GSR 800

From storage at Mullingar.

Huge addition of excellent photos, including a great many of the last years of steam. Macha was under the spotlight for me, 20 new photos of her at Glanmire, Mallow and elsewhere in her last year.

Park Royal iirc, so theres a bit of room to say 'ah sure ye are buying all these coaches, do ye want this railbus while ye'r at it?' I could see her being used as an inspection car or something in her last years..

so it is a longer throw, more akin to a king or king arthur (spokes and webbing incorrect as mentioned)? And only 6'3? quite unusual, was always under the impression they were 6'6 or indeed 6'7.

Wonder what the throw of the likes of a GWR King would be? IIRC they have a solid spoke so unsuitable but still would be interesting to compare! Those forked joints in 00 gauge would be a sight to see! Regarding the valve spindle 'crosshead', I think it would be a beneficial addition for performance if you can get it to work, the wire that replaces it on the kit allows for too much slop imo. It may require a scratch build of the valve guides though as they lack the lip to guide the head as on the prototype.

Was Maedb not withdrawn earlier than that? She was sitting in Thurles stored in 1960. The timeline seems quite muddled after that, pictures often having wrong timestamps. The IRRS has a picture dated 1964 of Maedb and Macha tender to tender in Inchicore, both intact. Theres another picture dated 1962-3 with Macha cut down to the frames! Another has her boiler and firebox on an old tender chassis dated feb 1963 The locomotive in the photo is almost certainly Macha Interestingly here's a photo of one of the tenders at Inchicore, supposedly in 1959.. https://thetransportlibrary.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=204476&search=CIE+Coras+Iompair+Eireann&page=4

the extra rods are a pain in the arse from my own experience, but I'm far from a master at that end of things. having mine motorised across the sea, might as well since the cost of buying motors and sending them across isn't worth it to me!

Indeed, but I've never heard of a single named shunter loco for Broadstone as billycan suggests. Theres also Jumbo, but I've mentioned that before.

While you're at it you should buy the 3D printed smokebox doors Ken made for me a while ago. Have them fitted to Maedbh and Macha

Well Sambo was a one off as far as I know, but there were shunters like the MGWR P's kicking around broadstone? Not sure if any kept their names into CIE years

Found it, November 2005 issue and its successor https://www.dropbox.com/s/mz86b7x52bf58oh/New Irish Lines - Vol. 4 No. 2 - 2005 November.pdf https://www.dropbox.com/s/7y7ar7ocv92l0aa/New Irish Lines - Vol. 4 No. 3 - 2006 May.pdf https://newirishlines.org/archive/

As said, focus was on railcars from the early. The north went so far as to have MPDs pulling freight! That is not to see the GNR wasn't looking towards diesels and even electrification, they had quite extensive plans for such but the funds did not allow it. I believe New Irish Lines had something on it, will have to dig it up. The MAK was a glimpse of these plans for diesel freight locomotives.

not bad, but the luggage vans were much more squat. Would certainly pass at any rate, though wouldn't be a bad scratchbuild either, the roof makes it easier anyway!

As said, railcar trailer used for luggage, were used on both broad and narrow gauge.

Time and neglect. Long time since the ballast or weedsprayer went as far as the sidings. The ballast is there, its just quite fine or ground down with time, for lack of a better term, mixed in with dirt, grime, soil and all kinds of other shite

Was looking at the Hornby catalogue there, they must be like those crypto lads thinking they'll go to the moon with the price of them. And thats in sterling mind you. The rehashed class 37s and the 'I can't believe it's not Lion' were noted. Perhaps a lawsuit down the line from Rapido.. the comments under the video can be summarised as 'look nice, but i won't be buying them at that price!'

Excellent, many thanks Bosko.

Any update when this'll be out of interest.

Similar era to my own. C class, AEC's, laminates and park royals plus their tin vans seem like the most sensible choice in terms of long lasting locomotives/railcars/rolling stock. The railcars are an odd one though, not sure what the viability threshold is for railcars (since its basically two power units minimum, add on coaches etc?) Perhaps the lads can enlighten us on that one. Steam is a tough one, 00 works are doing the obvious choice with the J15s, doing preserved examples means you can run the RPSI mk2s with them but limited to those currently or recently in mainline service is down to GNR and NCC locos, which lack rtr rolling stock (other than CIE stock if IRM gets around to that) to run with outside their preserved examples. If IRM go with laminates or park royals then theres rolling stock for A and C class, AEC railcars, the 800s, J15s and 461 (and 462??) Choosing these because either long lasting or steam class with a preserved member(s). If they don't go for a GNR type I'd say the 800s would be the likely candidate. The Manors are just a test run for getting an Irish 4-6-0 lads At any rate, all rampant speculation, I'm probably totally wrong. I think this is quite interesting. The brits seem to be more cautious with regular announcements especially without samples available, almost to a point of paranoia. Makes sense I suppose, given how they are often screwed with poor quality models from certain manufacturers.. Here I certainly appreciate the longer notice time. I may be planning to build x kit or x commission or x batch built type or scratchbuild something. I had been considering a silverfox A class a good while back, certainly was glad I got the notice to save the euros for the proper deal.

I'm sure we'll get some Beautiful B1a's next....in my dreams anyway..

I'm wondering if there's any big european suppliers for parts similar to the likes of alan gibson, markits, slaters romford wheels etc. Any others worth a shot?

Same issue, no option for delivery to Ireland from what I can see

Mostly fine other than a weird tangent about couplers which was debunked and then the most nonsensical whinge about the nem coupler coming out hauling the weight of 67 coaches. I give him a lot of slack but this felt nitpicky. I've seen worse, saw a video of a lad reviewing an A class which had a handrail that came off. Now fair is fair, I expect everything to be in place when it comes out of the box, paid good money after all but his whinging about it being completely unacceptable was beyond me. Bad reviews get the views it seems

Attached to a Mogul, by the looks of it

They look fantastic, this one caught my eye The Lads better be careful now, I'm almost inclined to get one despite it not being at all my era or country of preference! Really stunning, the Deltics have a real presence about them.