Noel

Not sure about the technical details, but the LokSound V4.0 decoders support drive hold. All of the projects WheelTappers did for my 141/181 fleet have it as well as 201 and 071, even their A class and 121 class projects. Drive hold is great for simulating heavy trains starting off with trashing and notching, as swell as trains coasting from distant to home signals and prototypical braking distances. F5 is the most used function on my locos along with F6 for braking. Highly recommend Neil of Wheeltappers DCC sounds for all and any Irish diesel loco sounds. A class act and attention to detail. Got a superb steam project from him also for J15 (00 works). Highly recommend WheelTappers as the best and most comprehensive supplier for Irish DCC sounds. http://www.wheeltappersdccsounds.co.uk/

Just about finished rebuilt IE/IR Dutch GSV (exCIE) kit suitable to run with my Bachmann/MM IE/IR mk2a coaches. I seem to be collecting GSVs and EGVs Like brake vans, I just like them, they ran with every train and had purpose in the moment of people and/or goods.

Very tasty job. Looks well and rather unique. Like the Irish signage detail.

Holy Cow. I have ten of those in the attic. I did actually burn the boxes about 40 years ago cause they were taking up too much space (ie clutter). How on earth can a lima 5h1t heap of that era and that standard of 1970s be worth more than an A class or a 121 loco? The couplings seem the size of a horse shoe and the wheels could cut pizza. Desparate heaps, but back in 1977 I thought they were the bees knees and the cats whiskers. Here are 3 of them in the branch station taken about 1978 And two more with a repainted hornby running between baseboards

Anthony Smyth has spectacularly weathered his spoils over on FB group. Absolutely incredible job, makes them look so real. Love the way he got the interiors done and the loads Holy Moly Greatly improves the look of already excellent wagons.

Yes it caused an earth quake when in the early 19902 Air Lingus witched from Boeing 4 engined 747s to twin engined Air Bus A330 for the Atlantic route, one of the first carriers to switch to ETOPS. Before that carriers did not operate twin engine aircraft trans oceanic, Boeing fought hard to retain the account knowing other carriers might fall like dominos to ETOPS if it proved successful for Aer Lingus which it did, and ETOPS turned the tide away from 4 engined aircraft. At the time some Pilot unions were opposed to ETOPS citing safety concerns, but in truth their real concern was the effect ETOPS might have on company revenue if business travellers got fed up of diversions when an engine had any abnormal readings (ie vibrations, etc), whereas on the 747 if an engine went tech mid way across the Atlantic the flight continued onto the original destination on 3 engines, often flying the return leg home to their maintenance base on three engines using four just for TO out of KJFK then shutting it down. None of that allowable on a twin. But the modern generation of high byass turbofan engines proved so reliable that statistically modern wide body aircraft needed less diversions that their former 4 engined counterparts and cost a lot less to operate and maintain. Hence 777, 787, A330 fly all the longest trans oceanic routes safely on two engines. As a pal of mine in Aer Lingus once commented with 4 engines there are twice as many things that can go wrong compared to a modern twin wide body. Now the 747 is finished as has already happened to the A340 and even now the A380s are being retired and cut up. 787 and A350 have stolen the show. The decision by Aer Lingus to switch from Boeing to Airbus sent shock waves through the industry, and was a very brave decision at the time considering ETOPS had not been proven statistically economic at the time, and the big issues was Aer Lingus were a major boing repair and maintenance outfit for smaller air lines in EMEA, and Aer Lingus earned substantial revenue from same which subsidised their open Ops. Airbus is now bigger than Boeing despite the A380 failure, or more correctly predictions that hub2hub would grow due to crowded skies and lack of slot times, Boeing guessed correctly that more pax wanted to fly direct point2point without changing flights at intermediate hubs. Ryan Air saved Boeing after 9/11 with the biggest 737 order in history. 737 Max has cause serious financial problems since MCAS. That's the great thing about a loco going tech, it just stops on the rails, whereas an aircraft is going a little quicker.

Yes that was iconic. There's a good youtube of it too. You have to wonder if politics ever had any influence in semi-state purchasing decisions. Swinging between favour to old colonial business relationships to favouring competition from opposition (eg like the early 1920s when German Electric companies were favoured for supply of our early national grid infrastructure, Siemens Suckhert, etc). You can imagine the Lemass era building economic trading bridges with the UK hence MV got an opportunity to bid. There may have been a return favour with agri-exports to GB or something (quid pro quo). Ireland moved away from steam 15 years before GB did, so diesel-electric was new tech in that part of the world, whereas USA had decades of experience with their vast distances and heavy trains where reliability would have been essential. Interesting the first batch of locos were mere switchers that were capable enough to operate mainline services to the west of ireland. One of my earliest travel memories was travelling behind a grey 121 to Galway from Westland row.

Best wishes Patrick for continued recovery. Always enjoy your layout posts and a big fan of your layout.

Noticed last evening RMweb site completely crashed. Came up briefly this morning but crawling as if its under a DDS. Offline again. That was the good thing about old copper phones, you could depend on them 100% even during a power cut.

RPSI Dutch GSV 462 just about complete, next step is some very mild weathering. Glad to have a heating van to keep my rake of Bachmann RPSI mk2a coaches warm.

Fabulous. You've the patience of a saint to tile such a huge roof, but it shows.

Super sequence, love the prototypical driving. The 3173 BCK looks great, love the see through grills. Are they part of a detailing kit you sourced? Did you respray a few cravens to match the RPSI set. A rake of six looks well. Noticed some of the coaches didn't have the MM/RPSI wobble. Trackwork looks epic. Class all round.

Exactly you take it out of the box cause you wanna play with it and drive it. And then recycle the box for scenic work or structural scenic support.

Hornby has always smacked of 'el-cheapo' poor engineering poor chassis, toy town model bodies. Bachmann came in with Branchline in the late 80s and early 90s and showed that better quality was possible while Hornby clung to 'Try-Ang' standards rather than going up a gear to German and Swiss modelling standards. Still the brand name evokes a strong nostalgia pull from they days when every small boy got a toy train set for a Christmas or a Birthday. The sad reality is nowadays kids don't play with physical toys requiring tactile feed nor assembly skills, it has to be a dancing LCD screen that entertains them rather then them using their imagination to build and operate imaginary worlds (eg Lego, Mecanno, Wooden blocks, train sets, scalextric, airfoil). Modern toys have driven the engineer and creative imaginative skills out of children. I remember the first time I visited a friends German model railway layout in the late 1980s, digital by then, lights, precision flywheel balanced intricate chassis, electric uncouplers, and I remember the realisation the UK stuff was junk in the dark ages, long left behind, entrenched only in nostalgia, from another century. One of the things about IRM/AS I admire is their rejection of past standards that were once deemed acceptable and instead saying why not, why not build to a level of precision and hyper detail the market has not seen in this part of the world, refusing to accept that it is not possible. Well their products state other wise. Raising the bar to uncomfortable levels for complacent incumbents. The hard trick is to be profitable while aiming high.

They were resin kits from SF and IFM

Fake boilers and water storage tanks.

Thanks. I don't know how it all works but my pal who was an engineer in CIE at the time was mighty impressed with the whole setup on the then new darts mit alles ze nue German tecknowledgie He did his best to explain it to me, and the main points I remember was wow the trains weighs itself in real time as pax get on and off, so calculates max speed based on braking distance, weather, temp, wet rails, bends, distance to next signal, etc, and displayed the max permitted speed on the instrumentation using a bug with the train automatically braking just enough to stay on or under the limit. He said they could almost send these things out without drivers, but the public might not want to get on a train with no driver visible.

Yes typically EVs will manage upto 150,000km before their brake pads need replacing. I had a tour of Dart system in 1984 and one of the things the engineer made a big thing about was the regen braking as well as each coach weighing itself so that max speeds and braking distances automatically calculated in real time. I remember being pretty impressed with the German technology employed.

Ah so like regen braking in EVs? Pity the derelict out of service 201s at inchicore could not get reengined with hybrid systems, then the regen could go back into the battery rather than resistors, reduce the amount of diesel pollution and especially filthy NoX that locos emit.

Why would a successful startup even want to take on the burden of a doomed enterprise like Hornby? Hornby companies seems part of a sunset industry. Profit is sanity, turnover is vanity.

Somebody might adapt the 'Downfall' movie's famous hitler rant into an unboxing video.

Personally I was happy and content with the following SF models that were acquired over the years. They represented value for what they were given that there was no alternative. Perhaps better to have a reasonable representation of a prototype than nothing at all. Back in the day there were no suppliers of Irish vans. They are what they are and I am more than content with them as are obviously the many modellers who have bought their kits and models in the past. The only headache I ever had was the 'orrible hornby railroad chassis used in one of the A classes, but that is currently being reengined with a spare 071 class chassis from a damaged model that I picked up on ebay some years ago. Academic now as the highly anticipated IRM/AS A classes should be upon us in time for Christmas or early in the new year. The A class will be IRM's moment of crowning glory, yet I'm sure they have bigger plans for the future. This is only the beginning. AEC ex2600 class DVT A 001 class kit x 2 C 201 class kit x 2 B 101 class kit x 1 GSV BR mk1 BSK x 1 (RTR) GSV Dutch x 2 (RTR) GSV Dutch kit x 1

That raised the thought, Both Hornby and Bachmann must be more than a little displeased with and scared of Accurascale's landmine entry to the UK market and in particular announcements last year about the Class 37 and Deltics right on their own homeland 'patch', and scared of the level of detailing and fine scale accuracy that IRM/AS are bringing to the UK market having proved their credentials already with the successful and highly well received wagons. German/Swiss model engineering standards but at UK price point. AS raising the bar to uncomfortable levels for the complacent incumbents. Watch out, the empire might try and strike back by releasing a model of the 'turf burner' on to the Irish market, or the nuclear option of a fisher price 22k toy yo-yo complete with clock work mechanism. It's been great to observe from the sidelines an Irish start up make a successful entry into the UK market and shake things up as regards model standards, precision and innovation. Proud of what this Irish start up has achieved.

Mother of devine styrene cutting. That was a stunning model when I saw it in the flesh, looks as good in the photos.

Same in Germany last summer, walking parallel to the line, no fencing, and across the line to get into the town, no signs saying Verbotten, etc. Just common sense and a sense of self preservation keeping people and rail apart. Look at wexford quays. And years ago the line that ran through the streets of cork and mixed with road traffic