Noel

Thanks Hurricane. That's really useful info.

Nice photo. That station always looked like they never finished building the roof.

Anthony's super photos are still there on photobucket: http://s67.photobucket.com/user/anthon007/media/011-2_zps90518739.jpg.html?sort=3&o=828 Anthony's photos:

The true 'dust2dust' CO2 footprint problem! Only time will tell if re-engining 40yo 071s would be successful or not. If they do proceed then one would assume that capital spend would warrant at least a further 20 years service life - that would be 60 years for the body and chassis!!! What routes are the 201s weight restricted on? The report suggests ballina-waterford, ballina-dublin and tara mines is responsive for most the fright traffic. Can 201s haul those routes?

As you say the problem seems stagnation on the part of existing manufacturers and the age demographics of many of the folks who influence NMRA. Very conservative group. It would be a brave group of manufacturers who broke away and tried to invent a new standard, but if key players like Lenz, ESU, Roco, Zimo and Bachmann came up with a new form of DCC it should ultimately survive and the out of date US manufactures forced to follow. If they were clever with the design new decoders could be dual standard and work on NMRA DCC or new protocols which would avoid the need for a 'big bang' switch over on the part of consumers. As to 'little boys with train sets' in truth that's really what most of us are, big kids with slightly more subtle toys dressed up as 'serious modelling' or 'the hobby' to disguise the simple truth we are really just big kids in disguise, with a pleasant dose of eccentricity added for colour. We all need to get out more.

Ditto. I fitted a bass-enhanced speaker which dropped into the ready made speaker cradle in MM 141s, and like you just removed the rear speaker case. I used blu-tac to stop the speaker creating a resonant vibration against the cradle housing. Sounds every bit as well as the speakers supplied with MM 071s. Just solder two wires onto the PC+ and PC- holes of the 141 PCB and plug the 21 pin decoder in.

That engine sounds great. A great recording.

DCC sound remains insanely expensive considering the base manufacturing cost difference between drive decoders and sound decoders is a mere fraction of the selling price difference. It's a very small niche market with enormous markup for the manufacturers. I agree its pointless trying to operate more than one sound loco at a time, it's just a dizzy din, hence having just one example of each loco type makes both operational and economic sense. The default sound volume on most decoders out of the box is set way too high IMHO, totally over powering. I've our few sound decoders set to about 20% of volume level. In the long term sound should come down probably driven by the toy segment of the hobby who have always used 'novelties' to market their wares (e.g. smoke generators, operating mail coach scoops, lights, sound, gantry pick ups, coach lights, etc). Personally I think the current DCC NMRA messaging specs and protocol are way beyond its sell by date and needs a revised standard for messaging and data transfer to/from decoders. Technically it is totally jurassic 1980s technology. It should be possible to read or write 500 CVs to or from a decoder sub 2 seconds rather than more than a few minutes pulsing the drive motor with messages like a reliant robin in the 70s. The drive side of DCC is fine, but the interface, API and data transfer is beyond antiquated - its like using MS-DOS in 2015. IMHO DCC in general needs a fresh redesign from scratch. Who nowadays in modern cars knows how to change a fan belt, dip engine oil, change a spark plug, so why should the word CV be even in our vocabulary. Its like trying to develop web applications in assembly language (for IT bods of a certain age who understand my comparison). Current NMRA DCC needs to be buried in order to be reborn for 2015 consumers and pricing rather than the 1980s techno boffins. ESU have made a decent stab of user friendly consoles, but they are still hamstrung with the other manufacturers by slow CV read/write speeds and daft concepts like programming tracks. No human consumer should need to know what a CV is, let alone bit addressing.

The Zimo MX644D decoder can be bought for about €82 from German sites (i.e. £60), but you would need a Zimo programmer and sound files to burn onto it. Speaker for a 141/181 is about €6. No speaker needed for 071/201 as chassis include them.

Sorry, I meant in general the GM prototypes had a more distinctive and impressive sound to my ears then the re-engined A class MVs which were not as vocal even with the retro fitted EMDs. There were some threads on here that explained why they sounded so different, exhausts, gearing, drive motor, etc.

I bought my Zimo sound project decoders directly from Keith Pearson (i.e. MrSoundguy). He was a gentleman to deal with and even customised the sound projects at my request (i.e. adjustments to function mapping, notch thresholds, duration of breaking sounds, etc). I think MSB tried to give the immersion that it was their product rather than them being a mere dealer. I just love Zimo's 'Real Drive' braking and coasting, but I appreciate it is not every bodies cup of tea. The Zimo chip is even better than the Lenz for drive smoothness and ultra crawl speeds.

LOL - It's un-American to buy foreign products Its a good thing they didn't have an A380 when they made the movie AF1, Harrison ford would have had a heart attack running up and down THREE deck levels. I remember well disembarking from a 747-200 in Kennedy about 30 years ago and a BA Concord was standing at the adjacent gate. An american gentleman also disembarking from Club class, growled at his party of friends "How dare the British have the best plane in the world, it's just plain darn wrong we don't have something bigger and faster than that darn stick insect." There was much polite if not just very slightly smug laughter from the British passengers alighting the aircraft as they heard this. The French involvement in supersonic air transport was never mentioned by anybody.

Interesting. The 8 series on the video seems a gulf state style fit out rather than USAF-1. The high tech defensive add-ons and counter measures will probably never be published on media sites or such videos. Never mind 'offensive' defence systems. They got good air milage and flight cycles out of Reagan's two ageing original 747s.

Nice, but as usual the volume is turned up too high. The noisy baseboard may be drowning out the motor sound. Nice layout though. It's a pity the chassis on that particular A class cannot crawl at low speed like MM/Bachmann diesels. My own is not much better. Tempted to cut and shut a Bachmann CL37 chassis to drive our single A class properly. The MrSoundguy recordings on Zimo chips sound particularly well on 071 and 141 chassis with their excellent crawl capabilities and smooth slow acceleration, unlike Hornby jets that take off at 10mph. The Atlas RSD 4/5 chassis and that sound chip might be perfect under an SF A class body. The real sound of GMs always seemed more 'stirring' and dramatic than the tamer A class prototypes, especially notching.

If you have a 3 or 4 digit number plate you will never be stopped out there!

Out running when the registered owners name and address is probably already displayed on the console provides merely ephemeral escape, not to mention the digital number plate and facial photo!!! Don't always need muscle anymore, instead smartware and intelligence. As to some of the toy fare pricing in sterling I agree it is really annoying and insulting, but I think perhaps we are making a bit of a meal of it. Be it laziness, ignorance, sharp practice, europhobia, or just plain thickness its not the end of the world. I've got some good deals there in Euro and Sterling prices. It's more of a problem now than last year due to the big change in exchange rate last winter, with most folk not realising just how much a sterling priced item will actually cost in euro at current exchange rates.

I could watch that all day long. Enjoyable viewing. Like the clever design. Great layout.

A bit of great craic alright, especially for the money. Was it my eyes, or in the video around 22secs when the horn was sounded twice the loco appeared to slow during the horn blast? It was almost as if the loud horn blast on speaker was sucking up current. Love your layout btw.

They look really well

Hmm - stirring the pot! Eine europäische Sinn für Humor

I guess perhaps because it is run as an 'event' (i.e. a toy fare) it may not be considered 'retail' in terms of the act. But I agree ALL prices should be displayed in Euro. Try it the other way around in the UK and you might get short shift.

We visited one of the Normandy D day museum beaches a few years ago. Spent about 4 hours on a tour of the beach and museum camplex. It was erie thinking of the incredible violence that day 18-22yo kids on both sides had to face. The museum had personal stories and life backgrounds about young allied and German kids, including letters home to parents and loved ones, wills, surreal plans for home visits to do 'normal' things. It put a different spin on it for us, rather than the simplistic and highly sanitised WW2 war movies of the 60s and 70s.

Well I hope not, I'm in rolling stock 'lock down' mode. Any future spend should only be 'time' working on the layout and painting/weathering some stock.

Erie listening to that. Brave young airmen on all sides. The casualty rate for bomber crews was truly dreadful, especially for USAF B17 daylight raids. Suffering was suffering, be it carnage in the air or carnage on the ground, or living with the aftermath. Hopefully we will never see its like again.

Those baseboards look superb. As I said earlier I successfully used ply 22 years ago, but if I was starting out again now I would certainly give serious consideration to a modern MDF that takes track pins. My RC model aircraft workbenches were constructed from MDF and they take a lot of load pressure unlike model rail baseboards which have static loads.