Noel

I have another 085 which I bought in Marks Models about 7 years ago.

Nice surprise in the post this morning DCC dropper board kits arrived from WMRC electronics wizard Dave McCabe. These can be daisy chained and handy for baseboard connections where only two bus wires need to run from PCB to PCB with droppers feeding down to them.

Ha, just about to respray an 071 donor (formerly 085) into freight grey. Picked it up inexpensively on ebay some years ago as a potential donor chassis for a B101 kit I have, but think I'll use another Bachmann donor I got off ebay for that instead and respray the 071 into grey. Rake of 7 resprayed mk3s during covid safety restrictions. 7 Mk3s done, Left to right, Hornby (ex virgin), Hornby (ex Virgin), Lima (ex BR Swallow), Lima (ex BR Swallow), Lima Murphy Model RTR, Hornby Shortie (ex BR Blue), Hornby Shortie (ex BR Swallow). One more Shortie in the paint shop at the moment. And EGV on the cutting bench. Hauled by 182. I don't really like 201 prototype as a model, too long for my taste. I suppose there should be an IR tippex 071 hauling that set.

I never tire of seeing wonderful scenes like this from Tara Junction. Love the three double header consists, those baby GMs are so versatile they can do everything in consist from heavy freight to mainline passenger rail, expresses, and in singles local branch trains, routes to smaller towns like Galway, Waterford, and shunting, pilot duties and light goods trains.

Its just like asking a Cork man what part of Kerry his family hail from.

Great result

The american guy seems annoyingly loud. Interesting video. The copper masking is clever. When I saw this on the video I first thought they were models of canal house boats like you see in Amsterdam, rather than trains.

Thanks for info Robert. But the grills are not listed on that FB page.

Exactly. I find mk3s and 201s too long for typical layouts and look all wrong on curves, not to mention the length of a rake. The Baby GMs and 2 axles wagons or 57ft coaches are my favourite. They just look right in the non-scale world of a layout. The only minor snag with the shorties is you need to source buffers for them.

Passengers being fitted. Some legless, but as they say in monty python 'tis but a scratch', 'me legs will grow back, I can still bite you know!' x

One final Hornby 'shortie' respray Resprayed the black chassis black on top of grey primer coat because the pristine shiny black plastic looks toy like and weathering paint won't take to that plastic. This will bring the rake of mk3s up to 9 coaches inc EGV (when I've finished the EGV).

Yes in truth they "are a great bunch of lads" to deal with, pals who do business in China always extolling their quality and professionalism Hope this muppet doesn't cause shipping delays across the globe for the next few months. Apparently there is a massive backlog and tail back of shipping caused the suez grounding. It happened during a sandstorm!!!! OOTW has some questions to answer, these things have augmented GPS accurate to 1 meter for when visibility is poor. Hopefully the A's might be flying anyway.

Gobsmacked, wow David ‘Enniskillen’ looks utterly sublime, another brass maestro is born. Respect. Amazing it’s in brass, a scratch build and your first is a striking achievement.

Yes I got one of those little 'gift's from Marks today with their latest delivery. Have to wait until Lent is over before testing for level of chocolateness!

Got two more Hornby 'shorties' finished yesterday. Curiously the BR Blue donor coach had 7 windows whereas the BR Swallow livery donor had 8 windows. The Swallow livery below makes a much better donor is using Hornby 'shorties' because the removable window strip is already black (actually very very dark blue, but close enough to priests socks black). So these removable window strips can be unclipped and do not need to be masked. Just plug back in later when the coach body has been sprayed orange with the two white stripes. above and below the window opening 7142 awaiting oval buffers from PetersSpares 7105 with buffers added to what had been a BR HST 125 coach which has no buffers. I'm please the way the inexpensive passengers turned out inside the coaches

PS2: Kudos to anybody who spotted the major continuity blooper.

Test run for the recent rake of mk3 coaches comprising 7 resprays from various Hornby/Lima donors and one Lima Murphy Model coach bought on ebay (7140). All lightly weathered except the RTR Lima Murphy Model example as I'd like to keep that as produced. PS: Desperately modern for my era so might auction them off for a charity later in the year.

Another classic. Look at the speed of the trains going over the Barrow bridge. Just goes to show MM grey livery 121s can run with CIE Green Flying snail coaching stock and CIE B&T livery. Glad now I got a pair in this livery and have a silver A class on order with Accurascale/IRM.

Yea I just popped back to 2017 and checked the post again just to be sure.

Hi John that sounds great, 2017? Hope I didn’t miss these kits? Noel

Two more coming off the respray bench. Two Hornby shortie donors. One was BR Blue'n'cream with blasted cream window panel surround, the other was BR Swallow livery with Black window panel surround which halves the work load of respraying one of these. I hate masking windows more than peeling onions. Maskol seems utterly useless for this kind of thing due to its viscosity preventing precision application, so back to masking tape with the aid of a Sharons scalpel. Cut tape around the frame edges with scalpel. Hycote plastic grey primer (same stuff as Halfords) Hey Presto - Black window panels, as black as priests socks but not very very very dark Blue Ted! PS: Got a pack of 100 LLPs on ebay last year a bag costing €3 which saved me about €75 had I used higher quality bachmann figures. Looking from outside the coach through the windows you cannot really tell any difference. These two coach loads of pax cost about 75c rather than €1.50 per figure had It used more expensive Bachmann or Pross figures. Cut the legs off most of them so I could seat them. Had a few folks walking down the isle or standing on the isle chatting to seated passengers. Not a habit in sight so these won't be used on Knock special.

Thanks John @Mayner. That’s really helpful.

Cheers, 7141 may also have been part of set L149801-2

Interesting as the larger retailers are creeping more and more into manufacturing. I'm switching to stall motors, didn't like the speed and noise of the Seep, Peco solenoids. DCC concepts also have lifetime warranty.

Yes I bought two large bags of Javis granite ballast which were heavy, hence courier instead of An Post so had to pay duty and vat. But it was ok. Marks unfortunately didn't have any in stock not did my usual german supplier so had no option but to buy from the UK. But 4 other small parcels arrived two via AddressPal (ebay), no problems, but it looked like both had been opened for inspection and taped back up again with AddressPal tape.