Noel

1 hour ago, NIRCLASS80 said:

The Mk1 GSV would sell well considering all those cold Murphy Cravens on many layouts. 

Mk1 GSV might sell in CIE single strip B&T livery and IE/IR dual strike tippex livery as a GSV, but I cannot see any significant volume selling in yellow PW livery as a weed spray control coach.  I never understood the interest in PW stuff like weed spray train, and auto ballasters, etc. Railways were primarily to move people or goods. PW kit may be of eclectic interest for those with an interest with engineering vehicles, I don’t understand why but yellow stuff never blew my skirt up, nor does the contents of our broom cupboard, unseen yet functional.

Given the silver fox model is not bad, and most folk already have a few to go with their MM Craven stock and laminates from multiple sources (brass kits, overlays, JMD, WW, SF and IFM), it’s difficult to see how the demand numbers might make a high quality RTR model viable economically, compared to stock that could sell for rakes like mk3, mk4, laminates, etc. But by now IRM know their numbers and customer base we’ll and anything might be possible. 

Absolutely Eoin'esque model engineering.  Stunning outcome. Agree it is the best brass work I have ever seen. Not an air gap, warp nor bend, nor a solder blob in sight. Stunningly precise and ultra neat work in a difficult medium. The home that coach is going to is going to be a very lucky bunny to have such a master piece and also one of Eoin's pieces of art. Looking forward to the painted end result although it almost seems a shame to paint it.

4 hours ago, Mayner said:

Going by their track record Kader would be likely to acquire the Hornby if the business goes bust. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_Electric_Trains

Kader would probably drop the Bachmann brand name in the UK and market its British outline models as Hornby.

That could be bad for competition. I’d equally hate to see Bachmann Branchline disappear as a channel in the UK. When Hornby took over Lima the Lima rubbish merged into the Hornby catalog and it was difficult to avoid accidentally buying former poor quality product from the junk range Lima had. 

121 delivery livery 1962 Grey and Yellow with flying snail logo. Black and white photo but colour below.

The A has seen better days

Gorgeous looking wagon and impressive CAD images. Unfortunately I won't have need of same, just not really my era. I will however scumb to a pair of 42 ft container flats for Bells, just to collect another sample of IRMs uniquely Irish output, but alas yellow does not fit in on Kingsbridge. I am building a display case for Irish stock I may collect but not run on the layout.

2 minutes ago, Warbonnet said:

Their Royal Scot and Patriot are nice. Not had a new coronation yet so dont know how good they are. Always liked the panniers and some of the bigger GWR tanks but all those 460s they made all looked exactly the same to me  I have to say! 

I still have a die-cast metal Hornby Dublo GWR "Cardiff Castle" 4-6-0 with the original chassis mounted longitudinal ring field motor as opposed to the utter plastic junk they used in tender motor 20 years ago. Worst design decision they ever made was the switch to tender motors. Glad to see they've moved back to chassis motors.

8 minutes ago, Warbonnet said:

Hornby are still top dog by some way. I would recommend an A4 or Britannia if you want to see what they can do. They've come a long long way since the move to China. 

Cheers,

Fran

An LMS patriot class would be more my cup of tea or a black 5 than those massive mainline express pax locos. A4s never tickled my fancy. Soft spot for GWR Castle class or the best loco ever made GWY 57xx Pannier tank.  

Do Bachmann not have a larger market share in the BR outline market? I must try buying one of the newer Hornby steam locos to see if they improved, especially in the chassis stakes where they used to be poor.

Started working through converting my Bachmann oil wagons. These were easy to convert, just a straight plug'n'play swap out of the TLCs and plug in no 18 Kadee into the NEM pocket that was at the correct height. I have found Bachmann and Dapol wagons the most reliable as regards correct height NEM pockets which is essential if uncoupling is to work reliably. I didn't have to bend any trip pins. The Dapol wagon NEM pockets can droop a little and may need screw tightening to remove sloppy play.  I have found coaches from all manufacturers the worst offenders  as regards incorrectly positioned NEM pockets, or no NEM pockets at all.  All MM coaches required tweaking or minor surgery of some kind to fit kadee couplings at the correct height for automatic uncoupling and interoperability with other kadee fitted stock. Easy to do and worth the hassle.  Hopefully within another few months all of my layout stock will have been converted to kadee couplings which will allow me to mix and marshall any combination of wagons from any vendor.

@WaYSidE FYI, 121 locos changed the course of Irish railway history. In the 1950s CIE had originally ordered 94 metropolitan vickers (60 x 001/A + 34 x 201/C class) locos to replace the steam fleet which where in effect failures as they were underpowered and proved unreliable. The fifteen US manufactured GM 121 class locos effectively caused CIE to switch from UK manufactured diesels to the reliable US diesels. The little 121s were switchers (ie shunnters in vast US yards), hence only one cab, so when CIE went to order more locos (ie the 141 class) they requested a second cab be added (ie so turn tables would not be needed as crews did not like running bonnet first). The 141 was essentially the same loco as the 121. The later 181 being a more powerful variant with the EMD 645 engine. The A/C class Metrovics were later re-engined with GM EMD motors becoming more powerful and more reliable unlike the original A class crossley powered heaps. Thus the A classes ended up having useful service lifes in the end right up to the mid 90s. CIE continued with GM when the 071 came along and finally the 201 classes, but it all started with that first order for fifteen 121 class locos.

3 hours ago, WaYSidE said:

is the 121 loco in video in a livery ? it looks so unpainted,

jes i know nothing bout dem trains

It is in the original grey and yellow livery, just looks silver because it is dirty and weathered.

The end result is fabulous. Great improvements. I love the atmospheric yet subtle weathering effects. Enjoy. 

On 3/7/2019 at 3:01 PM, Railer said:

The RPSI have requested and confirmed for 134 to be painted in as delivered livery. 

Brilliant that’s good news. It was an iconic livery which some 121s managed to hang on to for quite a few years in the glorious Black’n’tan era. I remember travelling to Galway  behind a grey 121, departing Amiens street or Westland row via old route Mullingar, moate, Athlone, etc.  Some excellent nostalgic YouTubes of that livery running on southern routes. In those days pax trains often had a mix of the silver coaches with some flying snail green coaches and early  B&T single stripe coaches. Great for modelling variety  

3 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

Actually, that's a point.

Post-Brexit, the solitary 5'3" gauge preserved railway on this island will potentially find it prohibitively awkward and / or expensive to rescue something from the "other side of the border" - i.e. where most of the railways and railway vehicles on this island are situated!

The RPSI might run into extra expense or paperwork if they want to move stock, for example a Dublin-domiciled vehicle to Whitehead for major repair, or vice versa....

Thanks, Arlene & Boris.

The tiny gangway just goes to show how short people may effect border rail traffic. Little people will find it easier to be smuggled (non political humour). On a serious note LPPs May become more expensive to import from UK located model shops, but they could perhaps be easily smuggled seated within model coach resprays. Tara junction may see an increase in model RPSI services in order to ensure Noel retains enough LPP actors for his Tara junction railway life studio productions.  

1 hour ago, popeye said:

Toys are for children. 

I confess. I am a middle aged big child! And my inner child loves messing around with electric model toys.

37 minutes ago, Rob said:

I look forward to seeing the DVT, so rare!

Cheers. Its been staring back at me all week looking for attention. But It'll have to wait a few days yet till I'm strong enough to use a razor saw, files and a scalpel. 

Oh yummy 

15 minutes ago, StevieB said:

Just watched it on catch-up, absolutely fascinating and full of how not to do things with the benefit of hindsight.

Stephen

The toys, v modellers dilemma saga was interesting. Thomas saved not just Hornby but the whole uk market 20 years ago. Good to see they got their man back. The IRM guys must have watched with interest looking into their future through a crystal ball.  For childhood nostalgia reasons I have an emotional attachment and subliminal loyalty to Hornby through my childhood exposure to Hornby-Dublo, then Triang-Hornby and finally Hornby Railways, but their scale quality nose dived after Double and they got left behind in the 80s and 90s when Bachmann started raising the bar and producing much more desirable locos and rolling stock. Hornby still had that table top layout appeal, but the locos were very crude compared to Bachmann then. They seem to have caught up again. I'd hate to see them go under, especially Airfix.  Half the countries engineers and industrial product designers got the bug from building airfix kits, working with meccano and horny trains. I call a spade a spade, my models are toys, and in our house everybody calls them Dad's toy train set. Trying to dress it up as something else or more high fluting by calling it 'railway modelling' seems a little odd!  I play by making and driving my toy trains, and happy as a bunny when doing so, call it modelling, or play I care not. 

PS: I found the two month build of the airfix plane fascinating. Unpaid, his eyes must have been ruined by the end of it not to mention his stress levels.

As James May often points out there were a lot of 'friendly men with beards' in both programmes.  

I hope RPSI go for the IR points logo rather than the weird IE 3 pin plug logo on the restored 134 assuming it will retain an orange livery, or even CIE broke wheel on B134 if reliveried into B&T.

BTW, I don't see any space inside that loco for a speaker cradle, be nice if it made some noise.  But the buffer beam detailing bits seem just as good as on the MM models.

Perhaps they might be at some big event in the UK, a lot going on there for IRM/AS. Or busy test running a 22k prototype numbered 22666.

Looks like a modified airport tug 

REMINDER SOON 1- mins

BBC 4 @ 21.00
James May’s programme about Hornby’s problems.

1 hour ago, jhb171achill said:

I think the grey/yellow and black’n’tan are coming first, with “supertrain”, “tippex” and “3-pin plug” liveries later.

As mentioned above, a couple of number alternatives for each livery is what I heard.

Perfect for 1960s horray!    

30 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

Clearly, the Brexit nonsense is going to impact on price in no matter what scenario things are priced or sold.....

Certainly I can guarantee brexit will be used as an excuse by service providers and suppliers in an attempt to explain delays, price increases, product issues, the weather, the price of store heifers in Mullingar mart, over cooked food in restaurants. Wait for it

2 minutes ago, irishthump said:

Paddy Murphy for president!

Wonderful news! Thankfully I'll only be needing a couple of these so my wallet wont take too much of a hammering...

Will MM be producing a sound decoder for the 121?

WheeltappersDCCsound already have a sound decoder for 121 (ie LokSound V4) and are working on an updated LokSound V5 chip. I have the wheeltappers one and very happy with it.