Noel

Well done WMRC

This Orange Black'n'Yellow livery is hideously cool in a weird kind of way. Wonder if it was just a paint shop experiment or if it every actually ran in this livery (e.g. with the galway sets)? But the C class below does look fabulous. @jhb171achill might know if this was an early freight livery or it was just pre Black'n'Tan after Green. An A class would look well too, especially as its pre-rebuild without the head light box.

Not surprised mag sales went up after the TV show. It’s great fresh exposure for the hobby irrespective of the correctness of it. Out of tiny acorns do might trees grow. A kid watching the show getting their first train set may be the first step on a life long journey. Personally I found Episode 5 more interesting than 2 & 3. Quality of track laying was good this week. I was astonished how bad some track laying was in previous episode by guys who were brilliant at scenery but totally blind to kinks in track joints and curves not blending into points properly. The track is the most important aspect of any layout.

Nice clip. How do they heat and power the coaches? Pity loco was going backwards.

Looking forward to watching both of these projects. The pallet cement wagons look great. Your BCK variant of the GSV looks just right (ie. 3173).

I thought B121 was finished but noticed earlier I'd forgotten the windscreen wipers, tablet catchers and horns. Doh! Every time you look at something like this you see more things you want to tweak but there is a time to call a halt, just be content and enjoy the end result. I hope this is finally finished at last. Time to play methinks.

I really hope so, but I’ll only believe it when I’ve actually got one paired up as a double header with B121 above, bonnet to bonnet hauling a rake of CIE era B&T coaches or IRM bubbles through Gort station layout reenacting scenes from ‘Rails through the West’.

B121 is now virtually complete. Glazing, Railings and buffer beam now done. She is a smooth runner being on a 3rd generation Athearn SW1500 chassis which is centre AWD and AWP. Just got the driver and cab interior left to do and then add a sound speaker. Thrilled to have a 121 to run on the layout on its own and in consist with B141. B121 ready for service The new fuel tank and bogies sides help hide the original Athearn chassis Left drivers window open as it was a hot day. Before - The donor chassis was an Athearn SW1500 3rd generation In the beginning - Shapeways 121 3D body shell before adjustment

In our home my family commonly refer to the layout as "Dad's train set", or "The Trains" Eye of the beholder and all that.

In the words of Fr Ted, Careful now, we could end up being confused by "These layouts are small, but the ones out there are far away"

eMail sent

I visually it looks somewhere between 20-25ft x 8ft but camera lens can play strange games and make things look bigger - or smaller! Its big but not massive by any means.

Cheers. No, fingers, tweezers and a needle nose pliers. Must investigate one of those after all the fiddle, faddle finger fustrratiion.

Finally got back to B121 project. Jeepers there is an awful lot of wire grab rails on these locos. Nearly done, just glazing, vacuum pipes and some supplementary weathering powders left. Bending all those wire grab rails with a basic needle nose pliers was fun. On delivery 121s did not have full length walkway rails, just shunters stands and grab rails on the body shell. The full length walkway rails were added some time during the Black'n'Tan livery era. I've gone for the earlier incarnation below with a little poetic license. Before painting the grab rails. Fiddle faddle my eyes and fingers are tired. The cab front steps were frustratingly mind bending to form. Nearly done.

Saw some similar scenes last weekend at the show in Raheny

Thanks to helpful advice from @Warbonnet and @Glenderg four years ago, I was fortunate to only buy one of those RTR, subsequently building (assembling) two C class kits on 141 donor chassis. I'm going to hang on to my few as they were an important part of Irish loco modelling history and were of their time. It will be nice to have one running on the layout for modelling nostalgia side by side with a fleet of IRM stunners designed by 'Sir Richard the Exact' and team IRM. It is a fantastic achievement by team IRM to get to a stage where they can realise such a major milestone and objective.

I vividly remember watching locos in that livery. Love the "tan" buffer beam.

That's a great 'coup'. Well done Dave. I wasn't sure if they were his baseboards, or somebody had copied his innovative design.

Having watched episodes 2 and 3 I tend to agree. First episode was the best. Mind you one of the team leaders seemed rather arrogant, not to mention bending the rules! Still fun to watch. At least the hobby is getting good exposure on a prime channel TV. PS: The baseboards they are all using look very familiar and I just wonder if they came from somewhere near this part of the world

Busy evening at the junction. Spent ages last evening shunting wagons between the up line main loop and yard sidings. Kadee’s and auto uncoupling have transformed the operational enjoyment of this hobby for me.

The catering looks impressive.

It’s fabulous. Enjoy.

Wow - Who built the O gauge baby GM? Does it run?

I popped into the show early on Saturday and quite enjoyed it. It was great to have the 'cafe' to get a snack and rest ones feet. It was rather a busy scrum at times moving around the corridors and it would have been nice to see some more layouts, otherwise another enjoyable show. The IRM announcement was perhaps the highlight of the show. I think they ran steam locos all with sound on Saturday and Monday with Sunday being diesel day The big steam locos and their operators had to return to Wexford for their open day on Sunday.

The B&T 121, 141, 181 baby GMs only had the small low orange band, so perhaps the 'dipped' (i.e. stepped) B&T livery on the A class was an attempt to mimic that for consistency. Basically those locos were black with white and orange trim suiting the positioning of the walkways.