Glenderg

Has it gone orange yet or run like mo farah when you varnished it? There's a reason for that. One of the most complicated liveries to replicate with the tender like curved corners on the yellow lines, which are 0.3mm thick! Plus, add the cost of the craven, the respray, the decals, and the rehab costs for the modeller, and it could be a savage outlay. Somebody would grumble about the blue shade too... R

Christine Keeler, Monica Lewinsky, Lady Godiva? :-)

Agreed. The yellow stripe and reddish brown one above are both 0.25mm thick on an 00 gauge coach, so near impossible to achieve with spraying. As for the white lines for MK3 coaches, these are 1mm wide and some prefer to cut a 1mm strip from masking tape and mask off the white beneath. 1mm masking tape can also be sourced, which might be an easier start.

Anto has poured (I'd imagine) hours into this, and to be credited whatsmore. It just doesn't look like a Sulzer and I can't put me finger on it.Think Ed is bang on.

You Sir, are a lunatic. That's my way of being so impressed I'm lost for words. Pure madness/goodness.

Welcome mmie. Colour codes for freight are unknown but JHBAchill of this parish tends to have the skinny on any peculiarities with chassis etc. So if you have a particular question, bang it up here. It usually causes a bit of chat and a few photos :-) As for ammonias, it's chalk white for the base, guinness just dull silver, and cements can be ivory or orange, freight wagons a blend of red and brown to make bauxite, or battleship grey for other goods wagons. I'm leaving this purposely vague as anything on irish rail was always heavily coated with dirt, brake dust, clag, and grime, so any colour you put on the wagons you work on is secondary. Best of luck with the house purchase, and also with working on freight. Have a look at popeye,scahalane, and nelsons workbenches for some freight inspiration! Richie.

Quick question. Is supertrain (golden/brown) orange the same as black and tan,tan? Having stirred a couple of pots of phoenix supertrain, and referencing photos of the black and tan era I'm not convinced that both paint and colour film can equally desaturate to produce so many distinct shades. JHB? Bit of a thick question. Apologies.

Currently plastic glue from deluxe materials. It's fine tip stuck to the side of the frame and allowing cappilary action to draw it around the outside preserves any varnishing/finish. Bog poly cement also works, and both have survived the "knocked off the bench by the cat" test. Super pva and other clear drying glues dont grab the plastic, but i'm gonna give odourless superglue a go soon. Putting on the windows after all the finishing has been done is a daunting concept, but so bloody satisfying to take the model out of the "toy" range. Cheers Barl! The plough drawings were furnished to the wizard of brass in co. Clare, so a brass one may be in the offing, my heads wrecked from building them in plastic! I'll have a few to spare in the next few weeks that i'll put up for sale if anyone wants a pair. Richie.

Is the incline from the fiddle yard real or just a visual trick? Looked at this half a dozen times and still cant figure it out! I reckon Shink sums it up perfectly. Less is more and it benefits in spades from it immensely. May the lifting train never visit! R.

Cheers Lads for all the kind comments. I think your pair are a bit filthier shem!

Tried the Humbrol Gloss Varnish at this stage, and I the whole coach "bloomed" white - too much water vapour - and re-decaled and sorted. This is where I came up with another innovation which you may have spotted on Kirley's workbench. A glazing solution, which I hope to make available shortly to other scratchbuilders. It consists of a machine cut and etched 0.12mm clear glazing panel that sits on the outside of the coach, much like the real deal. It even has the scale rubber trim around the outside. So this is how "Azyglaze™" works in practice having applied them to the right parts of the coach.... The same principle applied to the weird and wonderful "Cafe/Bar" coach An almost full rake of "tweaked" Lima MKIII's along with my babies, including a scratchbuilt EGV in the foreground. Coming soon - Ballast ploughs, and the 12 month trial and error of design that went into manufacturing the above pair, and reproducing them over and over again. Warts and all... Richie.

Lads, apologies for not being so active on the forum this last while. It seems I've dropped out of the habit of taking photos as I go, so it's hard to put together a useful post. But I found one! Riversuir of this parish many months ago mentioned how he wanted to tackle the MKIII Restaurant, something that is usually a "spray and pray" affair. Windows all wrong, in fact barely close to the irish prototype, but I reckoned there was an alternative way to tackle it. Here goes:(( Bog standard MKIII as provided by Warbonnet. Remove interior glazing, seating, and all overscale window frames that sit on the outside... Fill up the last four windows.. Cook for a few hours. This is where I forgot to take any more snaps, but I filled the bits with filler and after sanding and painting the seats a sort of "off purple/blue" ended up here. Bit more sanding as the Lima roof to body joint is fairly prominent. Added the vents too from styrene sheet sanded down. This is where innovation comes in! I designed this little paint guide for MKIII's that ensures my masking tape goes on at the right level to match the windows and is straight and level every time. This is the version I did where it's a full white band in the middle and I fill in with Black. Penguin claw on the left.... So I have a coach with a few important windows missing and a decal on the side. Not a restaurant it makes...

Rich - my knowledge of MK II's is slim, my photos even slimmer, but I reckon the lads may be right that NIR is the way forward. IE used to have a "composite" variant, split in two if I remember, but the windows dont match your donor. If done right, proper decals and all, I'd not get excited if I saw it on a layout, but others might. Photo by GM134 from only 9 years ago... R

Cleanest bloody cutting mat I ever seen. May that not last long.

You doin it Bosko or are you too fresh faced for it?

paudie, fine looking layout, looks like you've loads of room. I'm guessing it's about 12' long for the main board? I reckon the goods shed is in the wrong location as getting wagons too and from would require some unneccasrily complicated shunting. You could add another connection to the main line at the end of the right hand side siding to make it less of a headache though...? It would allow you to do some shunting in the yard without interfering with main line operations. I'd also move the signal box to where you have the platelayers hut rather than in the middle of the layout. Access to the branch line from the mainline is overly complex. You might consider the branchline away from the sidings alogether, and have it spin off in beside the platelayers hut. Did this sketch on the train, give an idea of my thoughts. There are two single slips leading from the goods yard across the mainline to the branch. Richie.

A glib comment about "sinking ships" is not a valid contribution to the discussion, so of course I missed it. As I see it - the stock is being "husbanded" in Parnell Square by a body who have no interest in displaying it, even allowing private viewing for research purposes, which is beyond wrong. The calibre of the stock may be of varying standard, but it's the entire collection that matters. Secondly, there's a problem with a site to house it. While money was willed to put it in the Casino in Malahide, that simply cannot happen. The planning constraints have already been outlined. So you're looking for a building, preferably in the city centre of Dublin, close transport links, up to scratch with Universal Access regs, and requires little outlay (relatively) to set up. It also would help if it were owned by the state or one of it's companies like CIE. LMS on North Wall would be perfect, but in need of serious work to bring it up to a standard. So have a think about it lads. Find the building, then write your letters to TD's.

cheers mark

some like to throw life rafts in the hope of saving lost souls, others pass by on their wicker yachts quaffing champers. Keep sailing ed, I'll keep keep chucking out the lifeboats to these causes. Where is the stock being held?

Yip, made a point to listen to it. He had all the charm of a rubber hose, full of management speak, and slightly obsessing over how too much was spent on tarmac during the boom, thereby making it more reasonable/faster to go by car than rail. Not a word re freight, or the current fleet. Plenty guff about wi-fi and DART underground. Barry Kenny tends to do a better job interacting with Seosaph Public.

i look. no find. can you post the link?

Story with the loco change to a 201?

My heart goes out to you Seamus - words fall short of how gutted I am for you. Requiescat in Pace Richie.

Welcome aboard Dee. Will be interested to see what you have in mind!

Some inspiration for your Riot Bosko ...