Noel

Very nice. I particularly like wonderful scene above.

Thanks Patrick. WOW - I've nearly fallen off my perch with delight seeing both of those iconic scenes. Pure magic. There are some amazing layouts covered on this forum, but your layout is my personal favourite - it is simply fabulous and pure class.

Stunningly gorgeous scenes . I really like the nicely blended colour tones of your layout Patrick. Everything looks so natural and real world. I can imagine being on a train to Moate in the 1960s to visit a relatives farm. Would love to see that particular scene again if you had a spare black'n'tan livery loco to put in it.

Not strictly railwayana but I spotted this sign off the old Fenit railway track bed. No mention of a fine, but the consequences would be pretty self evident. Beautiful part of the world. What a tourism boost it might have been nowadays if it was still linked to Tralee and Killarney even by a single powered coach.

Thanks for posting for many super pics Broithe. Really enjoyed your post. Many superb layouts. Ellesmere caught my eye.

Looking forward to delivery date

Thanks for posting those super photos Kieran. Very interesting.

Brilliant. You must have been there once upon a time - classic imagery John. I vividly remember such scenes from the midlands many moons ago

As John highlighted, back in the days of the flying snail, most dairy infrastructure was short distance local from pasture to small local dairy, to market and direct to door, only later going through retail channels Churns by horse'n'cart, later trucks from farm to dairy and local co-ops. As Dublin grew road tankers brought milk to bottling plants and the horse'n'cart distribution direct to homes at 5am every morning later replaced by electric milk floats. It's hard to believe returnable milk bottle delivery to every home in Ireland was only replaced by retail 'tetra' packs only 25 years ago (i.e. as recent as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait when state of the art stealth fighter F117 was considered modernity). But I'd hazard a guess around 1906 when most of the rural branch railways were still intact a certain amount of milk must have been delivered to dairies in churns on rail wagons. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_Ireland#/media/File%3AMap_Rail_Ireland_Viceregal_Commission_1906.jpg

Don't worry you are not alone, it caught out JB as well. That's what Ireland should do in future when the All Blacks perform the Haka - play diddle-i-a music to distract them

Agree it is fabulous. Reeks of atmosphere.

Hope it helps. IrishThump has a Gaugemaster Prodigy Advance2 so if there are any issues he may be able to help. From memory CV31 should be left at 16, but CV32 set to 1 before attempting to write to CV266, 523, 287, etc, as they are all >255. BTW, Out of the box MrSoundGuy's Zimo decoder limited the top speed of my 141 loco because CV5 (max voltage/speed) was set to a default of only 140 out of a max value of 255. I changed mine to 255 and the loco then was able to run at a faster scale top speed of 74mph. That Zimo decoder by MrSoundGuy is my favourite to drive because of the 'coasting' and 'braking' features. Enjoy. Attached CV settings I have used on an MM141 with this sound chip: DCC_Sound_141_Zimo_MrSoundguy.pdf

Hi TDR, hop this helps. On Zimo MX644D decoders: CV266 is master volume level (0-64) I used 40 as I find 64 too loud CV523 is the sound level of brake hiss (i.e. when F4 brake is applied on the move) CV287 is the duration of brake sound as loco stops - I increased mine to 44 instead of default 22 because the brakes only sounded for a moment BTW, on some DCC controllers you may need to set CV31 and CV32 appropriately to write to CV values above 255 like these, but I had no problem with the NCE. Noel

Nice find thanks. Don't you just love these old clips from the heyday of diesel trains on Irish rails. The music takes me back to the 60s.

Brilliant

Thanks. I am very pleased with the Irish RTR stock we have collected over recent years from Murphy Models, Irish Freight Models, Silver Fox, and others . Ten years ago it would have been but a dream to have access to decent looking Irish RTR stock and locos, unless you were prepared to build it and more importantly had both the talent and time to produce a good end result. Combined with suppliers of Irish kits such as Provincial Wagons and SSM, etc, we have never had it so good, and the quality bar is ever raising. Looking forward to IRM raising the bar even further when their models start shipping in the not too distant future. In the mean time I am still hoping to bodge some of my old LMS and GWR stock into some form of Irish coaches and goods wagons.

Hi Tony. It's 35 years since I have ballasted track, and the method I used then was quite different (ie. direct to baseboard, emulsion paint, pin track on wet paint, then sieve ballast material over track, wait to dry, then vacuum up surplus). With N gauge you may prefer an extra fine ballast. It seems N gauge ballast looks great with 00 gauge track Thanks Mike, will check out his site for 3mm cork. Cheers Dave. Enjoyed his video, he's entertaining yet concise and informative unlike many boring long winded youtube videos 'look what I made mom' that yap on for ages off the core subject matter. If I can get a bit of Isopropyl Alcohol in the local chemist I might try that with the next experiments. Is it compatible interaction wise with the 'fairy liquid' in the 50/50% PVA/water mix?

Thanks Wanderer. Enjoyed that.

Good advice. I find some photo hosting sites (eg: photobucket, etc) very convenient for sharing images on web forums. Photobucket and others allow you to define in your account profile, a default max image size which it will automatically resize during upload, so you will never get the image to big message. I have my sites set to max width of 1024px wide which keeps them below 200k in size so fast to display. Then you just wrap the URLs using standard BB IMG tags [noparse][/noparse] Some sites like photobucket, flickr, an smugmug, etc, allow you to edit photos on their site via web interface after uploading for cropping, adjusting image exposure, and rotating without breaking the URL link already posted to this or other forums.

Magical - Noel, I love every aspect of your layout. It looks fabulous and is alive with interest and activity.

I have the SSM kit and looking forward to making it when I get the time.

Some activity with new rolling stock arrivals on layout this evening. Irish Freight models - 20 ton brake van - I just love these brake vans Irish Freight models - CIE Bulleid Heat Van (on test track bed sample) - A welcome addition from my favourite era

Track bed + ballast experiments In advance of the final track laying on our layout I have decided to conduct some track bed and track ballast experiments. I also have considered replacing our existing track ballast which is currently peco form underlay, or alternatively augmenting it with some form of granular ballast material. Four experiments Javis extra fine granite chippings ballast direct to ply baseboard Augment peco foam underlay with Heki 3172 medium ballast sandstone/beige Heki 3070 medium grey ballast on 5mm woodland scenics dense foam track bed strips Javis extra fine granite chippings ballast on 5mm javis cork track bed strips First up I cut four wooden display boards which after the experiments are finished I will convert to display cases for stock. Then laid and glued various track bed materials, and pinned track to the boards through the track bed ready for ballasting. Then ballasted using the usual 50/50% water/PVA mix with a few drops of fairy liquid. Javis 5mm cork trackbed is pre-cut down the middle with sloped shelf. Also makes it easy to bend trackbed around bends. Glued with PVA to baseboard. The colour of the cork is an advantage because any thin area of ballasting is less obvious afterwards Woodland scenics dense black foam 5mm track bed. Also pre-perforated down the middle for ease of bending on curves. Glued to baseboard with PVA Finally twin track on Peco foam underlay which will be augmented with supplementary ballast. I have a lot of this already laid on the layout for past 20 years and it has not perished, so I want to see if it is possible to augment with some ballast material. The underlay was lightly glued with PVA to base board. Four samples on respective track beds BEFORE ballasting No 1 - First up Javis extra fine granite direct to baseboard, spread dry by hand and gentle paint brush. Then spray with water so the PVA will absorb and penetrate the ballast all the way to the base board. Medical dropper lid was great for putting 50/50% PVA mix on the ballast PVA applied and waiting to dry, rails wiped clean with fingers and kitchen paper. No 2 - Next was augmenting existing Peco foam underlay track bed with medium Heki ballast in a colour that would be compatible with the Peco foam. First I spread the ballast material filling the gaps between the twin tracks and the outside shoulders of the foam underlay and sprayed with water (using fine spray bottle so not to disturb the ballast) Then use the eye dropper bottle to deploy the 50/50% PVA mix. As I worked on this I realised that fine grade of ballast would have been better. No 3 - Next was woodland scenics 5mm preformed track bed strips with Heki 3072 medium sandstone/beige ballast The steepness of the 5mm woodland scenics track bed meant that a lot of ballast was needed to cover the shoulders, or alternatively paint 100% PVA to the shoulders before dropping ballast onto it. I felt the medium was a little coarse and fine grain would have been better. Also I didn’t like the three colours in the mix (i.e. with some white and black mixed in). No 4 - Finally Javis 5mm preformed cork track bed strips ballasted with Javis extra fine granite chipping. Apply the granite dry, shape and spread with fingers and brush, removing surplus, then spray water in prep for PVA absorption, then apply PVA using eye dropper on all of the ballast. PVA applied waiting for it to dry for 24hrs. As this piece was done a few hours after the rest I think the PVA/water mix had started to dry and separate so the PVA did not dry 100% transparent like the other samples. I should have stirred the mix between coats. The results almost dry before weathering with spray paint. I will also put some static grass on the edges for the display cases later. BTW, all track was pinned instead of glued to track bed before ballasting. Some stock on top of no 4 (cork track bed with fine granite chippings) Conclusions - what I learned Need very soft 10mm paint brush or ladies blusher brush to spread ballast, if the brush is too hard it flicks the ballast material up on top of sleepers instead of between Don’t like 5mm track beds with high shoulders - too high Black dense foam exposed gaps in ballast cover (i.e. due black) Like cork but only if I can get 3mm, the 5mm is too high for my taste Don’t like medium ballast - too course - looks off Like fine granite ballast and its dust covers sleepers nicely for weathered look Do not wet ply baseboard unless 100% sealed or it will warp during the drying process My existing Peco foam underlay may possibly be retainable if my next experiments with fine ballast work better than no 2. I will have a better idea what the final end results are when I’ve got a chance to gently weather the track and ballast with spray paint. Sound Strangely and rather bizarrely the cork was significantly quieter than the woodland scenics dense foam. Direct to baseboard was obviously the loudest but looked the best without the huge trackbed shoulder. The quietest by a wide margin was the Peco foam underlay which was augmented by Heki medium ballast, despite the amount of PVA applied. Next experiments No 5 - will be 3mm cork with a fine bright beigh/sandstone colour No 6 - will be 3mm dense foam with a fine bright beigh/sandstone colour No 7 - will be Peco foam underlay augmented with fine beigh/sandstone colour ballast I anticipate that no 7 may be a good enough compromise for our existing track work, which will save a massive amount of time, and that no 5 will suffice for the remaining track to be laid on the lowest level for the branch line using code 75 rail. Last Word Direct to baseboard was by far my favourite in appearance, perhaps with a lighter colour next time, but the sound is deafening so regrettably I will pass on that one. Good night for now. More to follow in due course as experiments continue.

Superb layout glover. Excellent.

Irish Times piece http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/metro-north-construction-may-be-brought-forward-1.2957390