Noel

Hi Graham, Thanks for suggestion. The original TLC coupler was an integrated part of the bogie. I removed it and fitted a NEM no 18 Kadee to the bogie by making up a sandwich of styrene (ie no NEM pocket, not enough space). There is not enough clearance between the bogie and coach underside to fit say a no 141 or 147 draft gear box whisker coupling which suites bogie stock. I'd have to remove a lot of the bogie to give it enough clearance and fitting direct to coach body could lead to unreliable running problems over points, etc, compared to the bogie following changing track direction especially on such excessively long rolling stock (ie 78ft scale length compared to 62ft for 1960s stock). Noel PS: I suppose I could cut the bit of the body under frame box that is attached to the end of the bogie off and glue to coach body underside and then make a recess within that to accommodate either a no 141/147 draft gear box or even a NEM pocket. But rigid direct to a long body could possibly cause running issues. NEM pockets would be ideal as I could then fit Roco close couplings with Keen systems swivel plates, but a lot of work to merely pass the intercity 'duck test'.

Some great pics as ever. Modern Yellow PW stuff not really my cup of tea. Love the pics of Athlone. See the river downstream of the lock is still in flood with the waiting jetty covered. I recognise some of those boats especially Andy's "Ye Iron Lung". The Athlone UDC marina is a great place to spend a few nights during summer on route to the inner lakes for a night or two swinging on the hook. Happy memories of being on trains passing through Athlone and the old MGWR station which seemed vast to a youngster peering out the windows of laminate CIE era B&T coach, watching goods shunting and seeing Sulkers in black livery in the sidings engines ticking over, with the roar of the GM at the head of our train, my head stuck out the window of the door which had leather straps for raising and lowering the door window, wind in your hair and doppler effect from the loco up a head as she sounder her horn at some unsuspecting farmer up the track, or perhaps a crossing keeper.:) Happy memories

The weathering job on that bridge looks spectacular

Hi Noel I will have to check which I put in no 222, it may have been a no 18. Either way the NEM pockets on MM 201 locos are too low and not at the correct height for NEM specs so I had to bend the trip pin up a little to stop the coupling founding point rails and uncoupling magnets. Its easy to adjust using their dual mode trip pin pliers, or to be honest a fair of needle nose pliers would do with a bit of dexterous hand juggling. The Kadee pliers is great for bending the pin down (ie increasing the radius of the bend) in situations where the NEM pockets is marginally too high to the trip pin too high above magnets. I think this is mentioned on my kadee workbench conversion thread where one of the items covered was 201s.

Lots more to be completed on the work bench. Its handy having a few projects on the go at the same time so I can stagger waiting for paint or varnishes to dry will swapping between tasks. Cement Pallet wagons to be finished, timer wagon due some detailing, and 42ft 3D FUD need some paint detailing. Then there is DCC to be fitted to three steam locos (2xWoolwich and 1xJ15). And some unbuilt resin kits to progress. All in good time when the pace suits my energy and interest.

Thanks Noel. Out with the razor saw! If I attempt to respray some more of these myself (eek) I may try and flatten the end profile of the coaches and fitted slightly longer gangways.

Yes there are still deals to be had if one can wait and be patient until they come up from time to time. I suspect once IRMs A class and MMs 121 class locos start delivering later this year, we might see a lot of the popular baby GMs hitting eBay at favourable prices as some folk fund their A class and 121 class acquisitions I was lucky to pick up a few body damaged 141s at good prices last year as donors for C class SF kits. Same with damaged BR Class 20s as donors for future bo-bo sulzers.

Good question especially as I am approaching the limit of layout storage sidings. If it won't fit on the available track I won't buy anymore stock. I can retire some stock to display shelving cases to facilitate long term rotation, but as I don't exhibit, fiddle yards had never figured in my plans, the large terminus station acts as a short of fiddle yard for now. I like the idea of a vertical cassette system for quick exchange of rolling stock. Otherwise I have some home made ply drawers with foam inserts to hold stock, but its all 'big hand in the sky' stuff to move it on and off the layout.

Irish Rail Intercity Mk4 stock arrived on layout Yesterday. Got a few of these resprays from Chris Dyer by post and very happy with them. Kadee couplings replaced the large Hornby plastic ones moulded into the bogies. No NEM pockets on these so a little fettling was required (video clip and thread posted earlier of conversion). OK they are not proper CAFs but very decent resprays of Hornby BR Mk4 coaches which more than admirably pass the 'duck test' for me. My layout my rules as they say. This photo is impossible with 1960s formations in back ground and modern era coach in foreground that is too long to fit inside the tardis so time travel not possible to explain this photo, but It's fun operating the paradox of these two eras side by side. My fellow 1960s B&T club members may sentence me to "rot forever in the bogie of eternal stench" for polluting the layout with such modernity, especially did by side with B141 and B121. The LLP on the layout are quite vexed and put out by the arrival of intercity services, but at least they are loco hauled/pushed and not ICR DMUs (for which the LPP and B&T club might hang draw and quarter me should such boring aliens ever invade the layout).

Next Kadee conversion target were some recent Intercity Mk4 coaches (CAF look-a-likes due livery respray). I decided to convert these coaches to kadee because the supplied Hornby TLCs are massive, visually obtrusive and not suitable for reliable high speed push operations. It was a fairly straight forward involving a little cutting, fettling and superglue in a styrene sandwich. I used Kadee No 18s with the shank cut short and super glued them to the adapted bogie ends using a styrene sandwich. There was no space to either add a NEM pocket, nor easily fit draft gearbox kadees. As these are mainly going to operate as fixed rakes, the visual benefits as well as closer coupling was the key draw of kadees as well as reliable push operations at speed which TLCs are not renowned for. Start by cutting away the large plastic TLC hoop followed by shortening the bogie mount slightly. Then after using the Kadee height gauge I elected to use shortened kadee no 18 NEM couplings by making a styrene sandwich which the shank of the no 18 was super glued into. Test line up bogie with height guage - all good to go so refitted to coach Happy with height. Next were successful test runs both pull and push mode using 222 as the loco.Also tested couplings worked with other locos, and when hooked up to other coaches (eg mk2d and mk3) for storage transfers, etc

Thanks for info. Interesting. Looking at the dominant age demographics at shows and clubs here one suspects it may be similar here in Ireland (ie the non-internet group that are very active in the hobby). 1974 seems to delineate a significant change here in Ireland as bogie and container freight replaced loose coupled pick-up/drop-off goods wagon traffic and mix rake trains often split and marshalled at intermediate stations were replaced by modern era uniform fixed rakes such as mk2, mk3, etc, followed by the demise of loco passenger services in the 00s, which lead to the wholesale destruction of former railway metropolises such as Waterford and Claremorris, etc. As you know I'm a CIE 1960s B&T era guy for both nostalgia reasons and the shunting operations such era's stock requires, yet I have recently leapt 60 years forward to build a mk4 set to run because of recent nostalgia travelling on same. Prior to that anything post 1975 seemed boring to operate and too modern. Paradox - square that with running green 2222 below Very happy to have these coaches so my 222 finally has some suitable rolling stock to haul. Now I have to decided if I should complete the rake by attempting resprays myself of more Hornby mk4 donors, or buy a few more from Chris's mail order service? Not sure I could match the quality of these resprays, especially the lining. Whoever did it for Chris did a superb precision job. All I did today was convert the bogies from the horrible large Hornby tension lock couplings (TLCs) to Kadees with a little fettling, styrene and superglue, took about 20mins to do the four bogies. Murphy's law (the other one) and just my luck that if I do resprays myself or buy a few more, IRM could announce proper CAF Mk4 sets! Now I'm exploring possible RTR donors for CAF Mk4 DVT 4xxx series conversion. PS: Kadees may prove essential for reliable push operation running once I kit bash a DVT.

Looks great for Irish country stations and yards any links?

Yes strong sale prices, but that’s what these seem to be fetching these days. MM/Bachmann’s most successful Irish model ever. Hope one day Bachmann team up again with MM to do a rerun of these locos. I feel fortunate to have collected a stable of these 141/181s off eBay over the past four years or so at much lower prices. I think the highest price I had to pay was €120, and got some for €80 mark. The orange ones seem to sell at lower prices especially the less popular plug’n’sicket livery.

Yes don’t please give up on the 60s and 70s

Absolutely stunning Eoin. Top class. The home this coach is destained for will be a very happy camper.

Some closer photos albeit in poor lightning. These are in fact Hornby Mk4 resprays. Done by one of the top masters formerly of this parish methinks. With AS's announcement big over on RMWeb today about their BR Mk5 sets there may be hope an Irish Mk4 set complete with DVT could one day be a possibility to pair up with the green MM 201s. By way of comparison

Any rough idea of when the IRM lineup may be announced? (There is no snow forecast this March) You guys are really getting your teeth successfully sunk into the UK market and rapidly building a reputation for excellence.

Cheers Leslie, thanks, I might try a consist of B&T B121 and B141 hauling these for fun just to cause brain freeze amongst friend visitors to running sessions. Not sure who did the super resprays for Chris but it must have been somebody like Anthony or David because its a really class precise job. The donors were Hornby coaches. The boxes said hornby Mk3's but I'm not sure which TBH.

At least 222 now has something better to haul other than orange Mk2d stock. Picked these up from Chris Dyer, they are Hornby mk3 resprays. Ok they are not exactly like the CAF mk4 coaches used by IR but they more than pass the duck test for me for now, at least until IRM Produce a proper set. Nice resprays though and I was particularly impressed with the thin black lining. The coach ends lack the flat profile of the CAFs Ps. Yes I know such modern image coaches seem an abomination side by side with my CIE golden era B&T stock but I have a soft spot for them due to my regulare use of the Cork train, especially because it is not a noisy ICR yo-yo roller skate.

Fine example of a pristine box. Enjoy

To ice the cake, Believe it or not BOD was on board returning from TV work covering 6N (Eng v Fra).

Actually just about to board the Irish Rugby livery A320

Spot on. There is a great feeling of your coming home sooner than you thought when you see that big green bird and welcoming shamrock at say JFK

Not so sure. Brand advertising kind of works, otherwise Google and Facebook might not exist Like it or not marketing works and we are all susceptible to it if even subliminally. It is relatively easy to accidentally damage a brand identity and cause customer confusion. If it didn't work O'Leary might sell advertising on the side of his planes, imagine, DAZ, OMO, Vodafone logos on the side of planes like buses. Look at the effort IRM/AS have put into their quality packaging and brand graphic design.

Park at a stand.