Noel

W J Owens in Bray was a massive magnet for photographers, aero modellers, railway modellers, airfix, and dinky/corkie collectors from all over Ireland. IMHO Owens was the single best thing about Bray. In the early years when Bray was still a sea side holiday resort, they used to sell fishing rods, tackle, buckets and spades to sea side visitors during the summer. But more than anything W J Owens was Ireland's number one RC model aero shop as well as one of the best photography and camera suppliers. On Saturdays you could meet modellers for any county in Ireland on their pilgrimage to W J Owens, 41 main street bray, established by Willie's father in 1941. I used to marvel at the window displays of RC model aircraft in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. It was the complete modellers heaven. I almost felt a sort of grief when Willie retired in 2004 and closed his doors. His shop was an institution. Willie himself was a gentleman, but it was his modelling knowledge and technical ability that attracted customers from far and wide. He was a modeller himself and an active member of SRFC in Wicklow, so he knew what the hobby wanted. Also innovating from a business sense being one of the first retailers in Ireland to source products direct from overseas manufacturers bypassing traditional UK distribution channels, and therefore had some very good pricing. Aside from Airfix as a child, later railway (Dublo, Triang, later Hornby and even some Lima) and RC gear, I also bought my first Nikon film SLR from Willie and used to buy my dark room supplies from him (chemicals, paper, film, etc). I have fond memories of him totalling up the bill on the usual back of a small brown paper bag, pretending to look startled and embarrassed at the total. If WJ Owens had not existed I doubt I would have got RC flying, nor photography. Pure nostalgia. There are few specialists left in the hobby business. Along with Marks models, John Gunn photography in Wexford street are some of the few golden nugget retailers that still exist.

That is very impressive progress on such a massive project. We could learn from NZ.

Hi Dave. That's a very impressive looking 15 wagon liner train. Noticed a few refrigerated containers too. Noel PS: Yes you can edit the video using Windows Movie maker, or Mac iMovie depending on which you have. Youtube also has some editing capability for videos you have already uploaded.

Don't worry its not politics. Since 2012 the layouts stock has changed - out with BR and in with CIE. Just found these two photos while tidying up photo library post migration away from PhotoRustBucketRansomWare Out - British Outline - LNER + GWR + LMS In - Irish Railways - Córas Iompair Éireann

Hi Dave. Is that specific to the Bachmann 36-557 decoder (i.e. SoundTraxx MC1)? CVs use is very different for specific decoders. Noel

The word "alive" comes to mind. I just love looking at these life like scenes.

Yes it sure is, and this pic posted by admin a few years ago was pretty good too.

Yip Lenz 10321 or ESU LokPilot V4 all the way.

Hi Graham. It was a laisdcc, which seems to be an identical a rip off of the TCS M4, so TCS function remapping might work. Mine worked out of the box with default settings on 071 and 201 using F0,F1,F2 as posted above and direction changes ok. Controller was an NCE. Wonder if the dip switches on the loco might have been accidentally changed? Noel Some Laisdcc feedback: http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/showthread.php/5706-DCC-Decoders?highlight=lais

Lights - Lais/Lenz 4 function decoder on MM 071 or 201 F0 = Fwd running lights on (white) F1 = Rear running lights on (red) F2 = fwd head light on

Hi Dave. I've 21pin 4 function decoders working ok in 141, 071 and 201s (Lais and Lenz), and the direction lights inc head lamp are working ok, the only thing not working is cab lights which doesn't bother me in the least either. From memory you need to turn F0,F1 & F2 on to get all lights working ok, but will pop a loco on some track in few mins to double check I've got that right, and edit this post. Noel F0 = Fwd running lights on (white) F1 = Rear running lights on (red) F2 = fwd head light on Turn F0 & F1 on for running lights, and F2 to turn head lamp on and off as appropriate (e.g. off entering stations). Change of direction will automatically swap the directional running lights.

Hi Dave. Agree about making them quieter, but the gearing is wrong so they cannot run at scale speeds, start off at 40kph and cruise at 200kph Noel

Done. When does the survey close and will you be publishing the results here?

Hi Mark. Good choice. I really like the F5 'drive hold' feature on Wheeltappers projects (Neil). A very helpful guy too. MrSoundguy (Keith Pearson) sells only by phone or email, his site is a bit antiquated and doesn't have online sales, but he's also a helpful guy. Noel

Hi Mark. Glad to hear it, enjoy. FYI, you can turn the volume down a bit if you find the default sound level a little loud. If its a LokSound chip just adjust CV63 with a value between 1 and 128. Which sound project did you go for? Noel

Hi Rebelred. We'll that seems a fairly conclusive verdict and direct from 'the horses mouth' as they say. Noel

Hi Fran. Sure understand, that's what I meant by 'in due course', or as Sir Humphrey might have better put it 'in the fullness of time'. Noel PS: I stopped buying mags of all types some years ago when I realised they were just taking up 'coffee table' space and I wasn't getting much useful from them anymore, also there were too many unlike the old days when there was only RM. Forums like this are much more useful and informative. There was an interesting discussion over on RM some time ago where the success of model forums was identified as one of the factors in declining UK club memberships.

Hi Mark If the decoder is a LokSound or Zimo chip then it should be ok to cut the wires to the speaker that came with the decoder, and then the sound should come out of the built in speaker in the loco. However it may be prudent to cut the wires in such a way that would allow you enough spare wire to easily re-solder should that not prove the case. Speakers can either be connected directly to the decoder, or more common practice with Murphy Model locos, connected to the Loco's PCB, but not both if that makes sense. Don't forget to either remove or insulate the superfluous wires coming from the decoder after you cut them so they don't short out with any metal bits inside the loco or its PCB. Noel PS: You will have a nice spare speaker for possible future use in 141 or 181s.

Neither sold at those ridiculous prices. And they were Lima

That's positive news. Wonder if IR now regret scrapping the mk3's so prematurely.

Any chance in due course IRM may be able to publish PDFs of reviews, obviously with the publishers permission? Murphy Models have PDF reviews available on their web site?

Fabulous models Steven. Enjoy. Very interesting clip here on the manufacturing and design

Superb looking result, especially as scratch built. A very fine scale and precise job with an equally perfect paint job.

That's shaping up really nicely Gerry. You don't waste time hanging around.

One way of moving from PhotoBucket and reinstate broken image posts on forum There are different ways of restoring broken PhotoBucket images in your forum posts, this is the way I did it, not necessarily the best, but it worked a treat for me and done in an evening. I was NOT going to fork out $400 to PhotoBucket to enable 3rd party linking! I already had a private web host available to me so was able to skip item 1. The key premise is not wasting time having to visually match photos with forum posts as this would be too time consuming. Use basic web site hosting package and a domain name (approx €45pa + €10pa respectively), there are cheaper alternatives. Create a folder on your PC to receive your PhotoBucket images Create subfolders using the same subfolder album name structure as they were stored in your photobucket albums url Download an entire PhotoBucket album to your PC or Mac in one step using the 'Download Album' option (rhs of page). Might take some time if your album has many pics or they are not compressed. Upload album folder(s) from your PC to same folder names on your web site using an FTP tool to bulk upload entire folders (many hosting packages provide this tool on their control panels, or if your techie just use any FTP tool). Make take some time - coffee or go do some modelling while waiting. Request temporary 'edit' permission for your forum account from site admins, so you will be able to edit your own old posts that contain image links using tags Edit the PhotoBucket URLs in any of your effected posts (i.e. edit tags) Just swap the domain name from the PhotoBucket one to your own web sites domain name (see example below) It is vital that the folder/directory structure is identical to what it was on PhotoBucket. This way the editing of posts will be really quick and you won't even need to know what each photo is match with which thread, because the folder paths will be preserved. Just swap the domain names. Example: http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l278/OceanFroggie/Model%20Rail/DSC_8818.jpg . Change to this . http://www.derg.ie/albums/l278/OceanFroggie/Model%20Rail/DSC_8818.jpg The long winded bit of the URL doesn’t change, just the beginning bit. I didn’t even have to know what pics were in what threads, I didn’t even have to look at the photos or remember what their names were, just edited my posts and changed the domain name from PhotoBucket URLs to my own host. This is much faster than uploading photos to a new photo hosting site because you would have to rematch photos visually, this way you just know each URL will be the correct photo. Hope this makes sense. There are other ways, but I was in a hurry and hadn't time to experiment. I've managed to get all most posts here and on other forums fixed really quickly. Thanks to admin for his help.