Patrick Davey

Thanks for the mention above Leslie but this is wayyyyyyy above anything I could produce!!! Sensational stuff!!!!

Just thinking - IF it is a steam release, and IF it’s an RPSI loco, then authentic sound files won’t be an issue. IF it’s the 800 class, where would the sound files come from?

Wowzers!

Would be good to get these in 4mm........?

I read somewhere that he felt he was above the other locos. Shades of a Rev. Awdry yarn.......

Magnificent!

I was getting to all that......

Am enjoying the suggestions and speculation here - it’s a great read! Further musings from me: * I don’t think that the location of the event necessarily indicates that something GNR will be launched. The venue houses the priceless Fry collection, which represents virtually every single railway which operated in Ireland, so I think that makes it an appropriate location, whatever the new locomotive will be. * Fran’s use of the word ‘ambitious’ is still the clue here - it could refer to a complex prototype, so the 800s might well fit the bill (anyone for a 3-pack boxed special edition?) or it might refer to the complexity of the project, in terms of the breadth of versions and liveries being made available, although that is pretty much the case with everything IRM/AS does, so I’m guessing it’s a complex prototype. And just when you think I’m being uncharacteristically sensible, I’m going to suggest that as this year is the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Belfast Central Railway, perhaps we are going to be presented with a BCR train pack, limited to 150 pieces.

Could also be a S class 2-4-2 narrow gauge compound of the NCC/UTA. Or a BCDR baltic tank. Certainly both could be described as ambitious projects!

Predicting this will become the most active and 'hot' thread on the forum in recent years. With a generous helping of crackpot suggestions too.

I think a C Class is a cert eventually but probably not this time - I think there is a clue in Fran's use of the words 'most ambitious' which makes me think it's a completely new departure for IRM/AS - my £ is on a steam loco but 'ambitious' makes me think it'll be something other than my desired GNR 440 or NCC Jeep, neither of which would be more 'ambitious' than for example the Accurascale Manor. Am thinking something big and green, the surviving member of which class is located not a million miles away from me right now. But I have been wrong on every single previous occasion I have tried to guess what the lads are about to reveal!

Will it be streamed live? I can imagine the loco confidently STEAMING out of one of the Bray Head tunnels in the casino, with a Johnny Cash song playing through the house sound system.

Just in time for my birthday 3 days later - whoooo hooooooo!! Sorry not to be able to attend what will be a fantastic event but it really should have been held in The Adair Arms Hotel in Ballymena due to the locomotive being a Ballymena & Larne narrow gauge one.

Wow must have been some operation shipping that fine layout!!! Looking forward to seeing what you do with it!!

You must have a good head on you to come up with that!

Great work - such a tidy finish!

Didn't the UTA do something like that in real life? Sorry for bring this topic wayyyy off course. 071s are not my area of interest but it would be great to see new ones.

Chuffed to hear this.... hopefully the next announcement will either be a tender moment or will be filling the tanks with excitement..... S please - sounds like IRM have something up their Slieve. Happy enough though if it makes me say JEEPers.

Fab stuff Rob - great to see an update on this excellent thread!

Leslie can you not get rid of all those rafters???? (joking!)

Leslie that is magnificent, looking forward to seeing it all in place!! Do you have any wagons to run on the layout?

Putting me in mind of a UTA-liveried Jeep.... Lovely models!

Great advice from everyone above - this forum is a gold mine!

Hi @Darragh - I like your layout! Any chance of some video clips? Am a big fan of modelling the GNR too

Fantastic view of Finaghy Ernie - thanks for that, where it all started for me!! Note the signal box beyond the bridge, the large GNR shelter on the down platform (there was a shorter one on the up platform to the left of where the photographer is standing) and of course the Finaghy Road North bridge itself, long before it was vandalised....