MOGUL

2 hours ago, Jonathan Allen said:

You may want to check photo references before adding anything - I only photographed 101 on the sprayer and she did not carry warning boards: 101 Bangor | Some use could still be found for NIR's 101 cla… | Flickr

104 did, but you will have to wait for a B201 model!

 

The yellow and black boards would only be added when the weedspray was actually spraying.

So maybe the coverage on the trip out to Bangor was considered satisfactory and there was no need to spray on the return, or the tanks were empty! 

56 minutes ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Model Railway Emporium tend to over-expose and over-saturate their photos, so it’s hard to tell whether they’re closer to RTC than NIR.

Chris’s models were usually quite good ln colour - at one stage it was @tonto.irl doing his repaints - so hopefully they’re more maroon than red.

€255 for four is not a bad price, all things considered.

 

 

 

Would agree about the photography being poor, the cherry black Woolwich looked more like GNR blue in their pic of it!

With the very obvious exception of the boom, it doesn't look a million miles away from the one plinthed in Mallow:

Just to be a contrarian here, but Irish Rail carried wagonload freight up until 2006 when the Guiness contract ended, probably the last remnant of the Liner network, with all freight thereafter being in full trainload quantities. However, a small remnant of that network remains, in the weekly wagon transfers that run to/from Inchicore and Waterford to Limerick wagon works. It often feels like Irish Rail lost the revenue earning part of the services(the Waterford wagons ran with the Castlemungret to Waterford cement in later years, and the Dublin ones with the Guiness, which in it's last months worked as a combined Cork/Limerick service, with Limerick served by an out and back trip working from LJ, often including 1-2 wheelcarrier wagons) but were still left with the cost of crew and fuel etc to operate those services!

I guess what you are really looking for is when the traditional loose coupled services stopped operating and were replaced by replacement Vac braked liner services. I think this would have been part of the Railplan 80 freight plan. I'm not sure if there are exact dates for services out there, but a trawl online might give some answers on when the replacement liner services commenced. 

2 hours ago, Horsetan said:

That's the one that's been sent out first to me. The green one follows after that and, hopefully, there'll be a payment reminder for the Hunslet soon.

I suspect parts 42, 43 and 61 will be much in demand for 21mm gauge rewheeling and other types of coach....

Payment reminders went out about a week ago before the stock arrived. If you haven't received one your best option is to contact us on the usual Accurascale support channels and the team can email you over an invoice

On 23/5/2026 at 6:57 AM, Galteemore said:

You’re all wrong I’m afraid. He was simply trying to decide what shade of green it was 

The train or the Tesco Luxury mixed Italian peel?

49 minutes ago, DJ Dangerous said:

@Warbonnet posted on April 9th that the Park Royals were about eight weeks away:

 

Mail-out on Monday 13th saying that they’re estimated in the warehouse on May 29th.

So it would be fair to assume that if nothing goes awry, they’ll start shipping orders in June.

The real question is what order the orders get shipped in?

First paid, first shipped?

If so, and you haven’t yet paid, get to the end of the queue!

Not really an issue any more, as our new warehouse is a whopper that can pump out in the hundreds orders a day when in campaign mode.. So the difference between the start of the queue, and the bottom, is in hours not days

19 hours ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Finished at almost €650, but was less than €300 a few hours before finishing. Lot of red mist floating around. I guess some folk are assuming that there’ll never be an 071 again, with the passing of Paddy Murphy, but…..

 

 

 

Nothing to see here folks 

13 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

4 a.m. 

I was tired the next day…..

 

No doubt a few pints of Beamish or Murphys were consumed? Either that or a bad case of insomnia! 

On 12/4/2026 at 11:11 AM, DJ Dangerous said:

Oxford Diecast 1:76 Dublin Airport Land Rover:

https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/products/land-rover-discovery-4-dublin-airport-fire-service-76dis007

https://railsofsheffield.com/products/oxford-diecast-76dis007-land-rover-discovery-4-dublin-airport-fire-service

Not listed on Mark’s Models’ website, nor Brian Collins nor RB Models.

 

Just spoke to Mark, and he has a big re-stock from oxford including the Dublin Airport landrovers and the nice shunting tractors inbound, and they should hopefully be in before the end of the month(which ties in nicelty with payday).. Thought I would share here in case anyone wants to buy them local and save on the grief of shipping from the UK post Brexit

1 hour ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Think I’ll keep my powder dry and see what @MOGUL has in store for the Heljan website…

Lots and lots of loveliness should be up there really soon..........

16 hours ago, GSR 800 said:

Hardly surprising given we're an Irish railway modelling forum, from which Accurascale spouted from.

How many have actually bought Heljan models? I've never bought a thing from them, their poor quality control made sure I wasn't putting money toward them, even for the odd model I'd have a vague interest in.

13 hours ago, irishmail said:

Re Heljan models, I have a 23, 26, 33, 45, 52, 86 and a DPU.  Only real issue I have with the Heljan's is that they pre fit all the buffer beam detail at the factory.  Quality control wise they are no worse than Dapol,   At least the DPU runs well, whereas my Dapol 121 I have had to repair the drive shafts.

12 hours ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Have quite a few Heljan diesels and coaches, plus one or two wagons. Not done much mileage but from a visual perspective, they are stunning. The Class 50 in particular has a wonderful presence to it. Picked up a OO Gauge Class 57, too, but still haven’t run it.

Almost all of mine have been bought at various levels of reduced prices, usually between €300-ish and €400-ish for the diesels. I think that the Class 26 may have been a little cheaper, and one of the Class 50’s a little more, but roughly in that range.

Coaches all around the €75 to €150 range, more towards the lower end of that spectrum. Bit the bullet and paid the extra for the Mk2’s, but that was still when they were something like 50% off.

Only picked up one or two wagons as pricing was excessive, went for Dapol and Accurascale instead.

Pricing has been the big thorn in Heljan purchasing. If not for the retailers basically doubling the price, I’d have bought more, a lot more, but that money has either gone on other brands, on OO, or on 1/18 Otto models instead.

The changes brought about this week mean that I will definitely be buying a lot more. @BosKonay says that they will have several deliveries from Heljan over the coming months. Expect to see a chunk of stuff Canarias-bound!

Just plucking out these posts, as they illustrate a very important point.. The perception of people who haven’t bought the brand is one of poor QC etc, whereas the lived experience of people who bought Heljan's products is more favourable.. Were all past Heljan products perfect? No but they have some very fine models in the range that with a little bit of love and attention from the Accurascale team will remain available and provide in many instances the only OO RTR model of their prototype.. The high prices certainly didn’t help matters, but were in part a symptom of Heljan’s  distribution chain. 
 

From my own perspective, I have a Heljan BOC gas tanker which is an excellent model along with a full rake of IRM/Heljan Esso tanks. Will I be buying more based on what I've seen so far, certainly, just as soon as I can get the stock I’m after into the warehouse! 

On 20/3/2026 at 7:12 PM, Horsetan said:

Even then. Pay by 31st March, it says.

On 20/3/2026 at 2:11 PM, Horsetan said:

*checks e-mail*

Ah, I see I'm being tapped up to pay the invoice for the first of the two Park Royals....

Our system is set up to send invoices on the due date, so not sure how you would have got sent an invoice with a due date of 31st March unless you requested it, or one of the team sent it..

Feel free to drop us an email on support with the order no to look into it for you

22 minutes ago, GM073 said:

Who’s weshty - and how do I contact him?

There you go:

https://www.studio-scale-models.com/TFreight.shtml

On 17/3/2026 at 8:32 PM, Mol_PMB said:

Agreed, it's been a while!

Three of the 16 SKUs are now showing as sold out on the Accurascale website, though I didn't notice them go through the stage of 'only 10 remaining' that I recall on some other product lines in the past. 

Any photos of what was in that batch of boxes that you posted on 29th January?

The "stock remaining" flags will only work with in stock items, and don't work for pre-orders unfortunately.. 

Those are a hard limit input into the system when we place the PO with the factory(at which point we are commited to the numbers), and once it's reached the system stops taking in orders.. From a quick check on our side, it looks like most coaches aren't far away from being sold now either, with some down to the last 1 or 2 units available to pre-order

1 hour ago, Darrman said:

Every so often I read about councillors banging on about the need for another station on the north side of Drogheda. I'm making this thread here since it's not something happening on the network, it's councillor chatter, but I want to chatter a little myself.

The main operational issue I can think of is simply what's going to call at such a station? All the Dart+ plans revolve around terminating at MacBride. You could extend some terminators to this new station, but a turnback of some sort would still be necessary, as would battery charging equipment, most likely. I'd be wary of the single-track Boyne Viaduct, too.

Another question is where such a station would be best located: I'm not really in a position to answer this as I'm not from anywhere near Drogheda and have only ever passed through on trains. 

Via poking around a bit on Street View and eyeballing things on this Rail Map Online snippet, I'd probably place a park and ride station around where the Drogheda Port Access is when that road is finished. If the siding to the port still existed, I'd put a station right before the first level crossing, but that's been long lifted. I've occasionally heard chatter about opening Dunleer again or doing some silly things in Dundalk due to parking issues, but Drogheda's the main thing that comes up on my daily "Irish Rail" search.

Likely a park and ride style operation like M3 parkway, on the Northern cross route would make the most sense..

There seems to be very little left of the Boyne road branch, past the newfoundwell sidings that were used to load Ballast in the 90s.. This was to access Irish Cement(now premier periclase) rather than Drogheda port though.. Tom Roe's never had rail access

20 minutes ago, Westcorkrailway said:

One of the yolks buried in the quarry because of asbestos? 

That was the MED's.. They were dumped in a Quarry near Crumlin

Even if that Class 70 is still there, there would like be very little of it left.. 25+ years in sea air, would be a pile of rust with brambles growing out of it by now

On 26/2/2026 at 10:42 AM, murphaph said:

If I go to the https://www.accurascale.com website and then change my location to Germany, the website reloads to https://www.accurascale.at/. Is this now the expected behaviour? Is the VAT correct for me in Germany linke this?

Edit: It's a bit all over the shop once you start clicking around. I clicked on the palvan blog entry on the austrian website, and then clicked on the "order yours now" at the bottom of that post and it dumped me out at https://www.accurascale.ie with Irish VAT (the nice round Irish Euro prices are a dead giveaway). These prices are obviously wrong for me in Germany with our 19% VAT rate.

Are you using a VPN that could be "spoofing" the website into thinking you are in Austria rather than Germany?

Regardless of what pricing you see, once you get to the checkout and enter a shipping address, the correct shipping and VAT rate will be applied anyway.. 

57 minutes ago, Ironroad said:

Not sure we are on the same page. As I read it this isn't a VAT levy rather it's a customs tariff that will apply on all small parcels under 150 euro in value.

It’s a charge of €3 on low value parcels, in lieu of customs duty.. We don’t use the low value procedure, we use a mix of IOSS and DDP depending on the order value.. With a 0% rated product like railway models, duty isn’t an issue, just VAT

1 hour ago, Ironroad said:

So in effect, to avoid a 3 euro tariff on an Accurascale order shipped from the UK, the order needs to exceed 150 euro in value (normally zero duty on toys). ???

IRM/Accurascale orders won't be affected..  Since the removal of the €22 import VAT exemption back in 2021, all orders arriving in Ireland attract VAT, even if they are duty free(like Railway models are). So we put a good bit of work into full VAT paid shipping for EU orders with our fulfillment provider before we moved the IRM fulfillment over to the UK, which means we don't rely on the low value order loopholes.. Those loopholes were always likely to be closed off once cross border e-commerce, particularly from China(the likes of Alibaba, Shein and Temu) took off and started affecting European business and employment.. This is just the next step towards that happening, similar to Trump removing the De minimis in the US.. 

14 hours ago, irishmail said:

@DJ Dangerous  Just seen this on facebook, thought you may like it.   

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1430961771964846

Looks like the bould Craig! 

3 hours ago, Galteemore said:

There is a strong Irish connection though. The Londonderry(pronounced London-dree) family owned land in Co Down and were politically active. One Lord Londonderry was Minister for Education in NI in the early 20s, and Air Minister in London. He later hosted Hitler’s foreign minister Von Ribbentrop at his home Mt Stewart. The Nazi dignitary flew into Newtownards on a Ju52 

Wasn't aware of that.. A quick reading of the wikipedia(never the best source of course), shows a gentleman who seems to have been on the wrong side of politics both Irish and UK! 

Thank God his second cousin Winston Churchill had good advice in 1940! 

8 hours ago, K801 said:

team,

I see a 3pk "Londonderry Hopper" in the Accurascale shop.

Can anybody share some information on where this model ran?

thanks

The full History of the wagons is in @Warbonnet's annoucement thread here: 

The Londonderry is a reference to the Marquis of Londonderry, who's family ran Colliery's in NE england as other posters have mentioned.. 

On 8/1/2026 at 11:41 AM, Mayner said:

ISO Containers had replaced Covered Vans and Open wagons for general freight during Celtic-transport, the original posters 90/00s preferred modelling eara.

Since the late 70s coal and scrap metal was transported in open topped (full height) ISO containers on 4w Flat Wagons, (load not visible when viewed at rail level). Containers used to transport coal (Foynes-Ballina ) and scrap (North Wall-Galway) were basically standard 20' containers with the roof removed.

During the late 80s/early 90s some new freight flows emerged sometimes loaded on private sidings, Avonmore Mollasses--Foynes to the Midlands, Cawoods Coal Dublin Port & possibly Dundalk to Arklow and possibly Sligo, Avommore Bulk Grain Waterford IAAWS (siding) elevator, possibly Foynes, later North Wall- Portlaoise

One possible scenario would be for the loading/unloading to take place on a private siding (behind a high wall) offscene possibly with an industrial loco (RH 88DS or similar) carrying out the shunting while the Main line loco delivers and picks up a complete train. With 'modern' fitted wagons you don't have to worry about finding space to fit a Brake Van.

I once built and exhibited an 8'X2' (incl 2' fiddle yard) British outline industrial layout which featured a working hopper for loading 'ore" into mineral wagons. The layout was based on Iain Rice's Bankfoot design though added a working hopper for loading mineral wagons rather than the cable worked incline in the original design. 

The basic operating pattern was that a 'main-line" loco would arrive or depart with a train of a max of 5 wagon if operating self contained while a second smaller industrial loco shunted the yard breaking down and making up the trains shunting the wagons under the hopper to be loaded 1 at a time. Physically loading the wagons certainly added to the operating interest and visitor enjoyment at exhibitions. The Airfix/Dapol/Parkside mineral wagons of the era were quite robust, we simply emptied the wagons into a plastic container, I hadn't the space or desire to build a working wagon tippler

The traffic in coal from Dublin Port was from the CDL siding to Asahi, and I don't think Cawoods had any involvement.. The Cawoods flow as a short term flow by rail from Barrack Street to Arklow, with I believe Staffords of Arklow being the recipient.. The containers were shunted by road between warrenpoint(where the ship from Ellesmere port docked for the main NI flow) and Barrack Street.. The CDL yard itself could make a nice micro-layout, taking in part of Alexandra road and with the conveyor used to carry the coal accross alexandra road forming a nice scenic break.. Further down Alexandra road and the other side of that conveyor, the Boliden terminal could also make a nice micro-layout, with a prototypical wagon traverser being accessed by a sharp 90 degree turn off the main lines.. 

I would think there are plenty of other 90s/00s locations modellable including

-Kingscourt, with a small pad and covered shed used to store Gypsum which was loaded by a wheeled shovel into 4 wheel wagons(available from IRM), and also the possibilty of timber traffic, which was trialled in the 90s.. With a bit of alternate history, this could have become a regular flow.. 4 wheel and 62ft timber wagons aren't too hard to scratch build using Dapol and Hornby underframes, and plasticard to make the head boards and stanchions.. 

- Ardee Road, Dundalk, which replaced Barrack street which handled kegs and containers.. A relatively compact site, with a nice bridge to form a scenic break.. 

- NW wagon repair shop, with clever use of sightlines/forced perspective the Ballast bank could also be incorporated

- Cabra Cement depot(one I plan to do as time/kids/life permits), two/three sidings parallel to a twin track mainline, with bridges at either end for scenic breaks.. Cement trains arriving from the Heuston direction after a run around, and setting back into the yard.. The train would need to be split to be placed under the shed for unloading.. For added interest, a regular flow of passing trains made up of pretty much anything that ran on the Irish network transferring from Dublin port/Connolly to Heuston/Inchicore/Cork line.. Cabra also received a few deliveries of smokeless fuel(I believe in Fertiliser wagons) which could be easily modelled.. 

- Athy Cement Factory, a relatively compact siding alongside the Canal, with cement wagons being discharged into a silo for the factory

Castlemungret and Platin are probably a bit on the large side, but a taster of them could probably be modelled, with clever use of a backscene to give the impression of a wagon loader as part of a bigger plant

On 19/1/2026 at 9:25 AM, Rob R said:

Cattle Wagons

Mr Sprinks says there were 68 7 ton and 2 6 ton Cattle Wagons at the end.

Photos show a bewildering variety of designs and details when you take a closer look, so bite sized chunks is the way to go I think, so first off:-

Open Cattle Wagons (Crate Wagons)

The IRRS SL&NCR wagon compendium has just one Cattle Wagon drawing, Standard Covered Cattle Wagon, signed off by Mr Sparks 19/11/20.

On this drawing there is a note:-

"Brake gear, Underframe Ironwork and Corner Straps, etc to be re-used for all Crate Wagons (Nos 36 to 65) re-built to this design"

So we know that in 1920 there were 30 Open Cattle wagons numbered in one block and a plan to rebuild to a standard design. I suspect with the departure of Mr Sparks that plan, to an extent, fell by the wayside. 

The majority seem to have been rebuilt, but not necessarily to the intended design and I will deal with them in the next installment.

Photos of Sligo Open Cattle wagons are a bit thin on the ground but Ernie has come to the rescue again (thank you).

This wonderful Casserley view of Hazelwood in 1929 is the best view I have found showing the number, 52 in this case.

I am very grateful that Manorhamilton copied the GNR practice of placing the number on the ends as well as the side!

 

The other view which is dated 22nd April 1953 does not show the number but the details differ enough to presume it is not the same vehicle and there is a photo of what may be 52 as rebuilt in the next installment.

Taken the same day 

Rebuilt Open Cattle wagons next (as and when)

Not an exact match, but the NER V4 Brake Van recently announced by TMC looks fairly similar to SLNCR No.6: 

https://www.themodelcentre.com/article/new-tmc-exclusive-ner-v4-brake-van-revealed?srsltid=AfmBOooSYrR7TJO0qAloJShZ5KjukJWibOsCsiAM56ou7pSdM_uTozmU