Noel

Whats more worrying is there's only enough space left for a Z gauge A class

Will you guys there on the Monday as well as the Sunday?

Popped down to Wexford on Friday. Preparations for the Easter exhibition seemed in full flight. All I can say is wow, visitors are going to be blown away with what will be at the show. It is great to see the clubs come together with so many layouts and exhibitors to promote the hobby an entertaining and innovative way.

One of the most disappointing aspects of all the plans is that there will still be no means to quickly get to Heuston main line rail connections from north or south Dart lines - unlike other European cities rail connections. Unfortunately the motorway to Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway will remain faster and more convenient than by rail because of the lack of a good rail connection to Heuston. A possible lower cost solution to this could have been a large through station where the ex-GSWR mainline intersects the M50 with large park and ride facilities.

After fix - Goldilocks says this roof feels just right Before fix - Goldilocks says this roof is too dark Thanks to the two maestro's @popeye and @Glenderg for their 'gentle' and much appreciated colour co-ordination advice

Ahem - Anything post 1972 seems modern. Once those sleek BREL Mk2s arrived and goods wagons started to have bogies the end of railway civilisation as we knew it was nigh.

I fear "I may forever rot in the bogie of eternal stench" for facilitating such an infestation of modern rolling stock. I risk being expelled from the B&T members pavilion, and @jhb171achill may never forgive me. Perhaps its just a bad dream . . .

Phew thats a relief. The ultimate penance of Brass, Solder and Flux might have been more than I could bare. St Patrick, that's classic

Ok, but I shudder at the thought of what my penance might be . . .

183 hauls the 08:15 to Galway Somebody has spiked my food, first a weakness for Tara's, now this modern era scene. Where will it all end Ted? Will I be allowed back into the B&T members lounge?

Bless me father for I am about to sin. Believe it or not I have never ever even seen the prototypes of these wagons in real life, they are not buried anywhere in my nostalgia memory, the word 'Tara' only triggers school day memories of broaches, and to add insult to injury these wagons have bogies, fitted brakes and are far too modern for my era - BUT 'bless me father' for I am weak, and going to have to have a rake of these, they look so dam good I can no longer contain my modelling lust . . . will I forever "rot in the the bogie of eternal stench" for my deviation? Shall loose coupled two axle wagons ever forgive me for wandering from the path of fish plate purity?

Thanks chaps. It bothered me overnight and had to be redone. I will sleep better tonight.

Thanks Eoin. I had thought of that for future evolutions, and also the future option hooking up the strip to track pickups via bridge rectifier, resistor (16-20v AC to 3v DC) and a capacitor for flicker free operation. Tail lamp should be ok direct onto the strip as it is already a 3v bus. The MM coaches will need a little treatment for light bleed at the roof/side joint and also through the thin roof (i.e. coat of dark paint inside or tape). I'm pleased though with how the lights look in daylight operation which is what I intended rather than simulated night ops with the room lighting off. Now that the EGV roof is sorted its time to start some gentle weathering.

In yards ballast shoulders rarely existed because the surface was relatively flat as per your photo above. So either direct to baseboard, or lay the cork across the entire baseboard which has the advantage of taking track pins a little easier than ply.

Coach lighting. Train Tech CL2 'Warm White' coach lighting strip installed. I prefer the warm yellow tint to the modern white/blue tint option. May need to tidy up a little light bleed. I like the low light levels on these units. These train tech modules are so simple to install. I will just do a few coaches for the time being and see how long the batteries last with the motion sensor switching. I plan to try a DIY version using DCC track power on some cravens.

Train Tech CL2 'warm white' coach light strips and some passengers being installed. Some are seated figure, others are less expensive standing figures with their legs removed as they won't be visible from outside the coach.

One of my colour test cards with various shades of tan and orange. I tend to spray or hand paint test samples on top of the same grey primer I use on a models as it can have a significant bearing on the final colour. You have to be careful with colours because even these test cards can look quite different under different light conditions and with different cameras. White balance on cameras can really mess around with colours.

Take two. Closer if not a perfect match, but this seems about as close as I'm going to get. The lower roof is 120:1 ratio Vallejo yellow to red, the upper roof if MM out of the box. At least the EGV roof will be closer to the colour of the sides. Side by side

Agree. Yes it's too dark, will redo it later.

Ready for weathering. EGV black roof repainted orange. The shade is not an exact match but close enough for my eyes prior to roof weathering.

Sounds good. I think Fran covered this a few weeks ago, but one of the suggestions made was that in future buffer lengths might be based on 'coupled up' lengths when 'buffered up' to next wagon (i.e. slightly compressed) mode rather than a stand alone wagon where buffers would naturally be fully extended and therefore longer. This would enable more accurate prototypical scale distances between wagons and closer coupling like some Bachmann stock. Looking at the sample images for the Tara wagon this looks like it may be the case, is it?

Cheers. I'll let it cure overnight, pop it back on the EGV tomorrow and take a pic for comparison. It will be a little bit different, but once weathered hopefully it will all blend in together. I'm not changing anything on the standard mk2 coaches just weathering. So far I have always used a Tamiya mix for CIE tan/orange colours, this is the first time I've mixed Vallejo primary colours from their basic set of 8 'model air' colours for tan/orange.

An urgent remedy seems needed while they debug the hardware and find a mathematical traffic model that will work optimally with bus and other road traffic. I'm sure in time it will improve somewhat. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/call-for-alternative-transport-to-luas-during-rush-hour-1.3432987 Most of us are possibly closer to the same hymn sheet than we might think, and I'm sure can respect one another's differing opinions on the solutions needed. As Monty Pythons black knight might say, "tis but a scratch!"

MM Mk2 - Multi part mission. Convert a black roofed MM mk2d EGV to an orange roofed EGV (orange ones are rare as hens teeth) Weather a rake of orange roofed MM mk2d coaches - primary reason is to dull down the yellow shade of orange they come with out of the box Put some passengers inside the coaches Change the couplings to Kadee Optional - put lighting inside coaches Well lets see how far I get. I had been unable to acquire an orange roofed EGV so originally I bought a supertrain livery EGV with the intention of adding the tippex white stripes to convert it, but decided it would be easier to convert a black roofed EGV because it would be a quick simple respray of the removable roof, with no masking, whereas adding the tippex without reverse masking to a high standard would have been quite difficult, and wavey stripes are something that drive me nuts - OCD I know perhaps. First job was to figure out how to get the roof off without resorting to use of a vice grips or a block hammer, but @Glenderg came to the rescue with advice and the roof popped off easily with little force required (see clips below). Roof off ready for priming Because of the contrast between the black and orange on the roof I decided to prime it with Halfords plastic grey primer. With hindsight a white primer would have been better as I would have required less coats of the orange latter to fully hide the dark grey. I mixed Vallejo model air 71.002 (yellow) and 71.102 (red) by eye until I got the shade of tan/orange I was looking for. The ratio was 35:1 Yellow/Red because the red pigment was incredibly strong. Only 2 drops of red for every 70 drops of yellow to get this shade. I know it is more orange than the existing coaches but to my eye right or wrong the shade of orange looks more like I remember than the yellow dominant shade on MM Mk2d's. Hopefully the weathering will help it blend in on the EGV as I won't have to respray the orange roofed mk2's I have, just weather them, and the EGV roof will get a lot more weathering than the coaches. Well thats my theory anyway - the proof will be in the eating I guess when its all finished. The roof in the middle is the respayed EGV with the deeper shade of orange, the roof below is the original MM colour with the yellow tint. By way of comparison I put an MM 085 body shell beside the resprayed roof. They look somewhat closer to my eyes. Anyway photos are very subjective with indoor lighting with white balance issues on cameras so will rarely look like the prototypes outdoors. That's it for now. Next step is add passengers, perhaps lighting and then gently weather the rake one coach at a time.

Very impressive so far guys.