Noel

Bad luck and disappointing I'm sure for all on board and the RPSI. Were the line side fires actually caused by the passing of the steam loco, or was that media speculation, or other causes. April is a bit early in the year for ultra dry line side foliage, especially after all the rain these past 8 weeks. Has H&S gone totaly bezerk. The amount of times we're driven the car across the wicklow mountains while there were gorse fires burning on the road side that posed no risk to the car. Hope the H&S lunatics don't ruin rail tours and limit steam loco operations in the future.

MM 201 reruns due with next year

Short sighted. Commuters from wexford, gorey, Arklow, Wicklow encouraged to get off the roads and use public transport (ie rail), but the service is already too slow and now they want to axe it? Darwin!

Same body removal technique as the original models. Leave the walkway rails on, just temporarily unclip for both cab ends Pinch body sides with wooden sticks (eg ice cream sticks or the outside edge of wooden cloths pegs) to lever body upwards enough to get a thin flat screen driver underneath see send pic below. If you're careful you won't damage or dislodge the walkway rails and they'll clip back into both cabs once there are back on. Leave the cab that is connected to the body at the grill end connected to the body centre piece as it is removed, the other cab end slides up and off easily Just keep gently but firmly pinching the sides until you create a 1 or 1/2mm gap between the body and walkway, and then gentle lever up at each end until it can be pulled free by hand. When putting the body back on get the cabs the same way around and the body centre section of the ladder fits into the walkway holes. Once off just remove the 21-pin blanking plate and install the 21-pin decoder Then suggest off to test track to program the decoders address (eg 147 or 185). Test the loco runs ok before putting the body back on. PS: The loco is supplied with a built in speaker so you won't have to solder a speaker to the PCB like the original production run from 2008.

I'm told WheelTappers about to release ESU v5 sound decoders for the new MM re-run 141/181 locos. Apparently their web site is down at the moment. The projects support the full ESU prototypical full throttle software's driving features such as Coasting, Braking, train loads, various rail sounds and flange sequeal, cascading wagon train coupling snatching and cascading wagon to wagon buffer clashing, etc, as well as lighting arrangements for double header consists, shunting, etc. Personally I use wheeltapper decoder projects for sound because of their superior and more realistic driving characteristics. Prefer them to other vanilla ESU projects based on north american EMDs that lack coasting, long distance train braking that make driving so much more fun. Back in the 1970s we call this inertia braking with electronic DC controllers of the day. I'm sure MM may release their own sound decoders in time as they did for the 121s. For me as a model train operator the driving prototypically is as important as the actual sound quality if not more. PS: On the subject of Murphy Models I was in Marks Models yesterday collecting some MM stock and noticed the new tippex coaches are fabulous looking with the correct deeper shade of orange compared to the original 2008 mk2d production run which was rather yellow in tone.

‘Biscuit tins’ seems appropriate for 2[6-7]00 class DMUs. I suffered 7hrs on board one during a railtour once (cork-waterford) worst seats on rails, not suitable for intercity. Wont make that mistake, wont be going on a railtour again on any DMU, my back is still recovering. I thought the lilt livery was the nicest looking though. Bizarrely I commissioned a model some years ago in lilt livery but the supplier/builder vanished with my deposit. Last I was told in October by ‘a man’ was some 201s in IE livery reruns might be due Q1.25 and same for 071 re-runs in freight grey and NIR blue. That should put a stop stop the insane price gouging on eBay for Blue 111,112,113s.

Pallets of MM just arrived at Marks Models.

Airport access won't affect us hopefully as we've switched to car ferries for overseas travel. I've had it with airports and low cost air carriers. It's so much more relaxing and enjoyable by sea. The modern cruise Ferries are fabulous. Overnight from Dublin to Cherbourg is impressive on W B Yeats.

Looking forward to Q4 when these are due. Will they have food trolleys on board!

Don't care what gauge it is as long as you can get an elevator down to a platform under terminal 2 or 1 and get a direct airport express train to either Pierse street underground (underground so no slow dart traffic impeding line speed) or Heuston underground, come up the elevator and board an intercity train. The Luas doesn't cut it, it's too slow and over crowded. The problem is politicians will screw it up by wanting many stops between the airport and city centre transport hubs to appease their constituents. It's why air travellers tend to use the heathrow express instead of the tube to get into London from heathrow. 15mins air conditioned v 60mins on an overcrowded smelly hot tube. I'm no longer a back packer, just want to get to destination quickly and efficiently in comfort. A train from Dublin airport to city centre should take max 15mins, not stop every 300meters to facilitate locals, its an international air transport hub.

. . . and pairs of baby GMs in consist ran most of the main line pax services with excellent reliability. B&T livery GMs hauling super train rakes still look well. Before the locos were repainted into supertrain livery too.

Cheers, it came from 00 Works a few years ago [GSR 475 (Ex CBSCR)]

Super photo.

interesting suggestions. The big hole seems that one cannot get off a dart or intercity train at connolly, go down an escalator to a basement platform and get a dart underground direct to the platforms at heuston or direct to terminals 1&2 at dublin airport and indeed terminal 3 which seems inevitable in the future (Ie air travel will eventually decarbonise) ps. As ferries likely to replace low cost air travel in the midterm perhaps also a direct dart underground from connolly to dublin port (ie for containers and pax).

Does anybody remember something similar to these at Houston in the 1970s, and the bay platforms at Westland Row?

Those pizza cutter wheels look scarily sharp should there be a mishap

Hi Kevin, @DiveController Platform ramps tend to be the issue as wagon chassis elements that protrude tend to fit under the platform edge overhang, but in Ireland ramps are square and the same width as the platform, unlike many BR stations where the ramps are tapered and curved. tapered ramps like these Hornby toy versions don’t foul wider bogies or wider stock. this is common on BR outline stations. @jhb171achill The Fountain of Irish prototypical knowledge explained to me tapered platform ramps are generally not used in Ireland. I have some MIR resin wagons that cannot run past scale distanced square platform ramps without fouling and derailing. Anyway it sound like it shouldn’t be an issue. I have my platforms a prototypical distance to stock (ie track centre), so alighting LLPs passengers don’t have to jump across 2 or 3 feet gaps from coaches to platform. Moving swiftly on, my goodness the amount of new models due to ship over the next 9 months is staggering. Will layout have to grow to stable all this new stock?

Thanks that's good to know.

@Warbonnet Fran, a question if you don't mind please and you may be in a position to answer. Have these fab looking Bulleid beet wagons been loading gauge tested so they can run past platform ramps at prototypical platform gaps to track (ie so the hanging door stoppers don't foul platform ramps). This is a problem I encountered with some other kit built beet wagons in the past. Many thanks in advance.

Fab

Irish Railway Models RTR (IRM here) Murphy Models RTR Silverfox kits Murphy models were announced due to re-run NIR livery 071 GM locos at the end of this year. For C lass and Hunslet Silverfox kits are your only route.

Funny by chance I just pre-ordered an AS pannier tank with DCC sound

Great idea, makes sense to make use of the same chassis tooling as for the beet wagons.

Eoin Fry to the power of 2! On another level. Respect.