irishthump

There is a bit of a sting in the tail with the Hornby Class 31, since a fair few of them have suffered from flawed mazak underframe casting, which either leads to fracturing of the ends of the casting or expansion, causing the plastic body to distort and then shatter in the area of the cab front. Do keep an eye on this. The same type of thing notoriously affected the Heljan Class 47 which, not content with being too wide, then became too long.

You can always gut the loco and try to scratchbuild a suitable chassis. At the very least it would be the right size...

Apart from the Railroad (budget) range, their diesel locos are centre drive and have been for some time.

 

That's true. Modellers just won't accept bad drives in locos anymore.

The Railroad stuff IS bad, but you get what you pay for.

A font of information as always, thanks lads!

Correct... the Metro Vicks always had two red and two white marker lights, as did the B101s.

Thanks Garfield.

And how were these positioned? Was it with the 2 white lights to the outside?

ie:

White Red Red White

Guys,

How many rear facing red marker lights did the A class have? There seem to be 2 pairs of light housings on each end of the loco but any photos I've seen only show one red marker (the same as the 141/181/071's) and two white when running forward.

Specifically referring to Supertrain era locos here.

Cheers,

Thanks to the traders & the customers that attended the show yesterday. The next Collectables Toy Fair is Sunday 29th November.

 

Great find Eoin, at a great price.

Brian,

Have you got a list of traders for this Sunday's fair?

I've re-read this excellent thread again with interest. It begs a question:

 

Does anybody have a video of an A or C class demonstrating the chassis starting, low speed creep, stopping, and crawling over point work?

 

The videos on the thread show A/C class models already running at speed. What I would like to see is a video of a chassis that has proven its smoothness and crawlability starting off. Ability to haul a load once moving is great, but how smooth can some of these chassis be starting and stopping slowly? I'm not sure a 15:1 gear ratio can do this, but I could be mislead. Bachmann chassis have much higher gear ratio which is why they perform in such a scale like manner.

 

Reason is, I am keen to get, acquire, build, or commission a few C and A class models, but only if I can get them running on quality performing chassis.

 

Has anybody tried the Athearn SW1500 chassis with a SF C class kit?

 

Thanks in advance.

To be honest I doubt if you will get great smooth slow running from those Hornby Deltic chassis'.

I recently cobbled together a chassis from spare ho parts. It uses an Athearn frame, Atlas bogies and a Walthers Proto motor and is a very smooth runner. Here's a link to the workbench thread - http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/showthread.php/77-Graham-s-Workbench?p=74181&viewfull=1#post74181

Well one thing's for sure, I won't sleep a bleedin' wink tonight....

Clowns are scary!

On the subject of the three-wagon multipack, I'm sure there are economic reasons for doing it in threes, but it will risk putting off potential buyers who might only want one or two wagons, and who might balk at shelling out over 100 Euro just in order to have the one. It also potentially creates a profiteers' market on eBay. If profit is to be made (and there is little of that in railway modelling generally), it should be made by IRM, not eBay sellers.

 

 

 

It's massive growth, because it starts from a fairly low base. Any growth in Irish railway model availability is to be encouraged, but we should all make sure it's not a false dawn.

 

I'd hesitate to call it a Golden Age, though. That sounds like hyperbole. A few extra swallows don't make a summer.

What makes me laugh is you never know it's a "Golden Age" of ANYTHING until after it has finished!

Excellent - very interesting. Was the recording from inside a coach, outside via window, or line side of a passing train? Three very different sounds.

From the sounds of it I'd say it was recorded from lineside.

You can hear it in the second half of this video...

The rate at which the sound plays automatically adjusts to the speed of the loco.

Stunning, as always!

I actually used EMD645 non turbo for the base sound. The brake squeal is good, I will try and get a short video of it. I installed it with the standard 40x20 speaker that comes with the 21pin decoder and just used the Murphy cradle. I was looking at installing a cube speaker but run out of patience. The sound quality is actually good enough for me and has a much better bark in "real life".

That sounds great. Is this the newer 645 non turbo that was recently uploaded to ESU website?

Installing the cube speaker is simple enough. Just remove the installed cradle and you can fix the speaker to the back of the cab bulkhead.

You will will find that 30 years ago and before, like now people sat down and made what was not available, often to a very high standard. They didnt just make do. They wanted better and they got it.

Yes, but once again you forget the huge number of modellers who don't have the necessary skill, time or inclination to build their own models from kits or from scratch.

These people will happily pay for RTR models and will accept any detail discrepancies, minor or major.

You point out that 30 years ago they made what wasn't available. I would argue that the improvement of RTR model has probably sustained interest in the hobby, making it accessibly to many people who would otherwise not attempt railway modelling due to a lack of modelling skill.

Lads,it was DC kits at the exhibition in Blackrock that I purchased the MM 161SA loco off,

I'm delighted with the quality of the sound chip and intend to purchase a few more sound chips for some of my 141/181 locos.

Thanks for clearing that up, Noel!

Would you be able to post a video of 161sa showing the startup/shutdown sequence and all the other sounds? I'm very interested in hearing how this decoder sounds.

Hi IT, do you know if Legomanbiffo released an ESU sound project for 141 or 181? I can't seem to find one online

 

Thanks

 

Not sure if Tara Junction Noel's 161sa was the new legomanbiffo project, an other one (see below).

 

https://www.facebook.com/shares/view?id=10204947225589324&overlay=1¬if_t=story_reshare

 

 

 

This DC Kits product apparently is NOT a legomanbiffo project: http://www.dckits-devideos.co.uk/shop/dcc_digital_loco_sounds/irish_diesel_loco_sounds/class_141_gm_bo_bo_dc_kits_.php

 

Getting seriously confused!

Noel,

I emailed DC kits a while back about any plans for Irish sounds and they pretty much said that they would be selling a suitable decoder for a 141 but that they wouldn't be recording any original soundfiles for it. So my guess is they are using the generic soundfiles from the ESU website.

Not sure about Tara Junction Noel's video, it sounds like Mr Soundguy's decoder to me.

Well done to all involved in getting this up and running. Hope it goes well and I look forward to seeing the models "in the flesh"!

Progressing well & should certainly be a nice runner with that chassis. A bit quicker than an etched kit methinks[!], but resin is the ideal medium for the complex shapes of diesel locos. Will look forward to seeing the paint job.

Thanks, David. I really want to get the painting started before the cold weather sets in, so the pressure's on!

Been very busy lately but finally got around to doing some more work on the Silverfox A class.

Added the brass parts from Weshty's excellent detailing kit and wire lift rings on the roof.

I also drilled out all the light fittings as I intend to use LEDs and I cut off the moulded horn on the roof and added a separate part.

I didn't attach the windscreen wipers, I might wait until the glazing is in. All I need to do now is add some handrails before priming.

Lovely work, Patrick.

Can I ask you, I noticed you're sticking with the tension-lock couplers on your stock.

Being from the other side of the pond I thought you would have converted them to Kadees.

Any particular reason you haven't?

That's not the half of it, it will have a fully automatic level crossing that the truck will stop at if the barriers are down! The ship will have sound and smoke, very high quality lighting made by CR Signals. The Heljan cranes will be able to offload from the ship to the train or truck.

Just promise you'll post some videos when all is said and done.....

Cheers! That's one of the control panels for the container port. The joysticks are for the Heljan container cranes, full DCC operational cranes with sound too!

Oh that's sweet!

Wonderful work, Dave!

What's the story with the joysticks?

Some sad news from the Model Railroader Facebook page:

"With a heavy heart, I’m sad to report that Andy Sperandeo, who has been a part of our lives at Model Railroader magazine for more than 30 years, has died.

As some of you know, Andy had been fighting cancer and other ailments, and the combination finally caught up with him earlier today.

Andy started work at Model Railroader in 1979, becoming editor in 1993. In time he became executive editor and upon retirement a few years ago became a contributing editor. Readers today are most familiar with Andy through his monthly The Operators column.

Information on services or memorials remains pending at this time.

Neil Besougloff

editor"

Any of you who regularly read Model Railroader will be familiar with Andy's regular contributions to the magazine.

A sad loss.

Lenz shunting tip.

 

This past year I've been using Lenz silver+ decoders on our MM 141/181 and 071 locos and very pleased with their ultra smooth and quiet motor control. However I only recently discovered Fn 4 effectively toggles a shunting mode which temporarily disables the normal accelaration and braking delays (ie cv3/4). This is really useful for direct instant throttle control when shunting. Function 4 turns this off and on. It has meant I have been able to program quite long accelaration and braking delays but not loose precision when shunting.

A useful feature. The Loksound and Zimo decoder so have the same function, but personally I find the running a bit jerky without any acc/dec delay.

The Loksound has a function which halves the dec value, I find this is good for simulating light engine movements.

Lot more fun to be had on the Irish Water site....

And there's the €100 waiver!