Noel

Park Royal Coaches were part of the CIE Golden era from 1960s to mid 1970s when Black'n'Tan livery coaches had replaced the former flying snail green and eau de nil livery. This is one of the first rakes I've operated without a single Craven coach in the formation. As a child I remembered hardly any CIE coach formation had more two of the same coach types in it. It made for great diversity and visual stimulus. On local workings a single craven plus one park royal and a GSV or HLV made up a train.

Wasn't happy with the name board so made another less clunky looking one.

Correct Patrick The embossed plastic sheet for the goods shed and walls was greenstuffworld.com 'Smooth Rock Wall'

Park Royals mixed in a typical 1960s CIE mixed rake formation hauled by B135. I recently tweaked the livery of these from IE/IR modern Tippex twin stripe to single stripe CIE era black'n'tan livery.Mixing the 1960s with the 1990s on the layout by accident now a thing of the past.

Might need a few tulips or roses to brighten these bedding plants up a little or a touch of blue. Just some filing left to do. These will make platform beds. The more I continue with this very enjoyable project and the more I look at photos the more I see what has yet to be done and the list becomes like ever expanding foam to infinity.

It was worth waiting for in the end, 121 was staggeringly good with some innovations.

Spot the differences - IFM Park Royal Coaches livery converted to CIE era rather than IR/IE Tippex modern era. Done by brush. Unfortunately the masking tape took the coach no transfers off with it so will have to replace those. I just cannot run modern era Tippex livery behind my beloved black'n'tan locos through stations with sidings full of two axle goods wagons. Its just not 1960s or even 1970s. Love these unique coaches. I have 3 RTR like this one to be converted back to CIE and two further kits which I'll paint myself so they will end up CIE era. That'll be enough park royals to form at least 3 rakes of CIE era coaches in formation with other assorted CIE era coaches such as early Cravens and Laminates (IFM+SF). When I was a youngster no passenger train was ever made up of the same coach type, not until the super train mk2d's came along in the mid 1970s hailing the transition to modern era trains with uniform rakes of both passenger coaches and fitted freight wagons.

More Gort mysteries, planted and watered

Part of the problem is a small number of collectors/investors and traders who bulk buy a large amount of stock at the time of a new release, but then drip feed them onto the market some years later when supply is becoming constrained. Btw, I am not referring to normal hobby retailers in this respect such as IRM, Marks, Hattons, Rails, etc. This reduces the supply to the ordinary model railway entusiasts who often seek to buy just one or two items to actually use and run on their layouts. Free market and all that. I get a sense this may have been a factor in the recent 121s virtually selling out so fast. With MMs recent announcement and IRM we are probably safe and guaranteed good supply of new and re-released Irish models for decades to come.

Fiacra, just a tip if you found a black roofed mk2d EGV its a fairly quick easy job to remove and repaint just the roof back to matching orange, alternatively respray a Galway mk2d EGV to tippex livery, more of a total respray job, or finally if you can get your hands on the most recent MM Super Train livery mk2 EGV, its a relatively simple matter to put tippex white stripes on it and IR intercity logo on the sides using only transfers, no paint needed, just a brush of varnish to seal afterwards.

Yes but in fairness it seems to happen more frequently than one might hope with some of the smaller online sites. I've had this occur in the past even with Peters Spares, Osbourne Models, Gaugemaster, Element Games, etc. Its annoying but not the end of the world.

Just goes to show what an exceptional model they were, still the best and most enjoyable runners I've ever come across from any manufacturer. Supply and demand has pushed these prices up to silly levels.

I started buying from German retailers two years ago in preparation for anticipated possible brexit issues and so far have found it an excellent if not better source than UK outlets. Same for amazon.de who's postage rates to Ireland has improved significantly over the past two years. Happy Days.

Well done MM and Patrick Murphy This is staggeringly great news. Now there’ll be plenty of finescale Irish coaches for 201s and the imminent A class to haul. You must be delighted Rob to hear about the mk3s in particular. Doh I’ve just finished respraying a rake, but will still be delighted in time to buy two rakes of the MM mk3 to go with two A classes and existing 071s. Time for a bit of time travel in my case.

Some mysterious bits for Gort

Yes it was the first model that looked like a prototype and past the duck test, even if it ran as rough as clock work tractor, back in the the mid 1970s I thought this model was the 'bees knees and the cats whiskers' This Lima CIE 215 pretend A class yoke was an even worse runner than the Lima 201, but probably the fastest model loco in history.

Possibly mind you I’ve seen film of 14 coach trains, and knock specials, but the longest trains in Ireland most probably were beet trains with in excess of 35 wagons.

For fun I kitbashed one of these a year ago. Never got around to making more. Decided against making the 62ft versions because of their extreme length and perceived running problems on typical curve radaii, and excessive train length. JHB and Barry Carse had a nice photo of a rake of these in Galway Yard in one of their books.

Amazerballs! sublime

Some tweaking needed but we're getting there.

Ironically my ancient Hornby Dublo has very fine wheels and runs on code 75. The big locos could haul 20 coaches.

The two I've trued were are IrishUncialfabeta-Bold and MeathFLF. The former looks more like GSWR style.

And this evening I figured out how to get Gaelic fonts working on Mac

Hattons have excellent and rapid service with very low postage costs to ROI. Just today I placed another order with Hattons a) because they had the items I was looking for in stock and I was not able to order the items from my usual Irish online retailer who was out of stock, and b) good prices. Hattons are ultra reliable and pack products properly for transit (ie by not just chuckling a model item in a box and then throw a pile of padding or bubble wrap over it leaving the inner model box in direct contact with the outside wall of the packaging box making it more vulnerable to shock treatment). I wish Marks would upgrade their eCommerce suite, its pretty awful functionally, no login, no saved baskets, no wish lists, limited searching. I order from Marks as much as possible when they have items in stock. PS and apparently they are VAT registered in Ireland so use DDP (delivery duties paid).

Platform walls decorated, weathered a little and varnished. Ready for fixing to the west platform. Moderately pleased with the way they turned out