Noel

The 121 seems the ugly duckling of the Irish GM family. It has character but not the prettiest loco that ever ran here. At least its not as bland boring as the 201 candle box.

Interesting livery for a 121

Hi Alan. It is possible but the geometry of Peco streamline 00 points is different to Hormby set-track. You will need very short lengths of flexible track to link the SL90 to hornby set-track. There is nothing worse looking than kinked joints in track work or gaps in sleepers at track joints, but a few CM of flexitrack can easily avoid this and look great. Noel

Hi Kevin I may be facing the same dilemma later this year when I repaint and convert a 3car dmu to 1950s CIE aec green. I had planned on a single Lenz decider wired to the centre and trailer coaches using micro plugs and sockets painted dark brown (ie to vaguely resemble air hoses). Eoin who builds the Dart RTR models is possibley best placed to answer this one from experience. Noel

Sorry those links are not working. Would love to see the one of Heuston Goods yard.

Smaller cruise ships (i.e. like those seen in Waterford pics) can be more interesting to cruise on then the monster 3000-6000 pax boats. The small ships can dock in more interesting and historical city centres allowing direct walk off access avoiding tedious bus excursions. The larger 300+m boats are more often limited to docking in vast ugly commercial deep water ports (e.g. Civitavecchia 90mins from Rome, or Piraeus in Athens). Looking out from a ships balcony at oil tankers is not as 'cutsey' as looking at the walls of an old medieval city with historical and hospitality attractions only a walk from the quay. BTW, I was dragged under protest on my first cruise some years ago, complaining about paying actual money to be imprisoned and herded into an overcrowded floating hi-rise shopping mall apartment block - uggh - but it was not like that once on board. These ships only look as ugly as tower blocks from outside, once on board it was surprisingly relaxed, uncrowded and pleasant.

Not sure about the visual impact such an oversized tower may have had, but it could have grown on folk and become a tourist attraction. Cruise ships is another option for DL, but as somebody who goes on cruise holidays, I'd expect most pax would want direct walk off city centre access rather than off in the suburbs albeit close to a dart or get bused around.

End of an era. Low cost air travel and Dublin port tunnel access direct to the motorway network were probably two major factors. Dundrum town centre has already taken much trade away from DL, this is another bit of bad news for local traders.

Those two would be nice alright as RTR. However not sure if they would sell in large numbers due to market size. Put 10-15 similarish looking bachmann open wagons or brown vans behind a black 141 or A class and it can look a very respectable 1960s Irish goods train. The key is the loco and the brake vans. Only one UK brake van type resembled the layout of the CIE 20/30 ton ones. Price is an issue because it's easy to put Cie decals and weather Bachmann/Hornby RTR wagons for what I'd guess would be half the cost of specialist RTR wagons. Few will pay more than the €12-18 it currently costs to buy quality RTR wagons from those two stables and certainly very few would pay €30+ for specialist wagons. The first photo however is the one RTR open corregated wagon I would love to have a few rakes of, but not at €30+ each. It's easy to make closed vans look very like CIE stock but not so these corregated wagons that dominated Irish rails. During the 60s and early 70s very time you pulled into a station in a passenger train, these wagons were either in the sidings or in the passing loop being overtaken by the passenger train.

The new coach livery seems elegant, functional and understated. It doesn't need to be a bold brand identity because it doesn't have to compete. I would doubt the loco went to the paint shop before the livery design was finished. More likely some sort of last minute delay, change, or a supply delay.

How do the Roco compare to using Kadee's on MMs? (i.e. Cravens and Mk2d) I've noticed some of my MM Mk2d's have quite a variance in the height of the existing NEM coupling.

Yes its a bit like the early days of laser printers, slow, expensive to buy, run and maintain, with so-so quality that was not as good as the old daisy wheel printers for the first few years. 3D for model rail has a way to go before I'd buy a loco produced that way, but it will eventually get there. Costs should plummet and quality increase when mass production is established.

Hi Kevin. Yes the footprint was small but that 20% of GDP proved to be the catalyst that enabled greater industrial, social and economic development. ESB went on to build Poulaphouca and Turlough hill. They were innovators. The spirit of Ireland project was budgeted at 5% of current GDP claiming that one out of the three planned schemes could run 100% of the grid based on projected 2025 demand. Three schemes and ROIs main export would become energy to EU. Sadly because the distances on this island are so small and the new motorway infrastructure is so efficient, intercity and freight rail may not have much of a future. Urban commuter rail seems to be the future, and in that respect Dublin's commuter rail network is very limited compared to other EU capitals. Something like Dart underground linking Heuston to the existing Dart network, and an express link from the airport to city centre seem the two missing pegs. Off course politicians killed the viability of a fast airport link due to the desire to have too many stops between the airport and city centre which is exactly what you don't need on an airport feeder service. Proof being the Heathrow express compared to the slow underground link.

Darwin

Fabulous scene and excellent cityscape. The station and platform 1 looks really alive with all the folk, as does P2 & 3. The whole scene is a hive of activity. The Lima coaches match the colouring of the locos really well.

At least nobody died in the disaster

It is Region 2 and PAL, so won't play on a US NTSC Region 1 player unless you chipped the DVD player, or unless it is multi-region. An option is to 'rip' it to an MPEG file on a PC or Mac using commercial DVD ripping software (e.g. cucusoft). You could then watch it on a PC/Mac, iPad or TV via hdmi cable. In the early years of DVD in the late 90s we used to buy DVDs as region 1 NTSC discs from US suppliers, but played them on chipped DVD players that could handle region switching as well as NTSC playback. The restrictiveness of regional locking has been replaced by the internet which instead uses IP addresses to restrict available content to appropriate markets (e.g. Netflix, BBC player, etc)

Instead the fledgling state embarked on the biggest civil engineering project in the world at the time costing 20% of GDP, involved building a substantial railway, braking records for moving more rock, soil and concrete than any project in Europe, when they and Siemens-Schuckert built the Ardnacrusha hydro electric scheme. Built on time and in budget by over 5500 men in only 4 years, it diverted the Shannon and made the young state 100% electrical energy independant by being the 1st country in the world to run their entire national grid from renewable energy. At the end of World War II Ardnacrusha was still generating 83% of the entire grid from hydro. It acted as the Young States stimulus for economic development and industrial growth for decades afterwards. I guess given they bet the country on it they hadn't funds for other projects and had to prioritise. Men of vision, conviction and courage made the project happen, from the ranks of engineers, politicians, and civil servants of the day. Couldn't see anything like it getting off the ground in today's world. It was such a success Siemens built many of the worlds biggest hydro dams on all continents in the decades after. It now only accounts for 1-2% of the grid. But the defunct spirit of Ireland project could have brought Ireland back to 100% from stored hydro. They built a substantial railway network for the duration of the construction to move all the tonnage of rock, soil, concrete, equipment and men.

Just brilliant Great video edit

Enjoyed that video. Your layout looks fabulous. Btw, they way you have scenically blended the back scenes to your layout is the best I have ever seen. It looks seamless which is exactly the desired effect. Top drawer.

And hopefully it will. Right now 3D printing quality seems a bit like the early years of inkjet technology which was not upto scratch, but 15 years later has superb resolution and quality. One thing I don't like about 3D models I have seen so far is the weird texture, especially on flat surfaces with a sort of orange peel effect. In years to come hopefully the resolution will improve and get closer to injection moulded plastic standards. For now 3D works well if one is prepared to touch up the surfaces after printing (e.g. wet&dry paper, etc), but it is tedious.

Fascinating. Thanks Josef & JHB.

Thanks Guys. Any idea what the logo was meant to symbolise? Aside from gourmet food.

A trivial snowy afternoon question. Just curious how the old CIE logo from the 1950s acquired the nickname flying snail? For the 1950s it was a great looking logo. Now knowing the nickname I can see a vague resemblance to a snail, but if I hadn't know the nickname I'd have never thought of a snail myself. It more resembles a wheel, greek/roman helmet, flags on wheels, etc. It looks more like a wheel at speed on rails.

Superb post and superb work Glenderg.