Noel

Agree. I've never used the cab light on my 071s or my 201. A gimmick, gee-whiz the first time you see it but after that its not really going to get used. FYI, wheeltappers 071 and 201 projects have a flickering cab light as it switches on to simulate an old fluorescent light starting up.

Thanks for posting that Dave. An interesting read, a very positive and fair review. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought the tablet catchers were a little anaemic looking. Overall an absolutely stunning model. The article finishes with a 'what next' comment! Has this gentleman not already achieved enough in his successful business career and done enough for the Irish hobby? He created an entire hobby here, and was the catalyst for everything else that followed (eg MIR, SSM, SF, IFM, IRM, PW, AS, JM).

Excellent addition. Noel do you mind me asking where you source your well dressed LLPs?. Like their transparent bases.

B135 has lost her fisher price pristine look and gained some age. These are just exquisite models, the best yet from Murphy Models IMHO, and they drive as well as they look.

Got B135 weathered in the past few days. Mostly powders and a tiny bit of airbrush. B135 imaginary 1968 B135 hauls a local mixed branch train passengers + goods

Stronger deeper colours also a better backdrop for advertising. Apparently One of the reasons they changed from the original flying snail green livery is people down the country missed buses because they couldn’t see them in the distance approaching rural locations. They blended into the land scape too easily. Hence red and cream. Some people in some hilly areas could spot an approaching bus from 2miles away on an elevated hilly road or below in a valley. Myth or true I know not.

That looks like the pub cafe on bere island in bantry bay

Looks like 1969 or 1970 Most of the shops had awnings and many shops on the Main Street had merchandise on display outside on the street, selling buckets and spades and fishing rods as bray then was still very much a summer holiday sea side resort town.

Who needs a light, Just take your arms off and climb up into the cab for a look. Ah now in fairness getting the open grill with a double flywheel motor, AWD+AWP, + speaker in there is some achievement already. But a pity the head lights don't work separately from the running lights on MM's sound decoder. They are actually wired so that they can be switched independently of the running lights.

Yes 1:67mm LLPs are not quite as fit as they used to be in the 1970s. That's a good idea in future. The preiser ho scale figures might have been an easier fit. Its a pity as the guy had an outstretched arm which could have been on the notch lever. From outside the cab it doesn't look like he's armless

Installing a driver in 121 cab proved tricky and painful for the driver who had to undergo major surgery to fit. The main body comes off the chassis easily using 4 screws but boy you have to handle it with kid gloves there are so many delicate detailing parts. Getting the Cab off the main body was a serious challenge (ie without damaging anything). Took the cab door grab rails off beforehand to protect them and in advance of weathering tomorrow. One of them had fallen off in the box anyway. Both arms had to be loped off as well as tighenting his waist but a little LLP plastic surgery later and repainting and he was good to go. It's a tight fit in there most driver figures will not fit in there, too wide with limbs and hips. The arm on the floor will be dedicated to model medical science. Anyway now there is no empty cab and there is a driver clearly visible Put everything carefully back together again in advance of weathering her tomorrow and gave her a test run to be sure all is working ok including the lights. These are exquisite models and a credit to Murphy Models design. Will put the door grab rails back on after weathering. The tablet catcher seems to lack the presence it had on the 141, 181s. Looking forward to weathering her tomorrow. Hope I gave the driver enough food rations cause he's not coming back out of there any time soon.

Was installing a driver today into the cab of one of my Murphy Model 121 locos, but the level of hidden detail I discovered inside the cab was outstanding. Sadly nobody would ever see this from outside the model without using a magnifying glass and a torch, but I was flabbergasted by the detail, all the loco controls and instrumentation, etc x PS: Eoin did a thread a few weeks ago on how to get a driver inside the cab.

W J Owens, 41 main street Bray. I nearly went into a sort of grief when Willie Owens retired about 15 years ago. Bought my first AirFix kits there as a child in the 1960s, moving on to model railways, even some photographic processing gear, and finally RC model aircraft, which I had drooled over since 1965 with the fabulous displays in his shop window. We used to do mail order to Willie Ones in the early 70s, buying balsa wood, glues, dopes, tissue, and kits. Great to be able to pop in and buy just a bag of screws or six inches of spruce engine barer mounts, or those magic days when you were buy an RC set or getting a Tri-Ang Hornby train set for Christmas and rushing down with bob-a-job money to buy accessories. Model soldiers we used to paint and play war games with using match sticks and a dice. One of us would the the allies the other axis powers. Hours of endless fun interacting with pals instead of having our snouts stuck into LCD screens. Marks Models is different but has taken up the baton. WJ Owens was magical because the floor area was small, but there seemed an Aladdin's network of treasure caves out the back with all manner of hidden stock. If you went in and asked Willie, he know if he had it or not, and could retrieve it in seconds. For a short number of years there was Yvonne's in Newbridge that did model railways, airfix, and model aircraft given there were thriving clubs flying in the curragh. W J Owens - A shrine and treasure trove

This talk of model shops sent me googling on the subject for the first time in years. This one in NI popped up. Portadown so on the railway line. No Idea if they are online only or have retail footage. My memory of modelshop's that sold toy trains were The Sportsman in Waterford, WJ Owens in Bray, The Hobby Horse in Rathfarnham shopping centre, and of course Marks Models, and the shop on D'Olier street in the 70s where I bought Ratio Signal kits that are still in use on my current layout. I think this shop may have later became Marks Models. Fair doos to Marks Models they are a proper model shop carrying a great range. Yes the e-commerce suite may need a refresh but inside the physical store is brilliant, superb stock. I rarely get to visit any physical retail shops, but do enjoy the odd visit to Greenogue outlet, easy traffic, easy parking. https://modeltune.co.uk/products/murphy-models-mm0121-loco-121-cie-grey?variant=31964356706346

There seems only one proper model shop left on the whole Island of Ireland and that is Marks Models. When I was a child nearly every large town seemed to have some sort of model or decent toy shop that carried model railways, airfix, etc. Now its just Toy market (eg Smyths). Most were gone by the late 80s, fixed costs are high, especially rent and rates. Online seems the way to go augmented by trade stalls and trade shows for opportunistic foot fall sales.

Poles with many phone wires, brackets and ceramic insulators were a feature of railway lines right up to the mid 1980s. Then new ISDN and the then modernisation of the P&T phone system did away with much of the over ground need for wires. Prior to that the railway lines were a highway for comms (old style), easy to get to, easy to erect beside the railway line, easy to maintain, hence so much telco cable was laid by the railways. Now there are fibre trucks running under the motorways. Presumably the poles were hydraulically lifted by a dedicated wagon, cut, and chipped on site, with the shred blown into the old fertiliser wagons. There would have been the additional complication of removing the odd stay wire, climbing studs, etc, before chipping. Once removed there was little risk of storm damage dropping poles on the line even if they were redundant and had no wires on them, also easier for automated tree and hedge trimming. In the steam era no hedge rows were allowed grow near lines due to fire risk.

No that should be fine, just remember to delete/clear the consist before removing the loco from the layout so CV19 is cleared properly in both locos. And the locos will respond to their own addresses on somebody else's layout (ie decoders don't still think they are in a consist). PS: On NCE - Suggest never use the daft momentum button on the cab. It's a disaster because it overwrites CV3 & 4 values in decoders which can upset some sound programmes which have been designed with specific default acceleration and deceleration profiles to match notching thresholds or steam chuffs.

Seeing these makes me feel very fortunate I came back into this hobby 7 years ago and not more recently. Here’s to the next 7 years. Hopefully MM may do reruns of cravens and mk2 coaches.

No problem. Hitch hikers guide to easy setting up a DCC consist. The procedure will vary with other DCC controllers (eg Lenz, Roco, eCos, Gaugemaster, Digitrax, etc) but the principle remains the same. NCE setup menu makes it very easy and takes care of automatically setting any CVs that may or may not be required.

That's pretty much it. Not quite as @Galteemore's post above explains peco insulfrog point have plastic insulating frogs whereas peco electrofrog points have solid metal frogs requiring a switch to change the frog polarity depending on which way the blades are switched. insulfrog points work very well with modern locos that have AWD + all wheel pickup (AWP) as they are unlikely to stall, but 0-4-0 locos and 4-4-0 locos may stall. Electrofrog points were the solution to that years ago before modern quality loco chassis become the norm with AWD+AWP. 0-4-0 locos and 0-6-0 shunters might manage with keepalive capacitors on insulfrog points. KIngsbridge layout is all the older code 100 track and insulfrog points, but MM 141, 181s can crawl through any of the paintwork without interruption due to the excellent AWP on those locos. DC or DCC makes no difference to this issue.

I'll give this my best shot and hopefully answer the question you are actually asking: Assuming you have a double header pair (ie two loco consist), with the lead loco having a sound decoder, and the second rear loco having a non sound decoder Using a sound decoder in one loco and a non sound decoder is not a problem and seems very sensible and saves cost The number of functions in the non sound decoder doesn't really matter unless you want to match all the lighting functions of the loco with the sound decoder (ie in case the rear loco needs more than 4 functions to match the lighting on the first/front loco). Ideally you'd match decoders from same manufacturer such as an ESU LokSound in lead loco and an ESU LokPilot in the read loco, this is so you can setup both decoders to have similar motor settings (ie start voltage, acceleration and deceleration, etc). The most important thing is to select two almost identical loco models so that their motors, gearing and mechanical speed match each other at different throttle settings. Otherwise you will need to manually use CV settings in each locos decoder to make their throttle speed curves match. Some DCC systems combined with some manufacturers decoders have setup menus to configure this semi-automatically. Some even have an auto learn feature where the second loco's decoder using load and BEMF will self configure its own CV settings to match the speed, accelaration and deceleration curve of the lead loco. This is very rare The simplest way to consist is to pair two almost identical locos, and use the same manufactures decoder versions in both. That way you should not need to manually configure matching speed curves, and they will just be mechanically well matched. For example: ESU LokSound in lead loco + ESU LokPilot decoders in rear loco with CV 2,3,4,5 and 6 all set identically For anybody interest in advanced DCC stuff read up on CV19, 21,22,23 and 24. The NCE system we have looks after the basics automatically. Here's a useful guide that should apply with any DCC system. https://tonystrains.com/news/complete-guide-to-consisting/ NCE way: https://ncedcc.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001112643-Setting-up-an-Advanced-Consist-the-NCE-way I understand DCC controller systems such ESU eCos and Roco Z21 systems have menu options to automate speed matching of mechanically different locos to each other. The NCE system we have has a really easy to use Consist menu that so far has worked simply with no learning needed pairing MM baby GMs (eg 141+141, 181+141, 121+121, 121+141, or even a pair of 071s). Easy peasey. It might sound complicated, but basically consisting is where a DCC system sends one throttle instruction to what it thinks is one loco, but it is actually received by two decoders in two locos. You can cheat it using a simple consist by giving two locos the same DCC address, but that's a PITA because you cannot then use those locos independantly. In the video at the start of the tread it showed two locos with their own addresses temporarily becoming a DCC consist and operating as one until the consist is deleted. On the NCE system a consist is deleted by either a) clearing the consist, or by b) deleting any loco from the consist. A consist is given a temporary address usually starting at 127. Thus any instruction sent to 127 is sent to the other addresses in that consist list (eg 182 and 181 in the video above). Hope this makes sense. Its like having three walkie talkies on the same frequency, one person talks, two others receive and hear the message.

Really like these Ballast wagons. They uncouple and couple really well using kadee as per IRMs recommendation to glue kadee's under the NEM pockets, or use the pockets in fixed rakes and just modify the end wagons as per Stephens original suggestion. These would not have been shunted or marshalled like other two axle stock, but the bubbles might have been marshalled into any type of formation with other wagons in the early days. Looking forward to weathering the rest of my Ballast wagons over the winter. Might even respray some of the loads to Gypsum colour for a bit of variety. These wagons were a game changer for the Irish modelling scene and a taste of all the goodies that were to come afterwards from this stable. Never have we had it so good. IRM seem to have helped grow the size of the Irish modelling market, so glad that folks who missed out on the first run will now be able to benefit from these exciting re-runs especially in CIE and IR liveries not to mention the Gypsom variants.

Hi Graham, I know, Don’t worry no offence taken, I grew up with the old Zero One mantra ‘just two wires’, layout track was laid in 1994 and it’s still working, no oxidisation, some former isolation joints were bridged with friction pushed 5cm long wires under rails (no solder), absolute sacrilege I know but it just works, no DCC bus, no droppers, made conversion easy. A good pal of mine has droppers to every separate piece Of track. My only regret is that I didn’t use electro frog points back then which would have needed some local frog wiring and switching. Gort though has a few droppers. For newbie folks reading this starting out with a new layout some DCC bus droppers seem like a prudent idea if not more work. I got away with it on about 400ft of code 100 track. I do remember paying particular attention to the level of friction and snugness of all fish plates when laying the track back in 1994/1995. Initially I used peco foam underlay with the intention of replacing it within a few years, but never got around to it until this last year, and most of it bar one roll and a few point underpays proved UV robust. There’s only a few feet where it’s started to perish 27 years later. In time it will all be replaced but it’s so ultra quiet transmitting no noise to ply baseboard. On Gort I used closed cell dense 3mm foam.

Something like that. It's a while since I read up on the detail of how its implemented. But the important thing is functions are passed to both locos, but can be filtered too so that only the lead loco receives specified functions.