Noel

Not surprised to hear A23r is sold out, the CIE stepped Black'n'Tan livery was iconic IMHO best livery of the lot with the stepped band.

Yes it seems once they sub-contracted out the catering it went rapidly downhill. The Cork train lost the business community as a result. I hear only the enterprise does proper food now. I could be getting mixed up but I regularly travelled to Cork for work in the 80s and remember a host/hostess, sit down menus, linen service, delph, metal knives and forks, and taste wholesome if not gourmet food that was excellent for on board a train. I nearly fell off my seat with surprise when I was told there was a fax machine available and a power socket under the table as well as being offered a glass of champaign with my cooked breakfast. None of this nonsense sandwiches off a trolly with crisps and a can of 7 up like nowadays.

Fond memories of City Gold to Cork and back in the 80s when there was a decent on board service with hot meals, or enjoy a full Irish breakfast on the 07:40 Dublin to Cork on the comfy m3s. The days when you could actually eat a hot meal traveling by train. Now only snack food from trolleys on board trolleys. If they brought proper food back on the trains I'd leave the car at home more when travelling to Cork, Kerry and Galway.

Wow spectacular model. Loving this thread and watching her progress.

Yes it was interesting to note the CIE black'n'tan livery A classes were top of the list followed by IR livery. Surprised A1 not already sold out as a collectors item. I remember what looked like a gauge 1 static model in the dept of transport years ago in the delivery silver livery.

The drift to music

I've said it before Eoin doesn't look his best in this photo but his engineering work is simply out of this world. Excellence. Hat's off.

Really looking forward to these 20ton Brake vans. Will look perfect behind Gort goods trains. PS: Looks like plug in NEM pockets a possibility?

Wow I get vertigo just looking at that. Would you not consider risking orange or yellow stuff instead?

DCC dropper plan, plus the eastern head shunt can be toggle switched from ordinary track to DCC programming track using a switch. DCC dropper pairs in red.

Well wear. Love the IR livery versions with the IR logo.

Eamonn Redmond sent me this link. Nostalgia gold 1960s and 1970s by Tom Dowling and Ciaran Cooney

Used Cobalt point motor Tiebar Labels which are designed to make ballasting points a little easier and less risky to clog the tie bar . https://www.dccconcepts.com/product/cobalt-tiebar-labels-12-pack/ The idea is you just ballast to the edges of the label which is pre-ballast coloured and then dry ballast around the tie bar which should cause the ballast to stick to the sticky labels avoiding the risk of PVA mix gluing the point. These were easy to slide in under the points after track laying and are self adhesive with a hole for the point motor bar. Photo below shows three points and a Kadee uncoupling magnet ready for Javis fine granite ballast. The double layer of 3mm closed cell dense foam underlay at 6mm total was perfect height to recess the Kadee under track magnet without needing to cut into the baseboard.

A montage of progress on Gort this past two years. Shortly after no 3 was recovering from heart surgery when WMRC pal Dave visited me in hospital with a card signed by club members and a nice get well soon gift. Little did I know then how long this might take and its not done yet, but on the home stretch now. Thanks for the kind and encouraging comments especially from those who've been so generous with advice, guidance and tips as I learned along the way. Best wishes everybody for a special and blessed Easter. It's a long way to tipperary but loving every step along the way.

Its a relief to see what started out as a layout design in RailModellerPro evolved into something real Which was inspired by this photo from "Rails Through the West' Starting to look like this After it started a dry test fit like this a few years ago now using old bits of toy buildings Spent today finalising track fitting, eliminating any rail or sleeper gaps, loading gauge and clearance tests for platforms and loading docks using a variety of wide rolling stock (eg Laminate+Craven coaches, cattle wagons, etc). Also tested track work with stock and tested the uncoupling magnets. I'm hoping to use magnets to hold the buildings and platforms in place so that they remain removable for transport. Looking south in the direction of Ennis. B188 uncoupled from the afternoon Limerick-Athenry passenger working to shunt some wagons in the yard ready for the Limerick-Claremorris evening goods train to collect. Looking North in Athenry direction. Next step should be ballasting once the point motors have been tested. Track pins will be removed once ballasting has been completed. Really enjoying this project. I've learned so much along this journey and its far from finished yet, but patience is the one thing I've really had to take on board and avoid the urge of trying to run trains too soon.

Just wondering did these ever materialise Dave?

Wash your mouth out! I'd sooner admit to coming from Cork rather than run yellow stuff! I had to wear full PPE gear when doing your weed van last November for fear I'd catch yellow fever from it.

Yes I miss those 'enormous hydraulic buffers' and dislike the way nowadays the locos have to stop so far away from the terminus buffers. H&S. Some more CIE golden oldie scenes

This one was done by Seamus Graham using a galway donor. It had to be stripped down and whole thing had to be resprayed after a rub down and being primed all over. The Galway livery is not convertible. Personally I prefer masking and painting the white stripes (usually reverse masking but not always) as I just cannot get whitehat stripe transfers to go on as straight and precise as painted ones, and my OCD cannot tolerate anything off square or not laser dead straight. Wavey lines and any kinks that appear in my trackwork drive me crazy and are sent for execution immediately. Orange roofed mk2d's in IE/IR tipped livery used to be much sought after about 6 years ago, like gold dust, but now the Supertrain livery EGVs would make a better and quicker donor as he white stripes could easily be added either by painting or transfers in the hands of somebody with the experience to make them absolutely 100% dead straight.

Sure. Unfortunately that wasn’t an option some years ago and was the only way I could source an EGV for €60 in this livery.

At that price EGV coach could make a good donor for resprayed into IE/IR Tippex livery that is much sought after. That's how I got my first EGV some years ago when the IE/IR Tippex ones were as rare as gold dust

Is this April 1st?

How are coaches that were for sale RRP in Ireland one year ago for €58, now worth €150 now? They are not even in the much sought after IR/IE Livery! Cant tell if this was from the release batches in ST livery with the QC paint issues or from the later corrected batches. Anyway MM have new IR/IE (ie with the tippex white stripes) in the pipeline planned for release later this year or early next year. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Murphy-Models-MM5214-Mk2D-Standard-Coach-5214-CIE-Orange-Black-Irish-Railways/353413187009?hash=item52491145c1:g:lU8AAOSwvPpgT42N

Thanks for those fabulous series of photos. Wow can you imagine how busy those lines could be with seasonal passenger traffic these days bringing tourists to the busy hot spots like Kinsale, Baltimore, Conakility, etc, not to mention all the commuters in and out of Cork city all year round. A lost treasure. I think the old Baltimore station is now the Life boat base.