MOGUL

Sorry, I didn't want to dismiss you in anyway.. It's just the old JIT seems to have crept out of somewhere to become a reason why rail freight can't be done.. When in fact, true JIT is used by very few companies, and in Ireland would mostly rely on air freight and involve very small quantities of freight(less than 1% of total tonnage) To give an anecdote on why it's irrelevant, in a past job on of my accounts was to handle the sea freight imports for a large US owned pharma company in the west of Ireland.. One of the products we imported was vacuum salt from the US mid west to the west of Ireland plant which was worth about $12K a load. Some exec had decided that if this was made part of their lean supply chain employing JIT they would save x amount of money by reducing their stock holdings/warehouse space etc.. So for 40 weeks of the year, we had 1 container per week from the US to Ireland that was bang on time, and the production team had their salt as needed.. But for the other 12 weeks of the year during winter, there was constant delays due to storms, ice on the St.Lawrence river etc etc.. At one point it got so bad, that if they didn't get some salt in to Ireland ASAP they would have to stop production at a cost of hundreds of thousands of euros.. To solve this issue, they had to airfreight 20 tonnes of salt from Chicago to Ireland at a cost of about €100k, thus wiping out any potential savings from their lean/JIT supply chain initiative.. Needless to say, after than they dropped JIT and increased their stock holding of salt to avoid any repeats..

Maybe, or you could just stick said pallets in a container and put them onto a train to a port.. hmm why does that sound familiar.... Also, lose the JIT, it is constantly blown out of proportion in debates on rail freight in this country for some reason.. A lot of freight is a trade of between speed, price, reliability, and increasingly sustainability.. And all the trends are going against JIT as it is expensive, not very sustainable and you are very prone to impact by outside events such as bad weather, COVID, supply chain congestion, strikes etc

For me no 1 missing item in OO gauge is a container skelly(chassis).. No one does a RTR version that is right

Not sure what you mean by rule one.. But as a suggested above, apply a bit of modeller's licence and they are ideal for a Waterford originating flow

It seems not, there was no rail service from Waterford to Dublin during the time the Fyffes ship called to Waterford, and the contract switched to Maersk around 2012.. The only reefers in the C-rail range that travelled by rail are: 20ft CMA, regularly on IWT https://www.c-rail-intermodal.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=25_28&product_id=101 40ft Maersk, on Cork-Dublin liner https://www.c-rail-intermodal.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=25_28&product_id=214 40ft Safmarine, rarely on IWT https://www.c-rail-intermodal.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=25_28&product_id=197

Generally European focused shipping lines(Eucon, CLDN, Samskip, DFDS,ECS etc) operate 45ft HC which are the same dims as a road trailer(13.6m).. these are longer and slightly wider and basically are the max size that is legal in the countries they are used in.. And ones between Europe and the rest of world or outside Europe operate 20fts or 40fts.. But there are exceptions to every rule..

45ft HC= inter-Europe= 47ft flat 40ft DV(8ft 6in) or 40ft HC(9ft 6in)= rest of world= 47ft or 42ft flat

I think yang Ming was parts for dell

The sea wheel boxes are 40ft Pallet wides so different to Arrans tooling unfortunately.. But would be a good model for Limerick to Waterford baby powder liners

No, still travelling Dublin to Ballina.. about 8 tanks one week per month

The Dana tanks around since the early 2000s when Ballina Beverages opened.. The used to run Cork-North Wall, North Wall-Ballina before IE ended the unit load service.. The traffic then transferred to Norfolk line Waterford to Ballina and was on it till the end.. the Dana tanks also appear on IWT liners but from the Uk rather than Cork

The caption has a date of 23 September 1994.. I don't think the grain traffic to/from Ballina lasted very long, but is the only working i have seen a picture of that has the Amficon 20fts on a 42ft flat instead of a 20ft flat

At risk of sounding like i'm on commission, I would recommend looking at Jonathan Beaumont and Barry Carse' books for these.. Rails through the west has a good few pictures from Limerick to Ballina, and rails through North Kerry has some nice pictures of the wagons in Foynes.. I wont share the pics as they are not mine, but they look purpose built to me..

I think there was a set of 47ft wagons converted to carry 45ft containers in the early 2000s for Norfolk line.. So the 47fts have only ever done Kegs(build to 2006), Containers(early 2000s to present) and Sperry(2012-2020)

Hi Arran, Criticism/nit picking is like water off a duck's back to you at this stage I'm sure! I of course didn't consider the possibility that you had a different prototype to the tanks running on the rails over here! Regards Andrew

The coal wagons on the WRC were on 20ft wagons, so would would have to wait for project 20.. Although there is a picture in rails through the west of a 42ft flat with 2 of the Amficon 20fts carrying grain from Foynes to Ballina..

Hi Arran, Perfect pick to go with the 42ft flats, my only criticism is the numbers on the tanks aren't accurate, but that's nit picking in the extreme! (For future ref/re-runs the Bruhns are BTEU2541xxx and the GCAs are GCAU79xxxxxxx!) Are these available now? Regards Andrew

Talk of Fenit makes me think that Patrick's layout wouldn't be out of place on the North Kerry line.. The gantry crane is very like Rathkeale, and the beet bank would fit right in somewhere the west of Ireland..

Surely Lough Erne would be ideal for this line? A nice tank engine, and I don't think the RPSI have any long term plans for mainline use

The gypsum looks like it's being attached to a LJ to Limerick local trip working.. The YM/Yang Ming containers in the front section were very common in Limerick carrying parts for Dell..

Is that picture recent Arran? Saw this picture of facebook the other day, 30ft Bell heading to the west of Ireland.. So there's is at least one around still in Bell Livery.. Fairly sure that I know who the operator is, next challenge is to get it onto the train, now THAT would be something!

Maybe that’s why the aircrafts ref is EI-AGW.. All going well is should take off!

I have one of the Oxford alone livery reachstacker on my desk in work.. it’s a very good model, and as ttco says nearly identical to both of the stackers in Ballina

The green containers on the bells were Consent leasing boxes.. I think Bachmann did a version a few years ago using their 13.6m container

Arran, Can you PM me your email.. I have loads of pics of DANAs tanks, in a few different styles.. Will send you over what I have regards Andrew