GSR 800

Excellent stuff JM, looking forward to the 52 especially. One recommendation would be having prices in euro? Works grand for me

Similar situation with a picture of a Mogul in Second Glance 10 year old me was certain some woolwiches were going around in a light blue!

fairly certain that is the lighter green, having looked at a great deal of the CIE green locos I'm convinced there was some level of lack of uniformity, though a deal of it is down to the photos themselves, lighting, fading etc

the latter pic does a good job of showing how hard the light green is to pin down, with the loco and coach barely in shot looking a great deal for vibrant than the other, which has been faded slightly. Theres the scaling effect of it all for us at 00 gauge too..

I'll be taking my one in black and tan and throw my wallet as far away as possible where its safer.. Good to hear easy roof removal and no fear of breaking clips or the likes, even many steamers are such an arse to get the body off, setting a precedent for high quality in every aspect means rest assured even if the wallets are empty its money well spent.

Aye retail therapy...

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.