Noel

Superb on every level. Love this layout.

Yes. 1984 photo (C) Steve Rabone. As I remembered the Park Royals, I never saw them in Tippex myself. https://www.steverabone.com/RailwayPhotographs/ireland_1984.htm Have four of these with Kadee couplings. They will be joined by IRM versions. Two of these, two craven, two laminates and a HLV or GSV and you have an Irish passenger train from the 1960s through to the 1980s. Always mixed rakes of 'all kinds of everything'. Delighted to hear the IRM versions will be lit and have an anti-flicker capacitor. My personal nostalgia memory is main line versions with the big white WC window. Great news this era will be covered and some company for the early livery A classes too.

Yea potatoe patayto transit transport. Many journo's and researchers seem to only spend 90 seconds on google to research anything instead of speaking with qualified sources. Wiki is taken as gospel truth.

Park royals yehaw!

No the announcement about the Park Royal was well received and a welcome addition, at last some coaches for the silver, black, green and B&T livery A class to haul. The 3D sample looked great.

Honoured to be exhibiting Gort at Wexford Model Railway exhibition over the weekend. Arrived at 6:30, superb organisation at the venue. Unloaded and setup in one hour thanks to help from my glamourous soul mate and the organisers. Excellent venue. Looking forward to the next few days.left the signals in the car. Will put them up tomorrow.

Measure twice cut once was the best bit of advice I ever got. Best wishes on what sounds like a fascinating project. Enjoy it and don't rush it.

Loaded into trailer. Gort ready for her first public outing, ready for trip down to wexford tonight.

Yea understood that. Hope the growing business doesn't consume so much of your head space that you don't get to enjoy the hobby personally yourself as much you did in the past. Hope you are really enjoying this remarkable odyssey. Doing business in brexitistan must be challenging at times. US market beckons

The stock will fly off the shelves, one generates demand for the other. The A classes perhaps need suitable coach stock to haul, the supply of MM locos is long exhausted and folks are wising up not to pay big money on ebay anymore. The Lima 201 ebay horror story is still in memories. The Baby GMs are ideal for today's layout sizes in folks homes, and on larger layouts can be double headed as they mostly ran in pairs. When I returned to this hobby 9 years ago I would not have dreamed the abundance of Irish rolling stock that would and now has become available thanks to MM, MIR, IFM, PW, SF and now IRM taking on the baton with an ever increasing range. Hopefully AS won't absorb all the creative juices and energy. The A class was a massive major milestone, the 22k the next. Where will it all end Ted? We have never had it so good, only slight cloud for Irish modellers is the loss of cost effective access to GB suppliers thanks to brexit. Its no longer cost effective to order some parts from the likes of Peters Spares, and Eileen's emporium is closed anyway. Finding German substitute suppliers takes time and they are geared up more to support the higher spec European products who have been decades ahead of Bachmann and Hornby. It's astonishing that a relatively new Irish Company has taken the GB market by storm, raising the bar and having sales success. Superior German/Swiss levels of model engineering but at GB prices.

Thank you. Will look forward to that. Now a newly tooled GM 141 with stay-alive, a speaker, decoder hatch, proper light arrangements, see through grills and working windscreen wipers and I'll fall of my perch!!!! Or, Park Royals with lighting, flush corridor connectors and opening doors. Or the holy grail!

How to fix Kadee no 18 couplings on an IRM Cement wagon. Same method applies to the Ballast, Gypsom, and magnesite wagons. Glue No 18 kadee to the underside of the NEM pockets. Gently sand or file the underside of the NEM pockets (ie to get good glue bond later). On one you will need to file away the IRM logo which is in relief to make the surface flat enough to get a super glue bond. Gently file the tongs of the Kadee coupling (ie to rough surface for better bond). Superglue the Tongs of the Kadee coupling to the underside of the NEM pockets and leave for 10-20mins before use to allow bond to cure hard. Ensure the flat inside of the knuckle coupling is level with the external edges of the buffers. Gluing the Kadee's to the underside of the NEM pocket ensures perfect and correct height of the coupling as per kadee height guage and all other IRM wagons. The wagons can then be automatically uncoupled using kadee uncoupling magnets and interoperate with other wagons and stock (eg IRM 40ft, MIR Cement Pallet wagons, MIR Cement Curtain wagons, Bachmann H-Vans, Dapol H-Vans, etc). Another benefit is the wagons are coupled closer together. Be careful handling these gorgeous wagons, they are very fragile as there are so many details parts fitted to the underside.

Apologies but a little disappointed - a bus. No choo-choos? Still holding out hope for a park royal or laminate to IRM's stratospheric standards.

Goods yard. Supplies ready for loading onto wagons ready for the 18:35 passing pick up goods train to Ennis. There'll be one wagon of cattle loaded here also. Yard crane handy for loading the larger boxes into the corrugated open wagons.

Some CIE era trains on the move. How on earth will I get enough poetic license to run 22k along side these? May need a Tardis.

I must have been lucky with Hattons this past 18 months. No Delay's no glitches, no additional duty nor vat to be paid. Their DDP (ie Delivery Duty Paid) seemed to work like clock work. Because of DDP Hattons is the only UK retailer I still use. Everything else has been direct with German online retailers in the Eurozone so no hasssle.

That country side is so evocative and so like Co Galway the wonderful goods train above from Du”Gort” harbour could be on route to pass through Gort ending up in Claremorris.

Drool, I nearly fell off my perch looking at those wonderfully crafted scenes. Stunning in the extreme, atmosphere, reality and nostalgia for the pinnacle of a bygone era.

Got two items lightly weathered this evening for use on Gort SilverFox Tin Van - Not quite as grubby as JHB might like, but enough perhaps to get the idea. Irish Freight Models - CIE Laminate Coach. This is grubber than they would have ever looked. Back in the day CIE kept the black and tan coaches pretty clean, unlike IR in the 1990s who let the mk2 and mk3 stock go to pot as well as the few remaining B&T coaches. Ready for Wexford, well ready enough.

Just keep doing what you’ve been doing it’s superbly effective. Foam sheets, pva, plaster bandage, hot wire cutter, static grass and javis fine granite ballast (N gauge), sculptamold, and imagination inspired by reality.

I bought a Chinese static grass applicator a few years ago on eBay for €24. Worked as well as the Noch for 1/5th of the cost. Btw Dugort harbour scenery is stunningly Irish and realistic

Ah great you sourced the horse truck (ie Lorry)

Cheers watched it. Ultimately if Ireland upgraded Cork line to a high speed (eg TGV, ICE), by continental standards Cork should be 90mins away by rail. Great to hear diesel is going to be phased out in the not too distant future and replaced by electric trains. Enjoyed tonights programme, can be watched back on RTE Player for anybody who missed it live.