jhb171achill

Top of the morning to ye.

Scottish accents included..... Like that awful caricature TV show some years ago "The Irish RM".......

Cue a bid from the ITG for one.....????

Didn't know there was a film about Captain Boycott? He had a house (Corrymore) on Achill Island.

Looks fantastic! Noticing the cover picture on the SSM brake van kit. It shows a van in normal "in-service" condition obviously, but a livery detail is worth taking note of. In the photo of the van, the yellow stripes have faded, worn off or are dirty. While I never saw a van with that degree of invisibility of the stripes, it was obviously the case the day that photograph was taken. Thus, for accuracy, it's important to realise where they were. As will be seen, the black goes from roof level down to the bottom of the bodyside. But while this is right for the top and bottom bits, the bit that's actually raised had the stripes, the flat bit above, and at the very bottom were plain black.

Four tracking is indeed needed, but at both ends would cause massive, massive disruption and compulsory purchase of many residential houses. I completely agree it ought to be done, but given those circumstances one wonders how long it will take politicians to grasp the nettle. After all, it took 40 years to re-open the Harcourt Street line - and the formation was there! I completely agree with Leslie that voters have possibly stuffed the future of the young, and certainly 9unfortunately) where Nelson lives - but as initially stated, if we concentrate on the railway, and go back to my point above, it's likely that any drive to "four-track" the northern end of the line has to be further away from ever now. On a related matter, I see NIR have tendered for new trains. I wonder was it the intention to have Europe cough up for some of the funding? If so, NIR can kiss goodbye to that. Maybe they could dig the old MPD cars up from the bottom of Crosshill Quarry!

Future funding for the GNR main line will at best be dogged with endless paperwork from both sides.....

Yes, Pat, I'm aware of (and agree 100% with) the non-political policy here. I couched my original post in railway terms and although I maybe should have mentioned it, it was my intention to stick to railway-related stuff. The Belfast - Dublin line, in particular, will be the most likely to be affected, plus possible changes to funding flows for NIR.

Two ways of looking at it: 1. Cross border traffic plummets as people stay their own side and the tourist trail from the south to the north evaporates. 2. With long queues of lorries at a reinstated border, passengers flock to the train. I wonder. Then there's NIR; who will fund it? There will be no more EU grants. With Cameron in no mood to fund any of his "regions" any more, if he gives the north more money to make up what it loses in EU funds, Scotland and wales will also want their slice, as will England, so he's not going to be able to do that, as sterling will almost certainly devalue anyway! Will EU-wide railway operating regulations be followed by NIR any more? If not, does that mean that IE and NIR will have different sets of rules after a while? If so, will NIR and IE crews have to have totally separate PTS passes?

Prompts me to think of jhb171-senior's epic journey on the footplate of one of those 4.8.0s to Burtonport back in the day - and his photo of sheep ahead on the line!

That's really turning into a first class layout. Well done.

Driver hours.

Excellent clip

Great to see these kits - congratulations to Mayner for them.

I commented (favourably!) on it, but possibly on another post! Point is, it's very nice!

It actually does replicate very accurately the way that shade of green DID weather! Thus, it's spot on!

Wow!! Fair enough...!!!! Excellent performance. (Ireland 6.23 to Co. Africa 1.08....) :-)

Hi Colin. You'll find all the encouragement you want here, plus a wealth of knowledge. So keep the questions coming!

That's excellent stuff. An oft-neglected type of vehicle....

I hope my postal order is in one of those bags...

Exactly!

The RPSI's new premises at Whitehead might well have room for some sort of layout, and it would indeed be a good home - though it would probably have been better accommodated there had it been includ in the planning stage. There's no doubt, however, that the management of the whole Fry project from the day it left the castle has been a mish-mash of poor planning, lack of interest in a major asset, ignorance of a major asset, and short sightedness. Setting a few of his models on a shelf somewhere is not only not financially viable - few of us even here would pay just to look, so forget the normal public - but also, it entirely misses the point of what Fry was trying to do. Those in whose care the stuff remains wouldn't have the first clue about this.

That's a lovely model.

That's what I was thinking. Can anyone elaborate on whereabouts / safety of actual models right now?

Absolutely excellent concept. Can't wait to see it develop.