GSR 800

An outside cylindered version?

It doesn't get much better than this..the attention to detail is just next level.

Ah here would you ever come off it, we might as well being seeing the start of a golden age in irish railway modelling, both with the lads here at IRM, the advancment of 3D printing and kits from the likes of JM, SSM, Provincial and many others. Of course theres a loco or coach or piece of rolling stock we'd all like to see announced at some stage, but so far we've been spoiled sideways with new releases, not to mention the A's within grasp, feck all to complain about, especially considering the limitations of the pandemic. Not good enough my arse.

Well Bulleid was over here...Light Pacifics instead of Turf Burners?

The Rebuilt Bulleid Pacifics have been growing on me as of late, good few videos of them starting trains at Waterloo, slipping fiercely of course! Great to see Clan Line at speed.

The latter was one of the unusual Bulleid built types, looked very box like

170 is far from perfect, has the opposite problem but with a bit of surgery would do the job.

Maybe if you get the same shovel the Silverfox A's got a belt with, otherwise the nose is a long way off

Sure look, saves us all a few bob finding out which locos are useless. What we need is a Niall Toibin type doing model Irish loco reviews, going off on occasional tangents telling stories with an aul joke at the end...what was that one about Carrauntoohil and the American..

Probably the largest boost to Irish 7mm modelling I've seen in my (short!) time, makes it an order of magnitude more accessible.

Some of you may be aware of Graeme King, provides LNER resin body kits, modifications and details. Well documented examples of what can be achieved here https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/10588-thompson-a11-from-a-gresley-a1/ https://www.lner.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2443 The main question for anyone who would even consider a similar job for the irish market would be..is there a market? Lots of irish locos with common boilers, smokeboxes etc, especially when it comes to the GSR/CIE era and 'Inchicorisation' Next question is of course, donors, and I think this is the big stick. Lack of anything irish outside the Woolwiches and NCC types means both the whole niche hinges on conversions from British types, doable, but not a perfect science. Worth the money if some of the more common Irish steamers come around in RTR in the next decade or two? To what extent are people willing to pay, not only for a loco that could cost 100-150 euro plus the resin body or mod kit on top? If it gets into the price range of brass kits sounds increasingly like a waste of money for something that still won't be 'perfect'. Conversion kits for the Woolwiches could be a start, pretty much just replacing out the smokebox for an inchicore one? Flip side, N class isn't a great model, especially if you're unlucky enough to come across one with dreaded mazac rot... I do think even looking ahead 20 years, there will be a lot of vaguer irish steamers that will be unlikely to ever get an RTR run. Food for thought rather than anything serious.

301s had 6'7, same as the 800s, so difference isn't that significant.

Made it as far as Limerick too no? Cultra has definitely made some bizarre decisions on livery, slapping G S on Maedbh after CIE had just repainted her in the Dark CIE green is just one!

One can see that they were the "matchstick" variant. I believe there was usually only one in a train, at least by CIE days. Theres a photo of 102 withdrawn in a siding at Naas in 1959 in Irish Railways in Colour, still in the older dark green and eu de nil livery, which may be what you are referring to. JB would probably know if any of the three got as far as the light green, I'd doubt it myself. Good thread on them here

With an NCC mogul under construction, it's clear the way to go for any kind of new build would be mid size, with commonality of parts between other in use preserved locomotives. Very clear from the RPSI site the primary reason to go ahead with it at all was commonality of parts. The problem for anything new build outside of the GNR and NCC origin stuff is there's nothing in service to standardise to, unless 461 has a common boiler, cylinders and other fittings to other GSR types? Good thing about a Woolwich would be it has cousins across the way. Getting a bit ahead of ourselves, but tis only speculation!

S class definitely, well known, good looking locomotives with attractive liveries and a preserved example. J15s are a good bet too. Cost would be immense, 400s travel availablility wouldn't be much better than the 800s, iirc Clements mentioned issues regarding frame strength. Would be a nightmare in terms of fueling costs, and creeping up well past the ton in years. 500s would've been a better bet but still would be very expensive. Seemingly all withdrawn relatively early (mid 50s) wheras some 400s lingered on. GSR 4-4-0s are the biggest miss, along with the Bandon tank. Alas I won't cry over spilled milk.

Outside the famous, preserved types, 800, V class, S class, J15s, perhaps the (nearly preserved) Bandons, I'd be inclined to agree. Too much in the way of diversity in classes, too little notoriety, many more famous examples (850, Sambo) are one offs. Even for something like the 400s, mainline steam with decent numbers, I feel there would be a real need to get the locomotives promoted to be somewhat more in 'public' knowledge before ever going down the RTR track. Preserved locos have an automatic advantage in that regard, not to mention can get away with pulling more modern stock, even have the RPSI set to haul.

Agreed, all high quality kits! DItto with JM models, similar allowance for 21mm.

brass kit or scratchbuild is easier at that stage

Well the question is what has the most suitable chassis you can pull off, lot harder to cut and shut a steam locomotive(!) but realistically unless you've got serious kit or access to serious kit (ala Kirley making the BCDR Baltic) there aren't many suitable chassis to fit an irish prototype, so any kit will be limited by that. that said, Jeeps are probably up there, maybe the ncc moguls too, could they fit under some Crab chassis? 800s, maybe 400s and 500s could be lobbed under royal scot, n15 and s15 class, J15s under deans good and likely many other 0-6-0 types, V class under compound chassis. Problems arise in that they would have to be designed around the doners, could effect accuracy. The issue is in many of these cases there are already brass kits available, in many cases you can build off the donar body and get a decent result, and if (dare I say when..) something like a full rtr 800 or J15 comes about these things will simply get blown out of the water. market could be there for more obscure types. As I've said before, I think it's unlikely many of the GSR 4-4-0s will see any rtr for a long time, 4-4-0 chassis are usually quite basic, kit builds usually being difficult due to balancing. Hard not to see how it wouldn't be a niche in a niche though.

you'd swear they could've taken the footage used from ironing the land for the same effort. but sure here I'm forgetting the time the A4s were trialled at 130 mph down the dungarvin stretch...

Both tank designs have grown on me, though i find the pacific tank extremely bizarre, the gigantic coal bunker and the last set of drivers behind the cab, you can certainly see the origins from the older design. The big one weighs 80 tons....can't see them going on many branches, axle load on the drivers is more than on the woolwich 4-6-0 rebuild. However the 4-4-2 tank catches my eye, similar to 850 but 4-4-0 inspired rather than from the moguls. Standardisation of parts would no doubt have been something greatly desired by the GSR. It was essentially an alternative design proposed as far as i can tell An interesting resource for all https://www.steamindex.com/locotype/gsr.htm Of interest is an apparent 1937 design of an Inchicore Pacific type. Now, note I can find nothing else on this design, or that it got anywhere past talk other than the following statement! ..'1937 diagram for a proposed Inchicore 'Pacific' which would have much as the 4-6-0 later built but with a carrying axle tucked close behind Argentine-fashion, with a rather unpleasant streamlined cowl round the single chimney. Presumably, a Pacific was even more prestigeous, but adequate turntables were impossible to justify!' I presume that if this is of any legitimacy, which is itself debatable, it was likely a preliminary to the 800s, likely dismissed as being over the top when there were serious debates over the need of 10 4-6-0s, nevermind a Pacific.

Would love to know who gave that the green light. Gimmick indeed!

JB She's a hornby type rather than Hattons. May have to buy the latter and do a bit of a comparison! Late 50s early 60s so it's likely she'll end up in either the early dark green or later light green, probably the latter as I think it looks well. Some attained a livery of age... https://rcts.zenfolio.com/coaching-stock/irish-railways-cie RCTS _ Irish Railways (CIE).mhtml

Another building underway and a new arrival at Mullingar Nice piece of kit from Hornby, hopefully a good Irish livery will put an end to the light leakage.