Junctionmad

which brings up the next question , where do we get spare disks etc ?

you miss the point, IE has not improved its economic position simply by running faster trains , IE cant get you to Hueston or your destination at the other end quicker, no use having a 4 hour journey that involves a 2 hour cross city journey to hueston, followed by 1 hour 150mph dash to cork ono a train (* with no catering and toilets) and then another hour getting to your destination by bus or taxi. Rail services in ireland cant compete on travel time and they should stop doing it . Make the journey the destination, make rail travel enjoyable and comfortable, forget about high speeds ( i.e. over 80 mph) . where you have significant travel distances, high speed rail makes good sense, as the on rail travel time , is a greater proportion of the total journey time No point in ireland ,where virtually all traffic spokes into and out of dublin , trying to compete on travel times with high speed motorways and door to door travel by car. IE need to make rail travel attractive , not a bus on steel rails part of that enjoyable travel is proper coaching stock , comfortable seats, ancillary facilities , food, toilets, etc , not a bus with plastic upright setting, packing in " commuters ", such commuters that then abandon rail at the first opportunity

Railways introduced dining cars primarily to cater for wealthy clients, since dining car capacity was always a tiny percentage of train occupancy. Interurban railways cant really compete on getting people from A to B ( where A is there starting destination and B is their final one) Hence why not strive to make the " journey " the experience. This is especially true in Ireland. Subcontract or in-house is merely a matter of overall economics, dining was always seen by railways as a loss leader, but of course a railway in overall profit can have loss leaders!, a overall loss making railway tends to just keep cutting costs irrespective of business case. In effect , interurban railways cannot do a good job of taking you from A to B, a car and a motorway network are way better. funny the victorians, felt you should have on board catering and toilets for 2-3 hour journeys, seemingly today our bodies have obviously changed to not need either. Railways need to compete on offering an attractive alternative to other forms of transport, not simply competing on travel times or cost per say, that battle has been lost.

and is was not so long ago, I remember as a lad of 22 , first job, living in dublin , a great treat was the occasional visit to the folks in waterford , by taking the 6:10 pm service from Hueston, into the Mk2 dining car as soon as it opened, and order the "special' , burger, peas, chips, bread, pot of tea, all on monikered crockery. It was a couple of quid from recollection, passed the whole journey to waterford munching away ( usually with extra free bread and tea) sadly , Ive never even travelled in a Mk3 carriage , dining car or not .!!! ( well I have in the UK ) two years ago , I did a 9 hours journey paris to Nice on Le train blue( sleeping cars ) , no dining, food car, nor nothing , oh how standards have slipped , only realised when I saw all the passengers getting "brown bags" at the nearby platform deli...

A pint of plain in 1940 was a little over a shilling, suggesting that in todays money , that meal costs about 11-14 quid, similar to a carvery lunch today . Mind you disposable incomes were in the order of 30 shilling a week for an average manual wage, making this mean represent about 10% of a weekly wage, whereas today a 12 euro lunch is a far smaller percentage of the minimum wage ( < 2%) and even smaller as compared to the average industrial wage, eating out, on trains or elsewhere was the preserve of the wealthy.

Much as I might like to agree with you , I dont agree Electric Vehicles will dominate personal transport within 10 years, with ICE increasing sidelined, cars charged at home will provide low cost personal driving, coupled with increasing driver automation, expect a boom in private "cars" freight has been abandoned by IE and will never return as the infrastructure is essentially gone Raillines and stations are increasingly situated in the wrong places, more suited to 19th century business requirements then 21th My predictions is that outside dublin rail will be increasingly marginalised and be no longer in the public consciousness , the rail closures will continue The dead hand of the state etc Id love to be proved wrong but I doubt it The youngsters of the next 20 years will be writing in this forum thread, " be a great might have been if we had a railway ...."

Much as I might like to agree with you , I dont agree Electric Vehicles will dominate personal transport within 10 years, with ICE increasing sidelined, cars charged at home will provide low cost personal driving, coupled with increasing driver automation, expect a boom in private "cars" freight has been abandoned by IE and will never return as the infrastructure is essentially gone Raillines and stations are increasingly situated in the wrong places, more suited to 19th century business requirements then 21th My predictions is that outside dublin rail will be increasingly marginalised and no lower in the public consciousness , the rail closures will continue The dead hand of the state etc Id love to be proved wrong but I doubt it

that Ikea joke must be 10 years old by now

Well for what I want a 7 by 14 lathe is way big enough. The next one up is the seig sc4 and is nearly three time the price , in my case the SC3 suits the space too and the brush less drive now gives it great versatility. At least it's way bigger then a unimat !

Personally having had a Dremel , the proxxon is substantially better engineered , runs quieter and with less vibration , used for drilling , slitting , I've no issue with the power The last thing you need for precision work is a screamer of a unit, you need torque Ps will be interested to here about your Cnc bed I was always suspicious of x-y millers , given the issues of head stability , so will await your experiences with interest , good luck with all that. I find a Cnc Mill very useful. Mind you, if I could only get good CAM software that didn't break the bank !!

Having bought the Lidl miniature tools, the sander and jigsaw are good, the bench grinder is very underpowered and in my view is not up to much, Aldi currently have " proper" bench grinders ( 2 types ) at the moment The ether thing to beware is that often I find that things in Aldi and Lidl can be purchased cheaper on the Net too.

Given how we are great cultural sponges , why not go the whole hog, or is that turkey this weekend ? , I'm sure we could all find a thanks for somebody of some thing .

I have the variable speed proxxon mini drill , I find it miles better then any Dremel, better bearings , stronger etc, I also have several other proxxon bits of kit including a Cnc equipped mf50 mill and a pillar drill , I find it excellent equipment for the price Currently saving for a seig c3 lathe and a i3 3D printer

When was the rail connection to the docks lost via the side of the point depot , it looks like it was operational till quite recently

I Actually that article suggests that the period of chaos was less than a year , as the GSR was successful in using briquettes of coal dust and a form of anthracite. It's says that the urban myth of a railway in chaos has entered the Irish mindset , but that was only in reality around 1941.

Heavier then DMUs yes, heavier then diesel locomotives , no not in general ( if you exclude tenders ) Anyway steam just had a host of other issues.

Slow speed or crawl speed running is not magic, it just needs a few key ingredients that have been missing from many rtr models It's NOT a function of number of driven axles , that more related to overall haulage capacity. Primarily it's about gearing and electrical continuity and not about centre drives for example Electrical continuity requires reliable all wheel pickups , which gives diesels a huge advantage over other model engines. The best pickup method , favoured in the USA. Is split axle pickups. Then you need to keep all wheels in contact with the track , either by faultless track or wheel compensation or springing. Where you have poorer motors , 3-5 poles etc, " clogging" is an issue at low speed. The best way round that is sufficiently high gear ratios to ensure the motor is turning reliably while the ground speed is slow. 2 stage gearboxes etc. There are other aspects of the system design that help , electro frogs , larger mass , slower turning motors ( which tend to favour centre dives ) flywheels , keep-alives. DCC is also much better at promoting slow running as the full track power is always available Any decent scratch builder can fabricate a chassis that outperforms rtr. It's all a matter of time. Alternatively buy one from hollywodfoundry !!

I like building things , I always wanted to develop a good diesel bogie and drive. I can short cut the build by buying in some bits of course.

Following on from a discussion with Noel ,, I am currently drawing up my " ultimate diesel " chassis project, ( I need it for the Sulzer) One thing that has always bugged me is the lack of availability of 40" wheels for GM locos. The closest Ive seen is USA based HO 45" wheels that scale almost exactly to 40" in 00 Any other suggestions, The issue is Id like to use wheels with a better profile then RP 25, but proto 87 to me is wrong for 4mm track ? Im going to try a CSB springing arrangement all very much in the vein of an experiment Currently Im thinking of insulated horn blocks in Delrin with brass bearings, and using the CSB as the pickup. avoiding the need for a split chassis. even though I do need split axles I was thinking of an all plastic gearbox and gearwheels ( I can CNC machine the gearboxes on a Proxxon MF50) I was thinking of just driving one axle on each bogie ?, is that enough , I could decide not to spring that axles !

thanks Im bidding

Yes the cameo does seem a reasonable all rounder I'm draw. To the knk Zing air which has three times the force , three rubber wheels laser registration alignment and very versatile tool holding , mainly US base but that not a worry I'll deliberate further

Thanks. My summary is that the most popular of the cheapies is the cameo The cricut explore has a far greater cutting ability , but the software is locked to their internet studio The zing , has a huge range of abilities but is a very manual machine to set up The silver bullet looks nice but is expensive Richie I can produce the artwork , and I've lots of experience with cutting card by hand, but as I get older I find close up precision work tiring on the eyes. Also doing things like window frames etc always seem to be a pain I an looking for a cutter to help with the stall precision stuff

Thanks. Maybe the cameo2 would be a better buy There's a long thread on the cameo on rmweb and people have done some very nice stuff in 4mm I have both Inkscape and Corel draw , both which can drive a cutter , so I'm not worried about software I agree they are not suitable for recalibrating existing work. Once the work is ejected you're done. I was thinking of using it for brick paper card models Would you have any better suggestions for under 500 euros I've looked at cricut and zing Dave

For work reasons I was thinking of buying one of these http://www.silhouettecameoeurope.com/silhouette-curio-machine-690.html I was wondering if anyone had experience of using it for model railway buildings in card. There is also the cameo2 version Thanks Dave

I'll take a kit. Let me know when to pay Dave