Noel

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

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.

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

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

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.

Perfect for 1960s horray!

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

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.

Very nice indeed. Presume they were painted white especially the roofs to reduce heating effect from sunlight. Must have been a warmer country back then.

Thanks but as they say in Panto “oh yes I will”, absolutely nothing compares to a finescale Murphy Model GM diesel loco, and it’s impossible to build or kitbash anything in any medium remotely as good. Perhaps I’ll need a few less alright, but I cannot wait to pair a B&T MM 121 with my own B121 or nose to nose with the others. The IE tippex livery is extermly difficult to do well with any precision so I’m releived an MM IE Tippex livery 121 will be joining the fleet this summer. A few weeks delay is no problem, grateful to have some concret news at last. I’m sure these will have been worth the wait, and the best yet from Wexford Street. @WRENNEIRE Dave any rough indication of pricing range, or information on livery / running number combinations that will be available.

Thsose look fabulous, every conceivable detail accounted for. Love the grab rail detail as per the early variants. This will the jewel in MMs crown. Mid summer, these will be worth the worth wait from the this venerable stable. Thanks for the information. like the way the coupling has been mounted in the valance and not on the bogie via a large hole A pair of B&Ts, delivery Grey’n’yellow/Gold, super train and one tippex at least, that’s five hopefully.

I see an abundant supply of MM Baby GMs are now available on FleeBay but at astonishingly exorbitant prices. Practically every model number is up there at the moment. Nearly all from the same seller.

Oh thats an impressive baseboard. Strong as an Ox for N and yet weights nothing. There's always more than one good way of peeling an orange! PS. Sealing the plywood with a good sealer/primer coat of paint IMHO can do more to aid moisture resistance and warp stability than anything else, especially the underside of the boards as well as the topside.

Thanks for update Fran, and just when might the liners be expected? Noel

Yes on reflection I wish I had used resin instead of PVA but when I saw how 'Little Siddintons' large O gauge baseboards had survived so much movement, erection and disassembly, in and out of transit vans I suspect the PVA/Tape mix will suffice. Gort only has two 5x2ft boards so should avoid being subjected to too much wear and tear and will fit in the back of my car. On Kingsbridge the ply is glued and screwed to the structural frame for added strength and I can walk on the boards it is so strong and stable. Yes PVA doesn't take that long to dry when laminating so while I've had some success with the hot glue gun i'm not a passionate evangelist for it, there are other methods that work just as well and don't take that much extra time. An advantage of smaller base boards is being able to work on them upside down, or on their sides, whereas on Kingsbridge I have to crawl around under the boards to do wiring and stuff.

Stunning Gerry. Love the brick work, blended colour tones, track ballasting, the patches of grass growth, and especially the storage tanks.

Yes I can attest to that but wow keep your fingers away from the blasted glue for a few mins after application - wear gloves. I got a nasty burn putting these together. Which only took about 15 minutes per board. Hot glue gun is great though. All my other boards from years ago were glued and screwed (PVA). Then glass fibre/PVA Tape the joints and seal with paint for moisture stability easy of adding scenery later, etc

Next up when I'm strong enough to tackle it. Convert this £17 eBay DT into something vaguely resembling a CAF Mk4 DVT with the 'duck face' to work between these Tony Mirolo resprays below and 222. The razor saw, scalpel and files will be busy. But I like working with plastic. Getting the 'duck face' and 'humpback whale' look will be challenging. The re-painting will be the less awkward pit.

Yes indeed an expensive year ahead for modellers with both the IRM/AS A class and MM 121 locos arriving in 2019 (not to mention the Deltic). All drinking from the same limited well. But what a wonderful complaint to have. We've never had it so good with high quality Irish scale models. Happy days having the nice problem of balancing 121s with A's. I guess I will choose more A's than 121s as 121 weren't as populous hauling trains as the other GM locos and especially the A's which dominated the 60s and 70s until the 071s took over much of their duties. Right up my era.