Noel

Yes not the island of hot pokers and bare feet in Donegal. Lower Lough Erne in Fermanagh is also a beautiful mystical lough, worth a week on a charter cruiser.

Hi Jonathan, they are not DCC ready (ie they have no DCC socket), so need to have a wired decoder installed in them. I've just converted one of mine, and about to do the second one. I located a Lenz Silver+ decoder in the tender and ran the 4 wires through a hole in the tender into the loco through a hole under the foot plate. Red and Black wire pair to the two track pickups, and the orange and grey wire pair to he motor. There was no space in the loco body for the decoder so it had to go in the tender. It required a little fettling and I replace the articulated tender/loco coupling with a wire hoop and hook. Posted a few days ago of 379 first test run with DCC decoder installed. Decoder fits in tender.

Lough Derg straddles Co Tipperary, Co Galway and Co Clare

No 390 hauls a local suburban working up the express loop, as passengers wait on Platform 3 for the 14:40 Dublin-Cork. No 379 transfer passing on fast loop. I believe this may have been factory weathered, not done by me. She's DCC now.

Delivery of new loco Preparing to lift off the flat wagon

Interesting how they did it.

I had a similar experience, the 121 model box was put inside a larger packaging box with only a sheet of brown paper wrapped around it but no bubble wrap nor padding, so the model box could move freely and bang about inside the larger box, and all the hand and grab rails had fallen off probably due to shock during shipping. Fortunately it was easy to get them all back on using a tweezers unlike the 141s which were pigs to get walkway handrails off and/or on. Bubble wrap should have been used to prevent the model box from movement and to protect the whole thing from shock (eg parcel getting dropped or chucked into a landing space).

As we are in the realm of fantasy island, yes C class, Sulzers 101, 113 and while they are at it a few 800's with working smoke generators and a subwhoofer in the tender would be nice also. CIE laminates and Park Royals, the 1970 1st edition of Victor comic 25th D day anniversary edition too would be nice.

I quite understand @WRENNEIRE's sentiments, having said that the tooling already exists for Bachmann to do an unrefreshed run of the 141/181s in only the most popular liveries which I guess may have been the IR and IE, and I've no doubt they would sell out due to the pent up demand and all the new entrants to the hobby and Irish Outline scene in the past decade who missed out of the first production run. Those Bachmann 141/181 models still stand up very well today. A refresh would probably make them financially non-viable (eg decoder hatch, builtin speaker, independent head light control, improved glazing, etc). Put a 141 beside a recent 121 and they stand up well. The upcoming A classes are likely to "blow the bloody doors off" and may absorb spend capacity, not to mention the Deltic and Class 37.

Like the sealed barrels of Guinness discovered on board Guinness barge 45M after she was raised from the bottom of Lough Derg in 300ft of water having sunk in a storm 29 years earlier in 1946?

Ah that explains my confusion looking at one of the photos of the LC at one end of the station, I could not place it in the room, nor see the window. Sounds very interesting.

Agree, two 121s once run in with the same decoder settings should more or less match up which has been my experience with 121s and consisting 141 pairs. Same chassis/motor and same decoder makes a huge difference. Also found TLCs a PITA if speeds slightly mismatched compare to knuckle couplings as when one loco is pushing the other the TLCs tend to slip and one rides over the other leading to a derailment on the next bend or paintwork. Clip below of three different steam locos (DCC converted wired decoders) with different decoders pulling and pushing a little but they could run together without derailing or much wheel slip.

Ok but as I said 'curious' how some DCC systems can aid speed matching. Interesting piece below, perhaps more relevant to US consisting as they ofter have more than two locos, often 3 or 4 whereas in the part of the world just a pair as with the 121s. Back to steam days up to 3 stream locos banked heavy trains up the hill out of Cork until the 800s. https://dccwiki.com/MU_consisting/Speed_Matching

Lub gears and barings perhaps, suggest asking seller if they’ll take it back if lube fails or you are uncomfortable disassembling it enough to lube it. Send seller the video.

Curious how the Z21 can handle matching speed curves in consists

FYI, There is about 4 of these Bachmann Irish rail intercity mk2a's due to sell on eBay in the next few hours. It's not me selling, I already have a rake, but remember some folks were lamenting their lack of availability. Expensive but at the moment bids aren't completely insane. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Murphy-Models-IE-Intercity-Mark-2A-TSO-Open-Second-Coach/193760517684

PS2: The little boy Aidan was indeed brilliant.

Spotted ballasts, and weed spray tanks RLHS (rear LHS). Spoil FLHS, plough CLF, cement bubble RCRHS, another spot CR (centre rear), not sure if that is the top of an orange and black A class pre-production sample RLHS too, or two spoils on a 42ft. Another plough FRHS. Image a little blurry so cannot pick out any containers in that maze of colour. Well done, did IRM get a mention? I didn't watch the programme. IRM models excellent finesse look a little out of place with the toys trains, but the yellow models complement the pallet of colours on the table. What a coup to get on. Hope you got a mention. PS: Thanks for the link

Looks like something you'd expect to see on craggy island

That's an easy fix. Just cut away and file off the coupling box under the wagon floor, and screw or glue a kadee draft gear box coupling in its place possibly no 148 which has fitted all my converted Bachmann 2 axle wagons Kadee chart Bachmann wagons converted from TLCs to Kadee no 148s which screw directly onto the flat wagon floor. On most of the Bachmann wagons I had to cut away plastic mounts for the old TLC (tension lock couplings) and file flat to the underside of the wagon floor. Quick and easy to do with a snips and file. When fitting the replacement coupling test fit it before making permanent so that the trip pin and coupling are at the correct Kadee height above the track (NMRA standard). If converting a lot of stock the kadee height gauge is worth the cost. Greatly speeds up the conversion process. If coupling is mounted too high a few thin pieces of plastic card shims should be enough to lower it. The idea is the trip pin should be just 1mm over a kadee track uncoupling magnet. Gaugemaster in the UK are stockists for kadee full range (ie hattons only do the NEM pocket versions). The draft gear box kadee's such as no 148, etc, are usually better at automatic uncoupling and delayed uncoupling than the NEM versions. Hope this helps. One of the things I like about the choice of draft gear box kadee couplings is you can usually choose a version where it is totally hidden under a wagon floor rather than the box protruding past the buffer beam which is rather ugly (eg kadee no 5's not great for this reason). PS: a 143 may be a better length for that wagon

Excellent job. Enjoyed reading and viewing that post Robert as I have some of those kits up in the attic and this will come in very handy when the time comes. Resourceful and neat job.

The thing with plastic card is to protect it from warping over time due lack of structural support, against heating and excessive exposure to UV and sun light. But if it is structurally well supported it should be as stable as brass. Even some IMP RTR coach models end up with a noticeable hint of banana shape after 15 or so years with a slight droop in the middle between the bogies. Drives me nuts, something off square even at 20yard visual range pokes my intermittent OCD.

It certainly was as has been JHB's valued input. I still have to acquire or fashion a silver tin van for that era.

The old adage "whatever tool you know how to best use today is probably the right choice of tool for a job today", I guess the same for materials, whichever medium one may already be familiar with may apply.