Glenderg

Most complicated part of limerick junction - sidings to the south in all their madness! R

To butcher a movie quote - 'You smell that? Do you smell that? Lima, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of melting Lima in the morning". I'll sort you out for windows. R.

Bloomin fantastic!

It'll be up again soon methinks, it must be on it's twentieth listing!

Where to start?! Limerick Junction was the closest to where I was reared, and from memory there were no track changes from the eighties until the recent car park blitz that occurred. http://steverabone.com/RailwayPhotographs/ click on Ireland on the left and scroll down one third of the way or search "Limerick Junction" - pretty much every question is answered as it's 1984. I have a really ropey CAD plan of Lmk Jct from around 1998, but it's not really fit for publication. Ernie Brack has also cataloged lmk junction around 2000, again I don't think there are significant track layout changes. 1947 track layout - http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,586405,638636,7,9 Hope that helps. Richie.

Lol, that's not white. washed out/faded dayglo was regular then...

Wow! They are gems - are these digital publications only?

Really impressive piece of "power building" I must say. Is the mitre saw especially for small scale work? R

Lovely capture of the Donelli's mixed in with the weedsprayer!!! R.

Yeah lads, the possibilities this wagon opens up are mind blowing - spoil containers, fertilisers, bogie beets, donelli's, weedspray, barrier wagons and so on.... I take no credit for any design - des crawled all over one with a measuring tape and has all the photos up, under, you name it. I've just been a sounding board. SSM can take a bow. R.

Bredin all the way Dave, along with custom 4 wheelers, and crew van!

I know, 2 updates in one week is wrong, but I think it's warranted.... About 18 months ago myself and weshty of SSM entered into a discussion about 42' flats. I built one in styrene and gave it to Des for inspiration. After all the stories about tweaks, redesigns, etching processes, and whitemetal spinning, an envelope arrived Monday morning, containing this... Now the whitemetal bits are yet to be finished, so I said I'd put it together commando - no instructions. I'd find out any tweaks needed and report any thoughts for ease of assembly. I'd also do it with superglue as would be the choice of a lot of lads here. Cage underneath folds nice and easy and is bang on square. Left to glue for an hour. The support angles are easily nipped out with the missus' nail scissors and folded with a flat pliers. Bufferbeam supports fold up and slot home easily. Use of a cocktail stick employed here to make sure I didn't misalign the pieces and fill up the holes for the whitemetal buffers. Glued the cage to the main "frame", though I should have done this before bending the bufferbeam support. Potential to get a bit of twist in the chassis here if done assways! There was a bit of an issue with the buffer beam (which has since been corrected) so in my haste I made a styrene one, and some cocktail stick/cotton bud buffers. All the other detail bits of the kit were added including 40 container lugs under each mounting plate, a couple of Dapol prestwin cylinders, the rods, brake wheel. I borrowed a pair of MIR bogies also for the later photos. (I couldn't wait a fortnight for the whitemetal parts in fairness..) Liberal coat of muck applied... Muck washed off IE style...and some track dirt and spare decals applied Some of the nice tricks with it are the additional brake wheels and tail lamp brackets, so you can upgrade other flat wagons potentially. The weighting is lovely, holds a can of beer in the middle without deflection and took me about 4 hours to get the entire thing assembled. Cheers, Richie.

I hope to have the rake to recreate this shot complete, can't wait to set it all up!

GM you're a star! Many thanks. Riddle solved.

Gents, It might have been on one of the older iterations of the site, but I vaguely recall a thread about one or two MK3 coaches wearing the "intercity" branding with the IR points logo alongside, as maybe a corporate test? Is my memory failing or did this occur, and if so is there photographic proof you might be willing to share? Any history associated would also help. That's "if" if did infact happen. Richie.

Superb work Noel, looks like great fun to operate, and for some reason it screams GNRI at me, if I squint, lost stations like Enniskillen in particular . Richie

0.25 mm from Evergreen (US). The UK made stuff is too flexible I find, and better suited to roofing etc.

Cheers lads, appreciate the comments. Brass can be a excellent in the right hands but to me it's hard work. Takes weeks to get the stuff from etchers, needs serious gear to roll ends, and doesn't like neither glue nor paint, but I can appreciate what the masters have achieved with rivet presses and soldering irons. I will make these available as "Minimum Kits" later in the year - cost is the same as the minimum wage for an hours work, takes an hour to apply, no etching primer required, and should re-awaken (hopefully) a few old airfix/limas in the cupboards. (and if people make a boo-boo, replacements can be provided in jig time) R.

No update on Ballyvoile at the moment, must set her up with some of the stock for a photoshoot at the weekend, and yes Rich, up to me oxters at the moment, but since I promised last night, and there's a nice "NR" buzz about I'd show what I've done with some bog standard Lima MK2's ala this donkey... A Client is developing a scheme for Connolly Station - not Bosko! - and he want's to recreate some of the stock that visited during 1984 period, so with Kirley's inspiration, I set off researching. Eight windowed tourist opens can be hard to track down, so we had to work with what was in the stock box, so first thing needed was the genny van, which had been earmarked for something impossible years ago! At this point I added a styrene overlay, and cobbled together some roof detail - bit of painting, SSM custom decals, and some windys and The same process was repeated for the buffet car Window openings widened, and styrene overlay added and blended into the coach ends. Light skin of red at cantrail level... Mid grey roof and blue strip added. The NR logo is a mask rather than a decal, for a smoother finish. A couple of others tackled in the same way A network southeast became 931. and with the canny use of some kitchen roll for curtains, another lima became a first class coach... I never really had either these coaches nor their livery in my headspace, mainly because they never ventured to deepest Munster growing up, but I have a new appreciation for them, and find them quite striking. Thanks for looking, more later, bit of brass kit bashing to show... Richie.

That is most impressive work indeed looking forward to seeing the next stage!

Aye i did a rake two weeks ago, will post photos tomorrow. R.

Bought the same kit only last week Dave, and i'ts night and day in comparison to the cheapy taiwan yokes. The moisture trap in the airbrush is a brilliant idea, and the engineering quality is really really good. Track weathering looks the biz too. R.

Kevin, I'm unsure of the dates when the yellow band at the front became red, but here are a few photos. 1982-84 I believe and the livery on the coaches is quite something...and yes that's a BR livery on this side of the ditch! Kirley kindly answered a similar post some time ago. http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/showthread.php/2323-NIR-70-80s-livery?p=34361&viewfull=1#post34361 Richie

You did that in 3 months? Wow... puts the rest of us armchair generals to shame... (Hangs head in shame...)

Agreed, and i admire the timed challenge approach to this build. Looking forward to your results and thoughts on the approach afterward :-) richie.