent station in Cork. Picture taken from the Lower Glanmire Road earlier today. Had I been 30 seconds earlier with the camera you would've seen 2601/02 pass by in the background.

I have used 3D printed dies in the past to get the curve in coach body sides consistent. These are printed on a very coarse setting on my printer since the surface doesn't matter anyway. The brass etch is sandwiched in between and pressed tight in the vise. It takes a little bit of trial and error to get the die right since brass tends to 'spring back' a little bit, so the die is designed to have a slightly tighter curve than what's actually needed. I'm sure something similar could be adapted for those curves.

I finally got around to properly regauging my Park Royals. I used Alan Gibson conductive EM wheels since I personally don't like the look of NMRA code 110 wheels, and the process should be the same if you're using P4 wheels. Anyone who wants to regauge the factory wheels can follow Mol's post above as a guide instead. To start disassembly of the factory wheelset I gently pulled the two halves apart with my hands. This is enough to pull one of the two half-axles out of the insulating sleeve. To pull the other half axle out it is actually a bit more difficult. DO NOT just grab the sleeve with your pliers and pull, see my previous post for the consequences. First I pulled out the wheel a bit to create a gap between the back of the wheel and the sleeve. The throat of my puller is not wide enough to fit the sleeve, but I've come across this problem before so I have a short length of aluminium tube that I use for this purpose. Once there is a bit of a gap I put that in my puller and used a small length of 1.5mm diameter rod to push the remaining half axle through the sleeve. Once the two half are out of the sleeve they can simply be pressed out through the wheel to get a completely disassembled wheelset. I pressed two nice shiny AGW wheels onto the half axles. These are not quite as tight a fit as the factory wheels, so take care when pressing that the wheels go onto the axles straight. I pressed them in a little further than necessary; it is very easy to pull them back out once the wheelset is reassembled, but nearly impossible to press them further in. (Apologies about the out-of-focus photo for this one.) Then I gently pushed the two half-axles back into the insulating sleeve bit by bit, measuring the total length of the axle as I went. I made sure the sleeve was approximately centred so both half-axles are firmly held in position. The overall axle should be 28 mm; 2x 13.5 mm half-axles with a 1 mm air gap inside the sleeve. Once the axle length was correctly set, I pulled out the two wheels to the correct back-to-back, 19.3 mm for EM in my case. Take care not to put any pressure on the pinpoint as you could easily mess up your axle this way. I use a 1 mm inner diameter brass bushing which I have given a suitable chamfer on the inside. To replace the sleeve I broke I cut a small length of polystyrene tube. This is nominally 1/8" outer diameter with unspecified inner diameter, but snugly fits the half-axles. This doesn't grip the axles as well as the proper sleeves, so I cut it to the same length as the back-to-back to prevent the axles from creeping in any further. The slightly sprung bearings on the bogie should prevent the axles from moving any further outward, so this should be sufficient. I am nothing if not consistent at being 0.01 mm over on all my measurements Before installing the freshly regauged wheelsets, I modified the brakes as these foul on the flanges of the 'correct' gauge wheels. First step was to snip the linkage from the outside brake shoes. In my Park Royals the linkages are not sufficiently glued to the inside brake shoes, so they can be gently pulled apart. Once it is loose the linkage piece can be 'unhooked' from the frame on both ends, gently manoeuvred back and forth, and eventually lifted out from the top side of the bogie. Then I gently snipped off the 8 brake shoes. For the outside ones I tried to cut the brakes along with the pivots to keep them as one piece. This worked for some but not for others; for some the glue bonding them together was not enough to prevent the tiny pivot piece from flying away. To prevent the regauged wheelset fouling the inner brake mounting pieces I had to file a small chamfer on the outside edges which you might be able to make out in the photo below. This is definitely necessary if you're using RTR or EM wheels, but you might be able to skip this if you're using P4 wheels. Then the final step is to install the wheelsets and carefully glue the brakes back in place. Mol's technique of using fine wire above is probably stronger, but I was lazy so I just used Superglue and glued the brakes into position. I haven't tried bisecting the linkage and gluing it to the brakes yet, it's something that won't be visible unless you have one heck of a derailment anyway, but I will probably end up doing that similar to what Mol showed above. And here is the end result installed under the coach:

This one sold recently for £580/€675: https://www.ebay.ie/itm/147282572613 It's a seller's market for 071s at the moment.