Noel

Stunning result. Less is more. The business for authenticity.

Absolutely Fabulous. I was fortunate a few years ago to sit in one of the 3 surviving cars that were made for the movie. 

On 22/6/2024 at 5:14 PM, David Holman said:

Surprised to read of your issues. Older Lima stuff certainly has deep flanges that require code 100 rail, but current models should be fine on code 75. Might be worth carefully checking all wheels, just in case a bit of crud is causing the problem. Likewise, if the track has been blasted maybe it needs checking too?

Yes only old Lima stuff with the pizza cutter wheels couldn't run on code 75 

19 hours ago, spudfan said:

The Donegal Rally landed this morning. It's been a noisy day!

We often go down to Killarney for a few days eBike cycling around the lakes and the large national parks, we usually get the train down and 5min taxi out to the Lake Hotel for our cycling base, as its right next-door to Muckross Park, and 10min cycle into town of races to the National Park. One year we got a taxi from the train, and the driver quizzed us as to why the hell had we chosen to visit Killarney on the May bank holiday weekend because the lakes of Killarney rally was on. He exclaimed the locals evacuate that weekend so bad is the noise in the town and all the anti-social behaviour from some of rally followers with their baseball caps & coke can exhaust amplified Impreza pretends roaming and cruising the town complete with shopping trolly spoilers on the rear. I said we didn't know it was on and he barked the 'crowd' who come down to watch it all thought they are Colin McRae but in truth none of them could reverse a trailer into a silage pit. I said it can't be that bad, he barked the gurriers were so bad, 200 extra Garda had been sent down from Dublin to stop the idiots from wrapping themselves around telegraph poles and killing pedestrians. I expressed surprise. He enquired what we'd be doing and when I told me we came down for a cycling weekend, he replied "I tell ou now for sure, ou will be kilt schton ded if ou go out on wan of dem dam byeschicles, kilt schton ded I tell ou". Needless to say we were perfectly safe cycling inside the two national parks along the lake shore, but could hear the whine of the professional rally drivers in the distance. We didn't hear any of the shopping trollies raving their 1.2 engines at night as we were staying outside the town. I said to the taxi driver, surely all these young rally supporters bring good tourist revenue into the town, he said "Not a bit of it, sure day schleep in deyr kiars, and only  buy chips and cans of beer to eat, no money for the gwuest houses or hutels". Anyway we weren't kept awake by any of it, but notice d the heavy traffic cruising the town the day we left.

58 minutes ago, Fiacra said:

Hi folks,

I was under the impression that the wheels on modern RTR locos are likely to be compatible with most types of track - apart from P4 standards. However, I've tried running a MM 121 on Marcway SMP code 75 bullhead flexitrack and Exactoscale bullhead basses with the same SMP rail. In both cases, there's a very obvious 'thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk....' sound as the loco runs along the track. Evidently, the wheel flanges are hitting the chairs. Has anybody out there replaced the wheels on their IRM and MM locos with finescale alternatives, without going all the way to P4 tolerances? 

I've had no problems with MM 121 or 141 running on Peco code 75 track. Apologies I have no experience running on other track systems.

This is fabulous. Track construction on another scale. Impressive and entertaining 

3 hours ago, Horsetan said:

Has anyone had parcels nicked off their doorstep?

Yes, we live down a farm lane and they leave stuff over the wall up on the road entrance. Fortunately inexpensive items. The most annoying thing is rain damage, once discovered a delivery of an expensive electronics appliance that suffered rain damage, they had no signature so after considerable toing and froing our credit card company refunded us and the retailer got the hit, which I presume they subsequently passed on to the courier company. Had they even phoned us we could have had it taken indoors instead of being left out in torrential rain for 12hrs. No amount of cardboard prevents ingress of water to inner contents. Dropping the contents over even a low wall causes quite a percussive shock to parcels. The lazy drivers could phone, text, or just ring the bell, but impatient they drop and run, signing themselves some soft of squiggle.

Pilot did well landing dead stick on a rail line at night. Fortunately no over head power lines.

Looking good. 

This is fantastic footage of the Irish steam era. Probably posted before, but for more recent members its a treasure.

It was really wonderful when in operation, It is a great pity, when our children were young we brought them to travel on it a number of times because a live steam locomotive was the main attraction. Don't think we'd have bothered had it been some sort of industrial yard diesel like a BNM or SVR. For the same reason we don't bother with rail tours anymore unless they are steam hauled (ie steamtrainsireland.com). Little interest in a modern diesel/electric loco, nor a DMU rail tour.  I've no idea of the merits or feasibility of restoration, but I'd certainly visit Tralee again to bring our grand children on it.

Unfortunately/Fortunatley I cannot use magnetic couplings, because to operate I need to be able to uncouple wagons and rakes of coaches and shunt stock on the model layout. I moved our rolling stock over to Kadee's some years ago and have nearly completed the transition away from TLCs. Kadee's enable automatic uncoupling and delayed uncoupling that is impossible with magnetic couplings without the 'hand of god' from the great layout sky manhandling stock on the tracks. At least magnetic couplings are orders of magnitude easier to live with, than tension lock couplings and no slop along ranks of coaches and wagons.

Just to share my experience. I'be been told my approach to DCC was 'unorthodox' because I bought into the 'just two wires' concept when DCC was first launched years ago so my main layout Kingsbridge which started life as DC has just one pair of power wires (ie droppers) per oval and there are four long ovals of track running around the 16ftx12ft baseboards, with fishplates for conductivity between tracks. Its worked fine for me I have a few extras for sidings, and nearly all my locos are sound equipped by now. The track is in effect my DCC bus and I have no bus running under the base board each of four ovals is approx 54ft long. I adopted a slightly more 'orthodox' approach on our second more recent layout Gort which has about 20 droppers mainly because I used electro frog points instead of insulfrog and the breaks in track at baseboard joints needed power as well as the sidings. Most of the droppers were actually to the electro fog points and a few sections of isolated track. I didn't subscribe to the mantra of droppers to every single separate piece of track because in my experience fishplates were adequate and reliable, and I wanted simplicity and less wiring to do. I used DaveMcCabes DCC dropper PCB board to hook up the droppers under the boards to a Single DCC bus for the entire layout. (on photos below its the little 1"x2" PCB with screw connectors on the vertical baseboard bulkheads)

On gort I used my good friend DaveMcCabe'd DCC dropper boards daisy chained to make up a bus. Dave @junctionmad designed these for WMRC little siddington. Dave advocated connecting every piece of track so I used these fab PCBs on Gort which made the wiring so much easier than soldering or crimping droppers to bus wires under the baseboard. Dave was an electronics genius and significant contributor to MERG. 

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Ultimately there's no absolute right nor absolute wrong, do what's right and practical for you. Get the trains running and drive trains.  Enjoy watching your progress, keep up the good work.

1 hour ago, StevieB said:

What Kadees are you using?

Stephen

No 18 NEM

Absolutely magnificent wagons, the best yet from IRM IMHO. Fabulous.  Thank you. It was worth the wait.

Kadee height is perfect and uncoupling works 100%. Nem pocket is slightly shorter than the tongs but a tiny spot of PVA will ensure no horizontal slop.

Can't wait to weather these most unique and iconic of all Irish rolling stock. They had their first run this evening back and forth over point work. 

1 hour ago, iarnrod said:

Just wondering if anyone else is still waiting on these wagons to arrive by courier. Bulleid open wagons which were shipped to me after this order was supposed to be shipped have been received, but these wagons seem to be in a courier black hole somewhere.

Flats and beet wagons arrived yesterday.  FYI, minor annoyance the courier dropped them over the 2'6" wall into the garden and made no attempt to contact us or get a signature, checked the CCTV, he just jumped out of the van, never even rang the bell nor phoned, popped the parcels on the ground over the wall, took a photo of them, then hopped back in his van and drove off. Fortunately the parcels were not pinched by passers by of which there are many on our tourist lane. We were perhaps lucky. Other couriers either ring the bell or phone so at least we know. Anyway the big picture is these are delightful models. Will play with them and drive trains at the weekend. Then once the couplings have been replaced with NEM Kadee's will spend some time weathering them. The Bulleid beet wagons will look especially good on Gort.

Found this today. How time flies, so much has happened since then.

Tony Mirolo, and Anthony Smyth come to mind, both precision geniuses.

On 4/5/2024 at 11:06 AM, TheSeanRailWay said:

Darn it

Lovely attractive livery and paint job but the window and door arrangement was nothing like the Irish 26xx or 27xx class DMUs. The Models lacked precision chassis, DCC lighting and DCC sockets. Respraying Bachmann 150 class more likely to pass the 2ft rule, at least they have a commuter mid door arrangement rather than the 158 these models were based on. That was my personal favourite livery for the DMU biscuit tins of that era.

Best wishes for the move. Understand. I will miss your amazing layout but thank goodness we have a wonderful archive here of your incredibly atmospheric creation. Best wishes for the future. Looking forward to what appears in the years ahead. Your layout has been an inspiration and has always been my favourite layout. Take care.

Hooray, excellent. Great news. Presume these will have standard height NEM pockets?

The two dublin shows with small usually crowded class rooms do not seem conducive to wider open spaces with less congested circulation. But I believe one of the dublin shows might be changing venue to more open space that facilities easier circulation. Personally I found the Wexford venue better from a space/noise perspective, and hospitality seating, etc.

DPD Ireland are by far the worst by our experience, Frequently leaving deliveries outside, too lazy to ring bell and get a signature, their local drivers routinely sign for deliveries that were left on the public road or out in the rain

On 22/4/2024 at 4:03 PM, B141 said:

1. Up to half a dozen fires were found where the loco travelled shortly after it passed as per photo. It’s reasonable to assume that at least some of those fires were caused by the loco – sparks from locos causing fires is a well known phenomenon. If a machine which emits sparks leaves a trail of fires in its wake, then that machine probably caused the fires. It’s also been very hot the last few days, drying lineside brush out. We don’t need a forensic investigation to establish this on the balance of probabilities.

2. H&S gone totally berserk? I’m not sure you read what I wrote. The fires damaged cabling and signalling equipment, as per RTE. Are you seriously suggesting Irish rail should run trains without safety equipment? This incident likely cost tens of thousands of euro.

That photo show lush green grass not brown dry hay, one might be forgiven for thinking that one in the photo was started deliberately given its proximity to the fence and that’s its upwind. Sparkes and cinders don’t blow against the wind. Might sound crazy, but the photo tells a story. I cannot imagine why anybody would light 5 or six small fires using accelerants. Are there any photos of damaged cabling or signalling equipment?