Noel

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.

Looks like Ian's ebay handle (ie MIR). I managed to buy some kits from him via ebay last year.

She looks fabulous underway. Serenely realistic layout scenes also. Class.

Did the buyer of this not realise a Murphy Model version is coming out? €300 ???? https://www.ebay.ie/itm/124647734562?mkevt=1&mkpid=0&emsid=e11010.m1951.l6663&mkcid=7&ch=osgood&euid=18c8c980c353476583acd4e71f88ecbc&bu=44530438529&ut=RU&osub=-1~1&crd=20210329061719&segname=11010&sojTags=ch%3Dch%2Cbu%3Dbu%2Cut%3Dut%2Cosub%3Dosub%2Ccrd%3Dcrd%2Csegname%3Dsegname%2Cchnl%3Dmkcid

Fabulous scenes

Not much to see, painted the ply back scene boards a very light sky blue (Dulux Liberty Blue 6). Backscene rolls will take better to paint than ply, and if the boards are taller than the back scene rolls the tops won't stand out as much and may even blend in. Currently installing DCC wiring which is rather tedious. First coat on Friday.

DCC dropper board kits assembled for Gort. These boards are daisy chained together for form the DCC bus and each board can feed 8 pairs of droppers. There's alternative components such as LEDs as documented on the MERG website (eg for short circuit detection, etc). These are kits produced by WMRC's DCC electronics and MERG whiz, @Junctionmad(Dave) Easy to solder no risk of creating shorts due to the space available. http://bit.ly/3bsELCV

Yes. Used a Lenz silver+ it fits in the tender. There’s enough space in there for a sugar cube speaker alright, but those N class were not the most smooth low speed runners.

I tell ou now, nowat dats an uttur dissgraesh, ou wudnt no a kiry man if ou met him at all at all, ou haf me kilt schton ded wit laughing ut loud. Doz miserable detwanderthals from cark haf not one bit uv a brain cell between al uv dem, ant dey all talk like gerls singing wurds. Dish is de kingdum riaght fella. No yella in kiry. Wat class uv A fella wud tink udderwise?

Thanks for that info that looks great. F5,6,8,& 13 look like the prototypical drivers biz! F28 looks interesting, but I presume F5-Throttle hold converts the throttle inputs to notching commands while drive hold is enabled.

Thanks Stephen, In the past ESU were not famed for their focus on prototypical driving capabilities just the sound tracks. Their recent 121 project failed in this respect (ie no braking, coasting nor any 'ESU full throttle' driving features). Really Looking forward to sound equipped A classes with the innovative features on the loco such as magnetic decoder hatch, keep alive, speakers, lights, etc, no to mention the precision body and stunning chassis detail.

Holy Moly I bought 4 of those only a few years ago at a Stillorgan Chris Dyre fare for €30 each. Scary what's happened with some ebay prices.

Comprendee. I went with Lenz Silver+(€25) for my non-sound locos at the time, now most have eventually become LokSound and a few Zimo's but the sound projects available for LokSound drive better than Zimo which has 'real drive' and is quite prototypical. ESU caught up with their 'full throttle capability a few years ago'. Hope the A class decoder makes use of full throttle feature such as coasting, braking and throttle hold for manual notching.

A nice option though for kit or scratch built locos that offers easier lighting integration and keep alive. Would have been handy a few years ago for SilverFox kits and 3D locos.

There's about as much chance of yellow s*** running on our layout as there is of Fr Jack Hackett allowing a nun to push his wheel chair past a pub!