Noel

The difference nowadays is air travel. Right now and just about any point in time there are 5 million people up there in the sky travelling on board civilian aircraft. So geographic containment like 30 years ago is no longer possible. The problem is the media hype the facts to such an extent that a degree of unfounded hysteria can be generated that is disproportionate to the actual risk. 50 fatalities so far, but we don't know if these fatalities were amongst vulnerable people such as very elderly folk or folks with pre-existing complicating serious medical conditions. 50 fatalities from a global population of 7700,000,000 statistically rounds down to Zero % risk for most of us. Like the SARs crisis of 2009, folks were unnecessarily alarmed by media fuelled over hyping the facts. Millions did not die, not even one thousand thank God. So rest easy and do not worry about opening your next pack of Chinese manufactured wagons, or visiting a Chinese take away this week, the car journey there, or even your walk down the stairs this morning had a far greater statistical risk of fatality. Too many scary movies combined with an insatiable 24hr media business selling adverts. Rest easy. Just some of the aircraft in flight at the time of this post, and only in two parts of the globe.

Yip and full autonomous driving is actually about 20-30 years away yet despite the media hype about where AI is at. Legislation hasn't even started, never mind insurance industry tooling up. Its disruptive technology though and legislators may end up being forced to catch up wither they like it or not. EU have put the foot down on safety grounds - surprise surprise, but in the mean time all auto manufactures auto-pilots continue to incrementally improve (eg lane following combined with 3rd generation adaptive cruise control, FCWA, BSM, etc). The interesting question is which of the big established legacy manufactures is going to be the first to be Nokia'd.

Thanks for the info

Just do as we did during the foot and mouth outbreak, spray all new imported models with disinfectant put straw on the tracks with jeyes fluid on it and drive the new rolling stock over it to disinfect the wheels. 🤣

And the CCTV is turned off

Sublime as ever from the forum's prima brass master. 🤙

Good to hear. 🤙Thanks Fran. Ordered 3 sets. Let us know when they are in and can arrange payment for same.

@skinner75 Batteries are due to drop below $100/kWh this year and lower next year as more factories come online. That should more than anything drive down the costs of BEVs to be closer to Petrol, Diesel equivalents. Battery density also improving exponentially. It'll never catch on though as Nokia said about touchscreen smartphones back in 2007. The cost savings are massive though both on fuel and servicing. Early gen Leafs which gave EVs a bad name will have a second life with low cost 3rd party replacement battery packs, but so far the battery packs are outlasting the vehicles. Tesla aiming for 1m millage on a pack before degradation becomes an issue. It will be interesting to watch this play through in the next 5 years. Disruptive or what?

Had my road to Damascus conversion from a super sceptic to a cautious EV driver this time last year. A talk given at a presentation by Richard Branson and others pushed me over the edge a year ago with no brainer numbers and stats, which gave me the courage to try it after some detailed research. Got fed up of listening to annoying EV taliban evangelists, kept telling them its not there yet, too many scare stores, too much inconvenience, etc. Well the end result was €8/week to fuel on night rate electricity at home, instead of €85/week on diesel. Just back from Donegal in one leg, no stopping so I guess it does what it says on the tin. Just curious if there were any other EVers on this forum. PS: One thing, I wondered why there isn't a market for Sound packages for EVs as they are too bloody quiet, sounds like V8 engines roaring with simulated exhaust roar, etc. There has to be an aftermarket for that. (ie instead of the silent egg whisk noise).

Impressive, is it still in service? How do they stabilise it laterally? I had one of these as a kid http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_year_details.asp?itemyearid=2769

And they are a great bunch of lads

Hi Fran et al, Yea no problem with the delay. MRSI show will be bursting with Irish locos. Thanks for the flow of information guys, really appreciate it, and it helps with planning. Will be worth the wait. Nice also to have a gap between it and the MM121 expenditure. Do you mind me enquiring what are the date plans for the Deltic and BR Class 37 (both of which I've pre-ordered)? Thanks. Noel

Hi Gerry, I've used 2mm masking tape for CIE era coaches and 1mm for tippex coaches (ie when reverse masking)

The old CIE era was 6 inch single stripe. I understood the tippex dual stripes were 3 inch.

It's great this collection has been preserved and put back on excellent displays, understand why his own models cannot be run. It is a pity the new venue's small size meant it could obviously not accommodate any O gauge track to run some selected castle rolling stock, but at least now there is a fab OO gauge layout to present the hobby to the public and engage the imaginations of youngsters visiting it as the Fry collection is viewed and preserved. Thanks for all the photos above, looks great, will make a trip out that way some day. PS. Glad we got to see the old Castle layout running years ago. It was a stimulating visual experience with movement and lights.