Noel

5 hours ago, Mayner said:

The 500 Class were one of the first successful classes of modern Mixed Traffic 4-6-0s in the British Isles the nearest preceding the much larger GWR Hall and LMS Black 5 Classes.  The 500 Class cylinder and valve gear arrangement was used as the prototype for re-building 40o Class from a 4 to a 2 cylinder loco, unfortunately only 402 received the full rebuild with new-frames and 500 Class motion on the grounds of cost.

Although it was apparently planned to build further members of the Class, Inchacore only built three 500 Class 4-6-0s, the purchase of an additional 16 sets of parts from Woolwich Arsenal was a much cheaper option.

Probabably have to be a scratchbuild, there is unlikely to be enough demand for a rtr model or a kit of a relatively small obscure class that had all gone by the mid-1950s

IRM might surprise us perhaps - now that they've launched their first steam model in the GB market. It would be fantastic to have 460 steam loco to complement and haul laminate flying snail green stock alongside the upcoming 22k sets. Full circle.

3 hours ago, Patrick Davey said:

Superb video Noel, rapidly becoming my favourite modern era too!  Layout looks and performs great!

Thanks. I am relieved the loco can run over all the track work and points at speed step 1 crawl without stalling or juddering. Too slow to make useful video, but glad all the work with electrofrog points worked out, especially after the rails got part covered in PVA during ballasting, and covered in acrylic spray paint when weathering the track beds, the track cleaning must have worked after ballasting. Last year when debugging the track work for smooth running it was amazing how many hidden micro artefacts caused temporary loss of electrical continuity (eg. Tiny grain of ballast on inside rail chair, or between point check rails, or a single mm or sleeper grime paint, or 1/10th mm of solder projecting above rail height. If this ever gets exhibited it will need to be reliable and have perfect running. Zero tolerance for derailments or juddering at slow shunting speeds. My thanks to colleagues at WMRC for their guidance and advice.

My concern is Betamax?

56 minutes ago, Westcorkrailway said:

It’s easier to see here but there is a 2nd pinstripe too. Although the livery is so shiny now it just looks like a reflection

Looks more purple than ex-LMS maroon. EDIT: PS a few years ago an RPSI chap told me 3173 was due to get repainted to match the craven stock with Royal blue and cream, or all over Blue.

1 hour ago, Westcorkrailway said:

RPSI's GSV looks well. Roof repainted recently?

Staggering. I know a 'man' who is interested in doing this in 00 for south wexford line stations including the barrow bridge.

I was curious looking at old photos from the day of delivery of laser cut baseboard ply from WoodWorkers in Terenure, to construction, painting and finally layout building. The boards were constructed using the WMRC method pioneered by member and technical director Dave McCabe. No screws nor nails needed, just hot glue gun. I made the first two 5ft x 2ft boards in an hour, an other hour to paint the glass fibre reinforcement in the undersides, and two hours to paint both boards. Boards are light, portable, easy to work on stacked vertically for wiring and fitting of point motors, single servos, accessory decoders, no more crawling under baseboards. Cross members positioned not to interfere with Cobalt point motors under the base boards.

THEN - Ply collected from Truck in local village

Stored in Workshop before construction using hot glue gun and fibreglass tape

Before Fiberglass tape was added to the underside joints with PVC Glue rather than resin to avoid the smells of resin

Glass tape added

Painted top and undersides of baseboard to seal from long term moister for stability and easy of working on baseboard gluing track bed, foam blocks, static grass, etc.

Transposed track plan onto surface using a roll of grease proof paper.

Track plan transposed to avoid cross bracing under boards

Dry test track laying before track bed closed cell foam added. Last chance to check everything fits

Rotate board on their sides so its easier to work on the undersides standing up rather than crawling underneath. Much easier to do the wiring

Baseboard sits on its own back scene as a stable stand on the trestles

Much easier to install and test wiring and point motors

Hot glue used to freeze self adhesive cable ties in place. Screws used to secure servos and accessory decoders, with foam separation pads to avoid vibration noises when trains pass over head.

NOW - End Result (so far)

Thanks to WMRC for the helpful guidance and inspiration and especially Dave McCabe.

Hornby, Airfix, Scalextric and Corgi.

Notable guest appearances by Kathy Millatt, Pete Waterman and Jenny Kirk amongst others

Two seasons available online. Fascinating to watch some of the fly on the wall stuff, the design process and manufacturing steps.

I used Chrome and a VPN (to pretend to be in the UK to watch online).

Watch online here: https://uktvplay.co.uk/shows/hornby-a-model-world/watch-online

Or Wed nights on ch 'Yesterday' FreeSat

PS: Will we see Accurascale on TV - the empire strikes back season 1? (ie Bachmann build a death star)       

8 minutes ago, murphaph said:

The Chinese see BEVs as a way to not only eliminate their dependence on foreign energy (China does not have much oil or gas) but they also see the huge global market for vehicles. The legacy carmakers in Europe and the US need to react quickly. Companies like BYD are producing exceptional cars at prices that hardly seem possible. Our next vehicle will be a BEV, no doubt. The tech is mature enough now. The Lithium was never really the problem, it was more the nickel and cobalt but the newer LFP batteries don't use nickel or cobalt. Tesla is moving to LFP batteries. They are safer too, you can stick a screwdriver through the blade batteries in the latest BYD blade batteries and they won't react. A Li-Ion battery will virtually explode if you do that. And LFP batteries are probably just another phase in the journey. Ireland has enormous capacity to produce green electricity and be entirely self sufficient in it and there is no reason the country cannot be a major electricity exporter, both via interconnectors and through green hydrogen production. Who would have ever imagined that Ireland would be an energy exporter? It is entirely realistic now. Putin has massively accelerated the demand for such energy. Irish customers are in pole position to benefit from cheap electricity to run their BEVs. The batteries in such vehicles act as a gigantic distributed energy store and the cascaded batteries from BEVs can be used in stationary applications (like mains power storage, either in the home or as part of the grid itself). The future is largely going to be battery powered. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will be much rarer than people once thought they might be IMO.

Agree BYD could well be the new Toyota within the next 5 years. We'll all be driving Chinese car brands before soon. The manufacturing quality of the worlds smartphones, tablets and model railway toys manufactured in China are truly top class. Mr Putin has accidentally advanced the rate of transition to clean energy more than anybody else could have.  BYD have just appointed Irish MDL to sell the cars starting Q2 this year. Lots of chance coming down the tracks.

13 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

£115 was a lot of money then. My dad's Ford Prefect (which I still have the receipt for) was just over £200 in 1951, but there had been a lot of inflation in sterling (probably driven by the war) between 1939 and 1951.

Oh I don't know. I wouldn't buy any car that lacks Apple Car Play. £500 would have bought a house in the 1950s, nowadays folks spend €1000 on a portable telephone that you can watch the telly on.    

5 hours ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Nice little (or not so little) CX!

I'm of the opinion that EVE's are currently at a "gateway" stage to a cleaner and healthier future.

It's a chicken and egg scenario.

When enough people are driving EVE's, pressure can be put on the authorities for a cleaner source of the electricity used, but for now, they only really move the pollution...

If the electricity is generated by burning coal, for example, then instead of having millions of little ICE's emitting fumes, we have millions of EVE's emitting no fumes, but consuming electricity from a source that emits a lot of fumes.

Regarding the environmental impact of fabricating the batteries...

Have you ever seen a clean and environmentally friendly oil well or processing plant or supertanker or mechanics workshop or breakers yard? Probably not.

EVE's are definitely the future, and I say that through gritted teeth as I'm a petrolhead, we're just not there yet.

P.S.: You liar, @Mayner! No way that multiple Honda's could stop running in just 15 years!

Your right about the clean up of electricity grids. Ireland's electricity grid is already well on track for 80% by 2030. And the new Celtic Interconnector will enable us to import up to 700 MW of CO2 free French nuclear electricity.

Robert Llewellyn is a bit of a EV buff evangelist but this is interesting clip dispelling a few popular OPEC myths:

PS: I presume the canaries are well ahead of the game with Solar and Wind generation. Ideally located for both.

6 minutes ago, spudfan said:

Made with parts produced in China who are lashing out the pollution so we can buy "green" stuff made there... 

Ironically the Chinese seem to be transitioning from fossil cars to BEVs faster than USA or Europe. The Chinese are the biggest manufacturer of BEVs.

If problems persist IRM have excellent warranty service so perhaps send it back to them for repair or replacement. They will pick up the cost of collection/post.

Unfortunate luck luck. No better modeller to put humpty dumpty together again.

Announcements about announcements?  

Fair do's on the pricing of the old 201 stock. There'll be a few happy campers after that.

1 hour ago, Fowler4f said:

t those prices I guess the market is ready for a run of new 071s, think they're most peoples' favourite locomotive.

Personally the baby GMs are my favourites. Stunning precision runners. A rerun of the 141/181s with the following improvements would be something as the body detail is good enough and the token snatchers are already better than the ones on newer 121s

1. Easy access decoder hatch
2. Built-in speaker
3. Headlights operable separately to the running lights
4. Drivers in cab
5. See right through loco vent grills (ie like 121) - nice to have not essential.
6. Stay alive capacitor

1 hour ago, connollystn said:

In my humble opinion it's a horrible livery on an ugly diesel railcar set.

This was my favourite livery for ugly DMUs here. Bright and visible.

55 minutes ago, spudfan said:

Short article here

Iarnród Éireann DMUs reliveried | News | Railway Gazette International

Did the 29k not get that new all green livery a few years ago before the pandemic?

https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0222/1358120-train-catering

22 minutes ago, Westcorkrailway said:

There is no RTR C Class from IRM yet. So I’d try get a A class in supertrain 

Baby MM GMs, especially 143 are so rare, you might even get one and a half A classes in exchange!  

1 minute ago, Westcorkrailway said:

from the USA it seems. I think the seller saw other MM products and got excited 

 

these cost 30-40 at the model show! 

Yip €30ea for the six I bought at Stillorgan toy fair.

On 10/2/2023 at 9:23 AM, Barl said:

Some interesting outcomes from the report (draft) of Ireland's rail review. Be interesting to see if anything comes of it.

Link to article here; 

https://www.thejournal.ie/rail-review-network-5991337-Feb2023/

Thanks for posting. Sense prevailing at last.

Packing the NEM pocket under the tongs of the coupling with a very thin piece of plastic card may be enough to eliminate the droop from the loco and better marry up.

I've converted most of our rolling stock from tension lock couplings to kadee couplings and needed to tweak the NEM pockets on most stock to get the couplings to the correct industry standard height. From memory the MM mk2d coaches did not have correct NEM pocket heights. MM locos were pretty spot on except for the 201 class which needed a plastic card shim to adjust the coupling height to match other stock and the kadee height gauge, or bend the trip pin to that it doesn't snag points. From memory the IRM A class locos NEM pockets were correct height, so perhaps a very thin shim wedged into the pocket with the tension lock couplings tongs would stop the droop.

MM loco to MM coach

Fix for cravens

24 minutes ago, popeye said:

I called into Halfords today to get some grey primer.

For 500ml it used to be £7.49 but now it costs £11.99.

So I will be getting it elsewhere from now on. 

Hycote and Halfords are identical, made in the same factory, Hycote costs less. Available amazon.co.uk but extra brexit costs, Or bypass brexitistan and get equivalent plastic grey primer from amazon.de. If buying from UK An Post addresspal gets around hazchem barrier costs.