Noel

Looks good. Mine is in the post and hopefully will have it Monday.

Hi Stephen. Thanks. Yes, I already have old iPhone working on our layout as cabs and it works a treat, but personally I just don't like touch screen for throttle control. No tactile feedback and cannot be used unsighted unlike a knob, slider or buttons. But its effectively a free wireless cab so can go walkabout. I find I use the iPhone very rarely now and use the NCE power cab with multiple plug in access points around the layout in an inexpensive phone cable daisy chain. Just prefer one handed blind access and tactile feedback despite the cost of the extra NCE power cab. Noel PS: The iPad also works!!! PS2: Pity the wiThrottle app doesn't also use the iPhone volume buttons for throttle as well as the touch screen slider.

The hand held Mobile Control II cabs are €285 each. Nice looking unit, expensive, but not sure about the ergonomics of a rotary knob instead of buttons or a slider. For a large club layout the ESU system could turn out to be extremely expensive due to the need for say one base station plus two remote cabs (600+285+285 = 1170). Or a layout with base station plus one remote cab (600+285=885). Ouch! On the other hand an Audi A6 is worth what an Audi A6 is worth and a Ford Mondeo is worth what it is worth, so trying to compare low end DCC systems to top end doesn't make sense.

Wonder if or how many planning laws having a loco in a front garden might breech. Fun, but an eyesore for his next door neighbours only 3ft away.

Horses for courses! I drooled over the 50200 system last year and very nearly succumbed to its lure. It is probably the best system. However its non portable games console style dual throttle base station didn't suit our layout as we would need multiple cabs at different locations, and I wasn't as keen on ESUs portable hand held cabs. The NCE was a good compromise for us due to the plug in plug out ability of the dog bone cab and I like its tactile feel in hand and its ergonomics. I do agree the Americans are rather dated and stayed in their innovation, especially some of the software's U/I and are slow to move with the times. If ESU had a decent hand held cab with physical controls, buttons and a colour display it may have swayed me. Anyway I will probably change in a few years cause I like trying out new technology and DCC systems are bound to improve a lot. On the other hand DCC needs to be radically reinvented and brought into the 21st century beyond early 1980s electronics, with high speed messaging and the burying of concepts like CVs under smart human interfaces. ESU have certainly innovated more than anybody, but are still hamstrung by NMRA's current DCC standards. The NMRA standard needs modernising!!! Apologies for drift. PS: Don't like buttonless touch screen cabs for driving trains - need knobs, buttons or levers.

Wow that's mad but amazing. Very impressive but one can't help wonder how long the novelty factor might last. I thought I was bad years ago with my virtual 747 cockpit.

That landscaping is awesome and blends in with the backscene in an incredible way.

Yes I though of that, but I may probably use them for weathering practice before I attempt weathering my MM Mk2d coaches, and then repaint the Hornby coaches RPSI green. Personally I don't like the bright orange roof livery so happy to use them as donors.

But for an unplanned visit to the Fry model railway in 2008 with my son after 15 years of absence from the hobby, I might never have seen the MM 182 in the shop which I bought on the spot, and like you it triggered my return to the hobby. I could not believe the quality of the finish and was staggered by the super smooth running quality. I'd never seen such a precision chassis run so well. PS: I brush repainted the Hornby Hymek when I was about 16 because I couldn't stand the orange plastic colour and painted the under frame of it and the coaches rust brown as well as over painting the fisher price window frames black instead of the awful chrome colour they were painted out of the box. A bit of a botch job looking back on it, but these old hornby toys should now make suitable donors for me to learn respraying and weathering techniques.

Nice. Sounds like a BR class 37 minus the bells.

+1 NCE does what it says on the tin. I just love the ergonomics and feel in hand of the Power/ProCabs despite the large size. I'd change two things though all of which could be done in the software. Superglue, disable or get rid of the momentum button - it changes CV3+CV4 which upsets sound decoders Enable other buttons work when the 'function explain' display mode is on without having to exit that mode I've experimented a lot using my smartphone, but touchscreen interface just doesn't cut it for everyday use. Great as a cheap wireless cab for walking around the outside of a layout for different viewing angles, but smartphone lacks tactile feel of buttons requiring eyes on, therefore doesn't work single handed.

The loco or the car?

Great photo. What a difference the tippex and white logo made. It's definitely Greystones. Agree with the dating based on the cars.

. . . or not. Back in the days when painting British models orange and black was supposed to make them look Irish . . . life before MM Hornby CIE loco - really a BR Hymek that looked like nothing on Irish rails and Mk2b Hornby coaches Lima BR Mk1s in B&T Livery behind pretending to be some sort of CIE coach. Lima CIE loco - a BR class 33 pretending to be an A class - at least a small improvement over the hideous hymek 35 years ago I thought these were the ok, but boy have we come along way thanks to Murphy Models who raised the bar to heights we could have only dreamt of way back then. Augmented by a range of small scale RTR and kit vendors, Irish railway modelling has never had it so good. Happy Days. From those toys to this in 35 years - And I dared to moan about the colour of the blue seats - shame on me!

You have a good RTR choice from Silverfox (BR Mk1 GSV or Dutch GSV) and Irish Freight Models (Bulleid heating van) and others for kits. Personally I like the Black'n'Tan dutch GSV slightly weathered. It looks right at home with a short rake or 2 or 3 cravens. For longer rakes the BR Mk1 GSV might be more prototypical.

Nearly there, just waiting to respray two old Hornby LMS coaches into pretend 'Laminate' Black'n'Tan livery. Two Cravens, one PR, one laminate, one GSV behind a black 141 and into CIE 1960s heaven on some rural line. The Cravens and 141/181 seem the pinnacle of MM excellence.

Sorry no like - poor runners - junk heaps imho. I haven't seen any good ones yet in the flesh or on youtube. Show me these running smoothly at crawl speeds over insulfrog points doing 1/2 scale walking speed and then I'd consider. You never see these demonstrated at crawl speeds over points on youtube - for good reason. Quality and value for money it's hard to beat a Bachmann centre drive all wheel pickup, all wheel drive chassis, double flywheel chassis. I have yet to see anything run remotely as well as an MM/Bachmann 141. That is very true. PS: Now I have to do some WORK :) :)

It would all depend on the availability of a top class centre drive chassis chassis that would plug in under a 3D body shell. Other then that yes I would wait. I waited 40 years for MM 141, 181, 071s after all. Running quality is paramount, don't like scale perfect static displays!

But was it not the state policy in the 60s that the railways were subsidised as essential social infrastructure. If they now have to be financially viable and free standing is the market big enough now that the country is paved with empty motorways?

Yes fair comment, but its interesting the volume of new MM products released and sold during the recession over the past 7 years. The baby GMs didn't really hit the high street proper until after Lehman Brothers!!! That's a fair achievement to shift that much product in such harsh economic times. I suspect there is more capacity in the Irish RTR market than we might give it credit for, but as you say on the other hand there was a 'catch up wave' yearning for genuine Irish models that may have been largely satisfied to date.

The essential truth is that only 6m people on the whole island is not going to support the same railway economics as a country with 60m population. Add to that, the tiny geographical size here and short distances which favour motorways over rail, unlike the UK which has many large population centres very far apart. Chalk'n'cheese, what fits there may not fit here.

+1 I'm not impressed with any of the coarse looking 121 kit built models I have seen nor the low speed running qualities of ones I've seen operating. Give me a RTR MM/Bachmann quality injection moulded body and precision centre drive chassis any day. 3D doesn't blow my skirt up yet, its early days, nor the idea of kit bashing a 3D body onto an adapted chassis. Personally I'd rather be without than run badly bodged models. I won't start on the quality of model kit painting which varies from sublime excellence to something that looks like my kids used to bring home from school.

I can understand both strands of opinion. However, a sense of fair play suggests that a customer should first contact a vendor if there is a problem with goods or services that had been purchased, but only go public should they not receive a reasonable or satisfactory outcome. In the case of model rail supplies, one would contact the retail outlet who supplied the goods rather than the wholesaler or manufacturer, who may in turn may take it up with their supply chain. It is quite another matter to complain publically about goods or services that may not have even been purchased by the complainant, and one would have to be very careful not to defame the good name of a business or person on mere internet hearsay. Fair and objective comment is however valid. Talking quietly behind the scenes more often than not, but not always, tends to resolve issues better then publicity on the internet. Yet pointing out any truth in a fair and reasonable manner is valid. On the other hand, one doesn't want to harm the goose who normally lays the golden eggs just because one didn't hatch as well as others. Even if the goose decides enough eggs have been laid over the years, this customer is very grateful for the superb eggs in the past.

If one was a cynic one might wonder if part of the reason the mk3 coaching stock and so many locos were cut up in the last decade was in case they might possibly fall into the hands of future competitors. Ireland geographically is a small island with a small rail network, so I'm not sure if the typical privatisation model would work here due to the economies of scale (e.g. one operator for the track infrastructure and multiple carriers for services)! BTW, how does the UK get away with private rail subsidies in EU land? Our govt is not allowed subsidise Aer Lingus anymore!

Understand. On my first attempt dry assembled, the plasticard I used was a little too thick, but I found some paper thin plasticard which did the trick.