Noel

Very impressive so far Gerry. Will follow with keen interest. Very neat electrics too.

Hi Paul. Weight isn't a problem, the skeletal wagons run really well and never derail, even when running just the wagons without the containers on board. But your right I may add weight to the containers to make the rake heavier and run with less coupler snatching. The C-Rail container floors are snap fit and pop off easily, so adding a bit of weight is easy. The reason for my original post was to explain how I stopped the containers falling off the flats. Noel C-Rail container floors are snap-fit and come off easily.

Beet production. In the middle of other concurrent projects I've started on the first half of a rake of single beet wagons. Primed today prior to tweaking, painting and fitting to chassis. Having a few small projects on the go at the same time can be very productive because while you are waiting for bits, or glue, paints to cure, etc, you can swap between projects and keep things moving along. I understand CIE had over 2000 of these wagons in their 'heyday' when they were used as both general purpose open goods wagons as well as for beat traffic. They were also used instead of flats to transport CIE containers as well as transport agri machinery, tractors, cars, cable drums, etc.

Well spotted. I remember a few shamrock 747 skippers had number plates with 747 on them back in the old days pre year plates (e.g. wicklow had NI plates, etc)

These are the brass sides I'm using with a Bachmann BCK donor, rather than the Triang-Hornby in the pic (£12 from Mousa). They are for RPSI maroon 3173 GSV. They seem accurate but I'm just disappointed they lack any relief for the window frames, door hinges, handles, etc. I can stick that stuff on with plastic. One clever feature of these sides is they have multiple horizontal channels etched behind tumblehome to make bending into shape easy without need for specialist tools. Des will your sides have separate window frames or will you etch those in relief, etc?

It does indeed. I'm currently converting two Bachmann BCKs, one using brass sides and the other with plastic. Wish I'd knew this before I started. The brass sides I have are rather low on detail (i.e. flat), I suspect yours would be much better with relief for window frames, vent frames, hinges and door handles, etc.

Thanks. Hmmm! I might paint the GSV conversion RPSI blue instead of B&T and run it with the RPSI cravens.

Class job. Love the colouring and brick work. Like interior plans.

Impressive operation

IMHO the BGH livery is quite bland and rather dull looking. Even some delicate horizontal lining could have made it more visually appealing.

Fabulous picture as ever Finbarr. Great light and blue sky for the photos. Intercity 125 mk3 sets look even better than they did in 1974 when I first saw them under test.

Jonathan by any chance do you know when GSV 3185's overhaul is planned to be completed and more specifically what colour scheme she might end up with? I vaguely remember you or somebody suggesting she may be an all over blue livery, presuming the same shade of blue as used on the blue and cream Cravens?

A clever and logical progression. Enterprising and good business. Best of luck to Stephen and the gang. I have no doubt they will have even greater business success in the much larger market.

Yes the upper body colour wasn't bad at all, but the Lima chassis under frames and bogies were pretty poor compared to the MM variants and scale. I wonder why MM did their own 201s given they had already produced the Lima variants. An A class might have sold better than a second bite at the 201 cherry.

That price for a Lima made loco? . . . and with a buffer missing. Feel like using the 'make an offer' facility to offer €10 for it as a themed paper weight.

You have no idea how you have just tempted me to respray one of my tippex 071s into this stunning B&T livery. Btw thats a very classy photoshop.

I know Lite ply, spruce, balsa

Wonderful building. Impressed.

I used one of these saws for 25 years on the aero modelling side

Luas-Mór - Photoshopped from one of Fran's excellent photos, even if of an unfortunate subject

That is seriously impressive alright. Looks so like the wagon below.

Agree its not worth paying, especially as PhotoBucket's service and site performance is so poor. Easy solution is to bulk download entire PB albums to ones PC and then bulk upload to an alternate hosting site, then edit the links in past posts here (i.e. with temporary edit privilege granted by admins).

Hi Dave. Stephen could temporarily grant your forum account edit permission for your old posts. That's how I updated mine. He kindly switched it on for me for a number of days and I edited virtually every post I'd made with images. Worked a treat. Noel Ps. Dont forget you yourself have not lost a single photobucket image. They are all still there, you just need to move them to another host, or download the lot back to your own PC and then optionally edit them back in as attachments rather than links. I went the former route (there's a thread somewhere how dunnit).

What a splendid and wonderful desecration of a beautifully hyper detailed fine scale model. Respect and due homage to Sir Richard, even though such perfectly authentic filth is not my personal cup of tea, I humbly recognise the skilful art and life like execution of same. Sublime.