Noel

Yes climate action means an almost immediate end to all peat harvesting, already peat power stations are being decommissioned.

I’d buy a half dozen of those. Looks great so far.

Nice idea. As to a 21mm flexitrack product, a market size of 5-10 people may not attract a manufacturer. Any 21mm layout will be hand built track which seems half the attraction.

Leslie we are all flawed sinners in some shape or form, even I have supped with bogie stock and touched forbidden fruit of ultra modern mk3 stock, but if in a moment of weakness the evil one I lures me to touch a DMU, you or Jonathan may cast the first stone, the keepers of the sacred three link coupling, protectors of two axles and defenders against bogies of eternal stench, be they free running or not. Seriously Leslie your kits have been a great joy to work on, and I look forward to more. Totally my era, and a vaccine against imprisonment in the bogie of eternal stench. Thankfully I have not fallen victim to ‘yellow fever’ so no yellow ‘stuff’ allowed on my layout.

Charlie of Chadwick model railway youtube fame dilutes copydex 4:1 with water and uses it to ballast track instead of pva. He swears there’s no transmission to baseboard guitar, unlike PVA. On a recent layout I’ve used double layers of 3mm closed cell dense foam with self adhesive backing.

Decent food pub can do 5m/pa handy on food & BEV in the right location. 5m is not a large turnover if your employing close to 100 staff on rosters, chefs, managers, etc.

Go for a cycle on the Westport or Dungarvan, its incredible the footfall some of these new hospitality spots are getting. A captive audience and very very profitable to provision for. There is one in particular on the Westport and its like a mega pub in the middle of nowhere, a vast complex in old stone farm buildings. A huge employer too, and these businesses benefit from a long season including both shoulders and even mid winter business.

Cheers Skinner. I think in future I may still lean towards reverse masking. I cannot abide wavy lines nor wavy stripes. Enjoyed this kit, just grab rails, glazing and some decoration to do.

The Ballasts and Bubbles NEM pocket problem was easily solved as per IRMs own recommended fix, just superglue the kadee tongs to the underside of the NEM pocket for correct height as per Kadee height gauge.There was a valid argument for just plugging into the NEM pockets and correct only the two end wagons on a rake, but I like to be abe to mix'n'manch stock and prefer all stock to be able to couple up together. The Tara's, Fertilsers and 42ft flats had perfect NEM pocket positioning. No 18's seem to work well with IRMs entire wagon portfolio. As an aside, in advance of some scenic work, just recently started clearing the layout of rolling stock and put all my IRM models back in their boxes, almost drooling at the fabulous underside detail one normally doesn't see while running or on the tracks. I decided that whenever the beautiful ballasts come back out of their boxes they will get some gentle weathering treatment. Also discovered I still had 3 boxes of pristine bubbles which I kind of like that they avoided the weathering station. Just gorgeous wagons. Thank you again IRM.

Redemption for the rebuilt Dutch GSV kit from IFM, after the great peeling primer disaster of two weeks ago. Had a second go at this, first time using waterslide transfers instead of reverse masking and airbrush for white stripes. The first attempt two weeks ago didn't end well (below). Lesson learned clean resin bodies properly using unspent nuclear fuel if necessary to ensure no resin release agent residue, and never give up. There's always a recovery route. When this is finished have two IFM Park Royal kits to start. Not so long ago I was RTR man, now finding doodling with kits addictive and therapeutic.

Another mk3 donor bites the dust. Could not get the window glazing out this time so had to resort to tedious masking. Avoided the hideous maskol route, dreadful stuff. Primed with Hycote plastic grey primer ready for reverse masking It kind of gets addictive after a while

One of the successes of the Westport greenway was getting farmers to buy in and convince them the passing walkers and cyclists would not cause problems for their livestock, so it proved, and some of those farms are now running multimillion euro cottage cafes and restaurants along the route. It was dealing with fears and objections from land owners that made westport such a success. I'd highly recommend a visit and cycle along it. Clewbay bike hire are a superb outfit with courtesy buses, will drop you off at achill, so wind at your back, and will pick you up at any of the intermediate stops, so you can do only 10k, 20k, 30k or the full 42k. Stunning wild atlantic coast scenery and cycling through harry potter like scenery and forests over magical bridges and viaducts. A must do for every Irish citizen, and the beauty is its only a few hours from Dublin, no airport hell needed to get there, or better still take the train and pass through Athlone and Claremorris on route.

Minister Ryan should perhaps get rid of his NoX spewing filty diesel car and get an EV instead or getting rid of more rail potential or closing more lines.

Don't like the idea of the Rosslare or Athenry ones. Both could be put back as rail lines, but once lost to greenways there gone for good. Greenways earn local communities vast amounts of indigenous tourism revenue and transform the local economies. Post brexit it looks like our dear neighbours are hell bent on the kamikaze route with a hard over the cliff no trade deal on WTO terms, so Rosslare could gain massive significance as a port that could bypass the UK land bridge handling container traffic direct from Europe to Ireland. The line from Waterford to Rosslare could suddenly become economically viable again for freight traffic and therefore be able to provide commuter traffic to waterford and wexford. Once the line is pulled up for bicycles its gone forever, don't believe the myths about contracts facilitating a return to rail. Local parish pump Politics would stop that. Same goes for Youghal to middleton, huge potential to reopen for busy commuter traffic to Cork as well as seasonal tourism to Youghal. I'm a cyclist and really enjoyed the greenways in Westport and Dungarvan, but enough is enough, how many greenways do we need. Those coastal greenways have amazing scenery, but many on that list are through flat boring bogland with no elevated views nor mountainous scenery, and that won't attract cyclists. Did the Abbeyfeal one a few years ago and it was third world compared to Westport-Achill or Dungarvan-Waterford with their stunning coastal scenery. Kilrush-Kilakee has some merit, but the midlands one to Athlone is bog boring.

Dear Glover. All I can do is wish you care. So sorry to hear. Loved seeing your creative and superb atmospheric modelling. The photos above of the cattle wagon are testament to a wonderful artistic creativity. Sublime scenes filmed in 1950s nostalgia gold. Will pray for you and your loved ones. Take care. Noel These are absolutely stunning scenes. Alive with realism and atmosphere. The cattle wagons turned out absolutely superb and the layout is a perfect home.

Worth waiting for, it’s summer and little indoor hobbies going on. I don’t recall any new Irish model from any supplier that wasn’t at least one year late. Even OO works were late with their J15s. I’ve learned to take all announcements with a crate of salt, even announcements about announcements. A model in the hand has arrived, everything else is a future possibility. No prob happy to wait and impressed to hear MM have picked up on any issues BEFORE Models despatch to customers. Really looking forward to the grey locos, and good point @connollystn about running nose first for interest. Can understand unions exploiting it as a safety issue, but steam locos ran ok cab aft with boiler bonnets for 100 years, so why there was a big song and dance about it in 1962 seems a mystery except as a bargaining chip.

On the contrary the grey 121s may prove in time to be the most desirable and most valuable for collectors. Its' how they were delivered and how many remember them. Also many of the old YouTube depict the grey livery 121s in operation. Commuters probably have an affinity for the tippex 121s.

No MM never did their own 141/181 sound project, just the 071, 201 and now the 121. WheelTappersDCCsound and MrSoundguy have excellent sound decoders for most Irish locos. As to loco renumbering there's loads of YouTube tutorials on this.

No you cannot a) legally copy another companies intellectual property, and b) technically its not possible to extract a sound project from a decoder chip using LokProgrammer. Just like with software you need access to the 'source code' not just the binary output (ie the ESU sound project files that made up a project). Some of the US locos are perfect for 141, 181, 121 prime movers, but there's a lot more to it than just prime mover channels. Need, brakes, air lines, horns, acceleration & declaration profiles, flange squeal, and especially light function mapping. The 141/181 had very simple if not somewhat crude lighting setup but 071, 201 and the 121 have comprehensive lighting options.

Or just buy the Murphy Models sound decoder, plug it into the loco, and off you go. Plug and play, nice and simple. Hi Fran. Agree 100%, yes indeed as per my recommendation above. Just like some folks like to build their own kits there are some who like to build their own sound projects. ESU makes this particularly accessible, although I keep reminding folk there is a learning curve and time required to master it. I can also understand some people setting out to convert an entire fleet of locos to sound may be attracted by the considerable cost savings of doing it themselves, but the old cliche 'penny wise, pound foolish' risks applying. I chose the former route and purchased all my sound decoders from establish suppliers of pre-programmed decoders. It was just easier, and as you say just worked out of the box, but my inner tech nerd is looking forward to the challenge of playing with LokProgrammer in the future. New challenges and new learnings in this hobby keep the interest stirred.

True enough. The easiest way is to copy an existing completed EMD sound project from ESU's freely published inventory of US locos and modify it by adding tracks for Irish horns, and map the lighting. A rather steep learning curve, but might be worth it for those prepared to put the hours in. It's easy to get the sound of Irish horns from all the youtube videos out there, just record a second or two using a smartphone from a youtube video, or mix it a little using iMovie, clean it up and save as an mp3 or WAV file for use with a LokProgrammer project. There's loads of sounds that can be scraped from the internet.

Another mk3 on the bench. Cannot get the blasted window glazing out of this particular donor, glued in with an overdose of glue, so plan B, mask the windows. Not ideal. Will use maskol for the small windows. Anyway another route if not my preferred option. Will try some lima donors next time. By the time if leaned more stuff and how to navigate new potholes I may and up with a rake of mk3s in Irish livery.

Not happy with this, Tried waterslide transfers for the stripes, but found it nigh impossible to get the lines dead straight and parallel. Looks ok'ish from 1/2 mile away, but to my eyes it just screams wavey lines. I might stick to my usual reverse masking and airbrush next time. Decision pending receipt of wise council from one of the jedi nights.

Suggest Three possible options: Buy the MM sound chips from your preferred retailer. Simplest solution.These are ESU Loksound V5 chips preprogrammed for 121 Buy the MM sound chips from a DCC sound decoder vendor such as WheelTappersDCCsound or MrSoundGuy. Both have 141 projects which should work fine in the 121 as its a standard sized LokSound V5 decoder chip according to released information from Murphy Models. Mr Soundguy uses Zimo decoders so you might need to check with Keith Pearson if the Zimo 21pin decoder will fit in the new Murphy Model 121. Buy blank decoders from ModleBahnShop-Lippe in Germany and a LokSound, and program yourself. Steep learning curve, and you'll need Irish Horn sounds. LokSound have a freely publish library of all EMD loco motors for download. @irishthump and a few others have become quite expert at this. Option 2 has sound chips for 141, 181, 121, 071, 201 and A class. Personally so far I've sourced all my baby GM sound chips from WheelTappersDCCsound 141,181 & 121. I'm about to start experimenting with LokProgrammer but just for fun. Buying black decoders from Germany saves about €20-30 per chip compared to UK rip off prices from most ESU retailers in UK. Good luck with the layout. BTW, just a personal thing but generally I found having sound operation on more than one loco at the same time on a layout sounds dizzy and not very real. No doppler effect (ie distance), and can sound confused. I generally prefer to have sound on only one loco at a time, especially when consisting. PS: Bare in mind option 1 seems the safest bet as it will operate the lights correctly on the new 121, unless you go for option 3 and do all the function mapping yourself to correctly control the lights. That's just my personal tuppence, others can weigh in, its a broad church.

In the past most of that was DC only. Doing it with DCC is a little more complicated. Baseboard Dave is possibly the best person to seek advice from.