Noel

Yes I remember when Aer Lingus were near retiring the 747 fleet in the late 80s and early 90s, two of those ended up with all white fuselages so when wet leased to other airlines out of season, they could quickly and cheaply apply their own logo above the windows. IMHO it is a big mistake, BA tried something similar in the late 1980s when Maggie Thacther at the opening shouted on camera how bad they looked and had lost the famous BA identity, and on camera she took handkerchiefs out of her hand bag and covered the offending colour scheme on models at the launch. I suspect this livery will be short lived. Aer Lingus brand has been one of iconic schemes of the last century and stand out a mile at crowded international airports, and instantly recognisable in the air at low level. Big mistake IMHO but they will discover that themselves as did BA. It should save a bundle on maintenance costs.

Agree, its pretty awful. Some people are just born with a natural talent for branding and marketing, others are not. Similarly unjoined up thinking to the uncreative process that came up with the disastrous original 201 class IE orange, black, yellow livery. At least the Rotem yo-yos have a nice crisp, noticeable and striking livery. I'd guess the new aircraft livery is more a cost saving exercise for savings on aircraft maintenance and purchase price. Every time a panel or window is replaced with the current livery requires painting, all white makes this quicker and simpler. Pre-painted panels can be afixed. Costs cost, costs, but at the cost of a bland unmemorable livery from a marketing perspective.

No very true TG, but uploading photos, videos and cloud backup now all become easy and possible, it was torture beforehand. As I said the benefit of such infrastructure may not become fully apparent for another decade. To be honest for most family households 20-30mb download and 6mb upload would suffice (ie kids on Netflix, youtube, BBC iPlayer, other TV companies media players, etc, mum&dad email and web browsing.

Very good JHB. To be honest had we been able to get 14mb down and 2mb up wI'd have been more than happy for our needs. This insanely fast and its main advantage will probably not be realised for another decade. All TV will eventually move to internet with terrestrial and satellite broadcast ceasing. In the future there may be more HD and 4k content over IP. A nice little side effect of this is we have been able to cancel our Sky Sports package saving quite a few bob, because we now can watch Rugby on Eir Sports 1 & 2 and BT Sports 1,2,3 Free (ie Pro14 + Heineken Cup). Cloud backups of our Macs is now feasible. Yes all the techno babble sounds gobbledygook and the marketing cliches annoying, but the main thing is its fast, fast enough for TV, work, cloud backup, Photographers and videographers. The old 3mb DSL could not cope. They started digging up the rural roads out this way about 4 months ago, but finally got switched on this week. Its not something I expect we will need to consider again for the next 10-15 years, hopefully longer. You may see some more youtube model clips from this direction. Before I had to put mobile phone upstairs in the hot press, and hotspot a Mac off it to get enough upload speed over 4G to upload a youtube clip of models running.

Brilliant

Flintstones to 21st century. We had endured Flintstone era 3mb DSL broadband for years but we finally managed to upgrade to EIR 1tb eFiber. Happy days. The main speed benefit was for cloud backups of our Macs and upload speeds (ie for DSLR photos and video, etc), which were so slow with DSL we just never bothered before as it was unusable for such purpose. Also no more family netflix congestion. Before the upgrade we only had 384k upload, now its 200mb up.

Cheers, Have two of them but they have TLCs rather than the italian couplings on the earlier variants. The Lima's class 33s were pretty hideous locos, but better than the Jeouf junk of the same period. I feel confident that if I challenged another modeller to a loco speed drag race one of my Lima 215s would win by a large margin, they are insanely fast, and start off at a scale speed over 40mph. As BR class 33s models they were supposed to look like A classes after the dab of orange and black paint. Mine both sound like tractors and that's without a sound chip. Still in 1976 they seemed like the bees knees and the cats knickers cause they were vaguely CIE

I was all set to attack the layout today with track laying, etc, BUT sense prevailed and I decided a delay was necessary to seal and paint the undersides of the base boards. Less haste now could save more time in the future. I'm usually itching to get some track down and trains running. This will make them more moisture resistant, more stable and therefore less prone to warping over extended periods of time help seal the glass fibre tape bonds a little more where there had been any dry patches from the PVA. provid a sealed underside surface for using double sided tape, etc, to help align point motors, and glue cable ties to the underside of the baseboards, etc.

Hi Tony, Really saddened to hear that. Please don't lose heart. You had been making great progress. This is your hobby, your layout, your own timescale, exclusively for your own enjoyment so don't even think or worry about 'promises' or plans expressed to others. You should not feel any pressure in anyway whatsoever to please folk on an internet forum, nor conform to perceived expectations, nor seek affirmation from other modellers. It's 100% your hobby so enjoy as you please and don't worry about 3rd parties looking on. Sometimes any of us can feel self imposed pressure to get things done, and that can just take away from the simple joy of participating in the hobby. It's not a performance, its the joy of enjoying modelling stuff that interests you at a pace you enjoy and find relaxing. Best wishes for the future. Noel

Great find. A Brilliant pic indeed, a train correctly punctuated by a proper brake van.

Hi Jack. The video player is not working. Cheers. Noel PS: intrigued what the 'foreign beasts' might be

Gort update. Baseboards completed, trestle mounts in place, ready to transpose track layout from grease proof paper on to painted baseboard surface ready for closed cell foam track bed cutting. I elected to use common 'saw horses' as baseboard trestles as they are light, fold flat and saved me a lot of effort making them from 2x1 timber. Believe it or not the came from Amazon UK with free post and arrived 48hrs after ordered. Now everything is ready to get going proper. Baseboards now stable on trestles ready for next phases of work to proceed Trestle tops fit snugly into grooves under plywood baseboards. Each baseboard is 5ftx2ft and made out of ply using WMRC system, Gort track plan. Designed to function end to end as a shunting layout but with the future option of adding a roundie loop to join the Athenry and Limerick ends. Before the baseboards were painted I had roughly test laid some track dry to check rolling stock formation lengths in loops and sidings, transposed same on to grease proof paper so it could be transferred back onto baseboards after painting. Now to lay the closed cell foam track bed underlay. This photo was taken about 8 weeks ago when I loosely arranged track to to test length of loops, sidings, etc against rolling stock formations to see such would fit and ensure points would not sit over baseboard crossmembers underneath (ie so point motors would be unencumbered). After this track positions noted on baseboard top, then transposed on to grease proof paper for later re-instatement.

It's fine again now and the thumb nails are appearing. It was almost seemed like some sort of JS/Ajax interaction issue. All good now. Great to see the superb selection of liveries. Love the stepped band Black'n'Tan on A23R. Would have loved another stepped band on one of the other two B&Ts A15 or A39r, but quite content. Not looking for opening doors or working windscreen wipers! Happy days ahead next Christmas when some of these beauts will be making their inaugural run on the layout, retiring some hard worked 071s.

Thanks Fran that will be really helpful. Unfortunately that web site is very slow at the moment and the thumbnail images for each loco are not appearing, therefore its not possible to click a thumbnail to see the larger livery image on the upper panel of each loco's web page.

Impressive system. I love the idea of a cyclist moving on part of a layout.

The ones I've seen in the flesh looked fairly decent. A little weathering might not go amis to soften the bright orange colour and just make them look slightly weathered. Their BR Mk1 GSV is also a decent coach.

Yea flat pack like brass etch sides Look great once assembled but a lot of work to put together correctly!

Having a cab at both ends makes them appear symmetrical, but in real life one end was known as cab 1 and the other cab 2 (which was which I know not), but on our layout I have programmed all decoders so that the end with the roof grill is regarded as the forward end of the loco, so when I select FWD on my cab control I know for sure which direction the loco will go. This is particularly handy to know for shunting operations. Unfortunately I can't help you with 'platform sound' other than to say I have occasionally played some mp3 files with ambient railway noises like inside a station, traffic, shunting noises, passing trains, etc, station announcements, etc. Not to dissimilar to the old Hornby cassette tape below:

I dumped Hornby as a brand 20 years ago and switched to Bachmann. Hornby was the iconic and nostalgic brand that introduced me to toy train sets but their quality, finish, realism and reliability were eclipsed when Bachmann came along and I switched to Bachmann. I know Hornby made up lost ground especially in terms of chassis quality and scale detail, but they are still closer to the 'toy' spectrum than Bachmann Branchline which is superior on every level, and Hornby very expensive for the small boy toy market. I'll give Hornby one thing they were better than Lima's fisher price like toys. I really do hope the company survives as it was an important player in the model train set industry and probably introduced most of us on here to model trains and has a role to play in the future. No train sets under Christmas trees nor for Birthdays = no hobby industry a few decades down the road when the current batch of us either move into care homes or 6ft under. There is still something magical about building up a basic train set with extra track packs to a functioning layout with stations and scenery. Has similar developmental benefits to lego and meccano, construction skills, geometry, spatial relations, basic electrics, train operations, art (scenery), etc. Makes for good future DIY'ers too. Hope they turn the ship around.

Here we go again. Starting another 3D 121, first of three. Now which livery for this one. Another black and tan or perhaps super train as its the easiest to do. I'd like to do the 1961 delivery grey as it ran with B&T and green coaching stock. But its not a straight forward paint job. The Tippex IE is the most difficult to paint accurately and also out of my era anyway, but a visually pleasing livery on the 121. Chassis will be a 3rd gen Athearn SW1500 again as it fits like a glove and runs with the smoothness and precision of a swiss watch and is 8pin DCC ready. Side by side B121 finished and raw 3D body shell from Shapeways

Any plans for RPSI to release the second batch of Blue'n'Cream Craven coaches including the Bar car (i.e. to go with the sets RPSI sold last year)?

Is it normal practice to insult your customers? Wishing you and the laughing emojis a special and peaceful Christmas with your loved ones.

And to you too Eamonn. Have a special and peaceful Christmas with your loved ones. Next year must try and a get a snowy back scene

Aviation and Maritime Security Act 1990 has a point. The offence under Section 1(2)(b) "...disrupt the services of ...an aerodrome,...in such a way as to endanger or be likely to endanger the safe operation of the aerodrome or the safety of persons at the aerodrome..." This carries a penalty of up to Life Imprisonment. Silly people.