Noel

Just back from a visit to the Casino. Very impressed with the whole setup. It is a wonderful museum honouring and displaying the incredible Fry collection. The museum exhibits are displayed and organised IMHO way better than the former at Malahide castle. The layout too is superb, perhaps less visual activity to entertain then the old castle layout which was a visual and audible assault on the senses. But from a railway modelling point of view absolutely stunning. Perhaps not as much movement to for general public but it was nice to see children run around the layout following the odd train espcially as they disappeared and reappeared. Bray head is stunning and one thing in particular caught my attention and that was the sublimely realistically modelled wave crests near the beach on Malahide section of the layout. Well one baseboard dave.

Thanks David, I won't be flying anywhere anytime soon.

You should see the 3D printed working signals on Little Siddington. Fully signalled including ground signals which are all lit. Will try and post some pics later unless @enniscorthyman has some.

Nuts. Like met alerts

Excellent results. Amazing detail underneath for brass. I rarely look at anything below the sole bar but these look superb

Awe people really need to get a grip. The risk of Covid-19 is an economic risk not a risk to life statistically. The risk of death is less than 0.0001% of the global population. Some data attached below to give some sense of perspective. The mass hysteria is ridiculous, folks afraid to go to work, kids being kept home from schools with no connection with infected people, its all totally bonkers. People need to get a grip. Look at the raw data below. Ok the data is about a week old, but only 3100 fatalities worldwide and there are only 90,000 cases. Think how many people will die on roads this week, how many will die of ordinary Irish heart disease, alcohol related illness, commoner Irish winter flu, how many children died of starvation since you started reading this post? Perspective. Media hysteria is winding up nervous gullible types.

Not sure I understand what you mean by 'isolate the seep point area from the Cobalt points'. Neither point motors are wired to the track used for loco traction. Seep or Cobalt will have their own independent power supply, the Seeps 16vac probably via a CDU, the Cobalts via a regulated power supply (12-18v DC). The collection of Seeps will have their own wiring and power supply as will the cobalts. Do NOT used the CDU with the cobalts. You will be able to use the same type of switches but independently wired.

Clever yet so simple

We found this very nice print rolled up in our garden this afternoon. No idea how it got there or where it came from. Carefully dried it out. Manna from heaven. Its quite large too.

Very unlikely. Are the contacts on the wheel pickups clean? Make sure the blanking plate is plugged in the correct orientation. If I was trying to fault find, the first thing I'd do very very carefully is put the loco on a work bench and supply power directly to the motor using micro croc leads to see if the motor was running ok. Then I'd work back from there and check for any loose connections between motor, the PCB and the PCB and the wheel pickups. The MM071 chassis are very fussy to disassemble and one thing out of place and they won't run. Those blanking plates are almost indestructible. Are you able to run another DC loco on the same section of track work with the same 12v DC controller?

Ian could you please gives us a little more info. was the loco running ok on DC or DCC? Is the item in the photo the DCC blanking pub that plugs into the locos main PCB? and why do you think it needs replacing? Would not recommend wiring decoder directly to a Murphy Model loco. The onboard PCB has all the logic for controlling the lights, etc, which you'd lose. Are any of the pins sticking up from the 21pin plug on the main PCB bent? If there is no apparent damage to the main PCB on top of the loco chassis all you need to do is install a 21pin decoder and test it as ADDRESS 3 until you re-program the loco address. Would you prefer to run the loco on DC or DCC?

Possibly but you get the drift. Not good if one is unlucky enough to be one of the 0.0001%, but ok for the 99.999%

Just back from 370km run from Kenmare on a single charge. Took the same amount of time as the diesel used to. Brings new meaning to the concept of DCC keep alive Don't believe all the bull in the media about EVs. Big oil is just fighting back. DCC will never catch on Talking of kenmare its a pity the rail link is long gone. The town was largely built around the original rail link for travellers from London.

Statistically the risk is low, to date 2700 fatalities mostly elderly or with pre-existing medical conditions out of 90,000 (<3%) cases out of a global population of 7,700,000,000 rounds mathematically to a risk of almost 0% here. I understand from WHO and HSE advise the virus can only survive for 9 days on infected surfaces and cannot be transmitted or carried by product packaging that may have been handled by infected persons, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. It seems the main risk of Covid-19 is to the global economy due supply chain disruption rather than health that may cause a short term recession. Analysts expect markets to rebound fairly quickly afterwards. Airline & travel stocks badly affected, ironically this slowing down of air travel in 2020 could help the likes of Boeing survive the 737-Max debacle that threatens to bring down the iconic company that brought us the 707, 727, 737, 747,777 and 787. Airbus will be making hay.

You went for ten ferts!

Watched a sea plane land on Lough Derg years ago, taxi up onto the beech at Dromineer, kids from the beech flocking fowards it to get a closer look, full power to get her up the beech incline before turning her 180 degrees throwing sand and pebbles at speed into the faces of about 100 curious on lookers standing 5-10m behind him. One teen nearly had the head taken off them by the overhead prop as she swung briskly around to face towards the water again. No crowd control on the ground beforehand, but nobody was inured, those were the days life was let run its course. Now days with H&S the shade of yellow on hi-vis jackets of the crowd would be tested for correct ISO colour before the aircraft was even given permission to taxi.

Ironically Hornby Dublo had reasonably fine scale wheels, it was the later Tri-ang Hornby era stuff that had the Pizza cutter wheels and Rovex stuff. I have an old Tri-Ang Hornby BR class 37 that cannot even get through code 100 points without grounding. Mid 1970s Lima were a little better but border line pizza cutters also. Any stock since the mid to early 90s should run on code 75 without issue. Yes it was the lack of points that stopped me using Bull head for gort.

Code 100 ballasted Pic Below Code 100 taken about 6 years ago. Flexitrack code 100 or 75 allows flowing track work and gentle curves. Like Leslie and many I started live with code 100, but for future use will be using code 75 due to the lower profile which helps disguise the gauge somewhat. In the prototypical world there is very little straight track work unlike the geometry imposed by train set systems with long straights and 90 degree bends.

Correct. 21mm true scale is impractical for most not alone because of the tedious need to make hand built track, but also because there are no RTR models for 21mm, only models that you convert yourself or commission an expert to do it yourself. Later generation IRM wagons (Tara, Ferts, 42ft) are convertible to 21mm relatively easily, but converting Murphy Model coaches and locos requires skill and significant effort, and some specialised tools, not to mention existing kits and other RTR stock such as Bachmann, Hornby (ie for resprays, kit bashed, etc). I've seen it done and it looks fabulous, but then you'll have rolling stock that you cannot run on club layouts nor other folks layouts as they more than likely 16.5mm. Converting stock to 21mm requires real precision or you can have constant derailments. 21mm may also require larger radius curves (eg 3ft). Peco code 75 if ballasted nicely and weathered can greatly help alleviate the narrow gauge look of 16.5mm track, and can look quit well. We all probably started with train set track systems like Hornby setrack or Peco code 100 setrack. These I recommend avoiding as the points are not great and imposed rather unrealistic geometric track formations instead of gently flowing track work with scale gaps in parallel tracks like the real thing. Some of us migrated from toy train setrack systems to Peco code 100 flexitrack or Peco code 75 flexitrack which allowed reasonably prototypical track formations. The right one is the one you are able to lay and the one you like.

Agree with that. Using code 75 for the new layout.

Suggest avoid setrack from either Hornby or Peco. Gaps between tracks looks unrealistic and curves can be unrealistically sharp. Recommend Peco code 75 or code 100 and flexitrack for gentler curves. Code 75 seems the 'goto' choice for most modellers

That was one heck of a hairy manoeuvre in a trail dragger (ie taking off with left gear drag in the water). One slight extra wavelet and she could have have cartwheeled left due asymmetric UC drag. Those were the days, H&S free, folks standing on the beech in front of the aircraft, no eye protection for the sand.

Stunning architectural modelling.

Interesting. The Lima BR Class 33s painted as CIE 215 Supertrain livery A classes were mid to late 1970s as were the BR Mk1 painted CIE Black'n'Tan

Wow that's a revelation to me too. Lima N gauge Irish. Good find.