Noel

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

Address pal as fab for getting paints, solvent and cottage uk suppliers who didn’t ship to non uk customers (you know the type SAE for a paper catalog, never heard of PayPal, don’t do credit cards and have adenoid trouble). just received two eBay purchases this week via AddressPal and no problems. Delivered to my door so no Covid expeditions to the local post office either.

Might be an easy respray depending on how easy it is to temporarily remove the glazing. Masking those windows effectively is nigh impossible. Might be of interest to some at WMRC for their fantastic vast O gauge layout, but they still don’t yet have any Irish O gauge diesel locos.

Yea problem for HGVs is physics, too much of the payload weight is the actual batteries, yet the Tesla Semi is claiming remarkable performance and efficiency. Again due to the small size of our wonderful little island and shorter distances BEHGV may work here, certainly for city deliveries and most buses will be BEHGV within the next 7-9 years anyway. Coal could be a tricky material for RPSI to source at an economic price in the future.

Very content and happy waiting until May. I'm sure all in good time, quiet is sometimes good, announcements about announcements can cause fatigue. Was the Bachmann/MM 141/181 not the most important model ever (ie the game changer catalyst without which we wouldn't be speculating about time scales for epic new models)? The much anticipated A class certainly is worthy of the title as the mort important model in the last 14 years (ie since 141/181), but indeed multiple steps up in terms of detail and performance.

Urgent climate action could force some tonnage back onto rail as carbon taxes continue to increase exponentially. For now road is faster, cheaper, more efficient, more flexible. The main thing is geographically we live on a small island with a pile of new motorways, so the short distances don't make it economic to use rail. Wasn't it the strikes that killed the massive cement traffic, which caused the move to road which was discovered to be cheaper so never came back to rail? Cars may well transition from fossil engines to electric over the next five years, but not sure what the transition path for HGVs will be (eg HFC or Gas, or electric, etc) which may swing the balance once again towards rail which will also face increasing pressure to dump diesel traction.

Ah Sorry the second photo threw me off (ie the mk3). Most MM Mk2d liveries long since sold out. Marks Models and Hattons still have a few super train livery versions in stock. IR/IE are rare as hens teeth on ebay. But they do turn up occasionally at swap meets, and toy fairs (eg Stillorgan). An option remains to respray or commission respray of Hornby or Bachmann mk2f coaches at least then as resprays they will have the correct shade of orange/tan/golden brown (ie rather than the MM yellow shaded ones). Was somewhat fortunate to source some IR/IE versions from Chris Dyer about 7 years ago.

Cheers @Keano30. There might be a problem with the loco's PCB. If you contact Murphy Models directly there service and warranty cover is excellent. Perhaps send the loco and decoder to them and PM will promptly get it sorted or send you a replacement. http://www.murphymodels.com/Sparesandwarranty.html You can email them at: customerservice@murphymodels.com

@Keano30 Yes Chris Dyre sales have IR/IE mk3 intercity coaches for sale RTR, no respray needed by you, they come fully finished. He gets them professionally resprayed using Hornby donors. I would not be surprised to see high quality fine scale mk3 RTR coaches on the market sometime in the next three years and they'll sell like hot cakes faster than anything we've ever seen.

Drainange?

Suggest contact Dave Bracken @WRENNEIRE or Chris Dyre both of whom should be able to source MM locos for you at honourable and favourable prices compared to the ebay sharks. There are still the occasional good price on ebay. I just picked up some Bachmann/MM mk2a coaches and sane price. Also consider buying any livery you can get your hands on and then commission a respray and renumber into the livery you prefer rather than the ebay prices (eg if you wanted a grey or NIR 071). Suggest contact top respray guys like Tony Mirola, Anthony Smyth, Richard O'Hanrahan, George Normam, etc. The cost of a commission added to an IR/IE livery 071 will still cost a lot less than ebay sharks, and you end up with a totally unique loco with a running number of your choice.

Some platform walls constructed today. Capping stone done via strip of balsa shaped to half round and scored to represent each capping stone. Will weather these in a day or so when the paint is dry. These small walls are a distinctive feature of Gort. Now to find the right Gaelic font on my mac for the station board name. Gort's essence is an overall greyness from all the stone. Will weather these walls tomorrow. Pleased with the way the balsa worked into the wall.

Delivery received within 24hrs. Well done and thanks.

I have a GSV to run with those. A Silverfox kit from memory with decals from SSM.

Yes I'm fairly confident, there was much discussion on it at the time, but it was only a listing, I don't believe it sold, or not at that price. It was listed for nearly two years. I remember being utterly flabbergasted at the time.

Can anybody remember the Lima 201 listed on ebay for 1,200 about 7 years ago

Some emerging Gort scenes as buildings test fitted dry after decoration, platforms test fitted and tested for loading gauge fit. Important to check all this sort of stuff out now, before wiring is complete and before ballasting. View North towards Athenry. Slowly getting into some sort of shape. View south towards Ennis/Limerick direction. Loading dock weathered a bit today. View through Gort Goods shed All loading gauges tested so ready for ballasting next after a wiring test. I so looking forward to shunting on this layout which was inspired by the book "Rails Through the West"

They went for staggeringly stupid money at one stage, and then fell to €50 within months of MM launching their own models.

No probs so far sending or recieving, but only used An Post.

Gort Cattle dock has simulating that a few cattle have been there. Luckily weathering powders do not also come with synthetic smells! A few heifers seem to have had a woeful dose of the scutters after getting off the train. Also test fitting decorated platforms on Gort. Had to ensure they still fitted between track bed after the sides had been padded out.

Absolutely Fab-U-Lous. Love it. Classic scenes on a truly fabulous layout. Excellent formation of beautiful coaches.