Glenderg

Love the "black, but not black" finish george - top stuff as always

Would echo kirleys comments nelson. Your work stands alone in terms of detail, so if you're unhappy with it, that's a good sign. Self critiscm is the hardest. Maturity beyond your years, even for a six planked wagon

Fantastic! What a superb railway room well finished with the pelmets and overall presentation. Just a wee bit envious! How you restrained yourself to not fill every square inch with track and do such a tasty landscaping job is maybe representative of american layout planning, and clever visual tricks everywhere. Just need a whole slap of magnesite wagons now..... richie

He's on RTE radio 1 now, quite a funny response to that "article". Hard to close rural lines, since there are none, and any existing rural lines connect large towns/cities together, so just a bit of pot stirring scaremongering. He also said he loved the romance of the railways, but had to be practical when it's cheaper to drive busses than trains. Rail Unions are still in cloud cuckoo land/2006...

We have to be. The "real world" would drive us nuts. Just did a bit of research on the Killala story for Biomass. Planning Application 10997 is for a Biomass facility in the Killala Business Park, which has ESB International, a power generating station and Shutz (dry goods container specialists) in adjacent buildings. Seems it will be processed there and driven to Ballina for onward, unless anyone else has better first hand info. Thurles in the good ol days...

Lots of wonderful stuff on your bench tom, and if the Alien is the worst of it, yer doin all right. Now that you've the beets done, whats next?

4 mins - feck out the crap i dont need. Easy.

Just got an email from Dapol. "Dear Mr O'Xxxxx" As a valued overseas customer of Dapol ltd., it's constitiuent products, and in particular the C043 kit, we understand that there is a substantial over supply of parts within said kits, and given the market, particularly within the Irish Republic, there appears to be quite an excess of kit parts. All kits supplied by Dapol ltd. are produced from recycled plastic, and we would encourage all our suppliers and end users to recycle where possible. To that end, we are asking high volume users of C043 to return excess kit parts to be further recycled to a value of 50% of your current kit cost, dependent on volume. This may, subject to discussion, bring about a costs saving resulting in an end cost of £1.86 per unit in future cycles. We would encourage discussion with you internet forum colleagues on BRM. Perhaps a group discount on returns may me possible. Yours sincerely, I go through over 1000 c043 kits a month with them, so if anyone wants to dump bags of bits with me, or arrange disposal in exchange for credit/kits let me know. We may just get something back fro Dapol for a finish!

Haven't really much of an interest in the Lima stuff to be honest but I'd be really interested to see the original SSM brass kits you have, if you can gently peel back the tissue paper and whatever other "home brew" bits you've picked up over the years of interest. More interesting the better I reckon. Keep up the good work chief.

Very impressive Tom. A bit head wrecking to do such a large rake, but it's worth it in the end, they look the bizness. How's the "Alien" coming on?

Well, if it did go ahead, the spin off industries are far more suitable to the economic environment than anytime in the past - molasses for producing citric acid, ethanol, and beet pulp for farm foods. What's more, the demand for sugar by the likes of Kelloggs, Cadbury for chocolate crumb, and Coca-cola all based on the island, mean they will be lobbying for it. It stands a 50/50 chance, if even Simon Coveney's brother is the head of Greencore, the previous beet monopoly oligarchs who unnecessarily destroyed the industry... At least CIE have the wagons to carry the stuff - open bulk containers on 42' flats.... R

The plashtic dmu is a turd, and try as you might repaint the ugly flunt of a thing, you cant polish a turd.

Great photos! Kirley made a few of those. Think it nearly broke him. Something like 64 parts per wagon?

None of the above John. I was trying to bring a bit of positivity to the thread, and it's just gone horribly negative. Gonna bow out of this discussion and cut my own furrow quietly.

Bluesky thinking Des!

There is a current drive to "design smart" - use your grey matter rather than your wallet, to solve design problems. The use of traditional methods and materials also requires thought - casting lead is easier than whitemetal and fine for use as small elements as buffers? Or is it? Whats wrong with a styrene chassis and why the need for top hat bearings? Could a close coupling system be used instead of traditional couplers for rakes of wagons? Has anyone tried any of these?Has anyone bulk ordered / used H0 wheelsets? ...and so on... That's the discussion I would like to have rather than the "betcha can/betcha can't" pantomime stuff.

1: A site on Indian Railways references it as "Other Coaching Vehicles" as opposed to "Passenger Coaching Vehicles" 2: This pic taken a few years after the UTA ceased suggests it was still in their posession but maybe lying idle. https://flic.kr/p/byJFdL

Respectfully disagree with all, but especially the above quote. Burnthebox has indicated that he at least isn't the slightest bit bothered by "purism" and there are plenty who are happy with the prestwin. There are also quite a few who have at least partially-trained eyes and demand something closer to the real thing. I think it's achievable to produce a chassis in kit form with all the bells and whistles for around 4eu that would have the detail and dimensions of the real thing, but hey what do I know, I'm just an overly enthusiastic scratchbuilder.

Have you read the last 23 posts? That's what this discussion is about. Reducing the end cost to punter and providing a closer to prototype alternative.....

Close in wheelbase and length maybe. The brake gear is so far off the mark it diminishes anything on top of the chassis.

The interfrigo wagon is H0, and a wheelbase of 18' and 30' over headstocks. I'm really impressed by Mayners etch profile, but i can't see it being cost effective for aul bubbles and hoppers and basic freight. (Is it 22' long?) It should stand alone for container freight, but both our ideas of the working frame and cosmetic details are the way forward it seems. Personally, i don't think its worthwhile designing and prototyping a solution, the prestwin is hard to better for its price, and yee're silence on my unorthodox materials/methodology would suggest many are yet to be convinced. All i know is that it works beyond my satisfaction, and if I want to build 20 chassis for wagons, it's going to cost me 20 euro, not 140.

Quick and dirty prototype this evening - not for the finescale modeller, but it works. Concept is a fold up inner frame and then cosmetic solebars and buffer beam on. Added additional shims around the bearing to stop the wheelset dropping out.[ATTACH=CONFIG]12540[/ATTACH] This is the scale width of the real thing, with a scale ballast hopper on top. All i need now is to cast the cosmetic axel assembly and detail it up, as ou would with a prestwin - brake gear, bum hopper, brake wheels vac pipe, buffers and coupling hook. Cost to me so far.... a little over a euro.....

Twould appear they are irish. People use kadee brake wheels as a stop gap, but they tend to stick out. These are the ones you'll be wantin. A prototype from SSM...

I've been working on the prestwin chassis, like most of us here, and generally accepting it as legit for irish just because it has the 12 ft wheelbase. The more of them i built, the more i've seen their shortcomings. Buffers are wrong, brake gear is weird, and size is a bit unreliable. At the weekend i just got a goo on me to have a look at making up the axle box, leaf springs, and dampers to see if it could be cast. Up top is a bit of mawla, ( just to check the voracity of the model) the middle is the prestwin, and below my effort. You can see the obvious difference between the prestwin and the original. Not making out for a minute my effort is super duper here... Where i'm going with this is three fold. If a chassis is to be available that is ball park correct, it needs to be priced below the cost of the dapol prestwin as it does not contain wheels nor couplings so we're talking about 4 ish euro to make it competitive. Resin is a donkey material that does more twisting than elvis and has no weight, so is whitemetal the preferred option? Lastly, are folks prepared to add after market buffers coupling hooks and brake gear, or would they want it included in the overall kit? I'm just throwing this out there for a bit of disussion. Casting is not in my skillset, but it might inform other manufacturers. Richie.