MOGUL

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..

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

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

Second pic is Killiney rather than Sandycove, a rare mistake @Irishswissernie!

Most likely, they are being delivered using a side lifting trailer(which most trailers that lift the container off are), would mean parallel parking is a non-issue..The driver would just need spare either side of the container to drop his out-riggers, and a ladder to hop on top and attach the chains.. At a guess, I would say there is possibly some construction work going on nearby or else a flooring shop using this option to make up for a lack of warehouse space.. Most of the containers were shipped from Klaipeda in Lithuania, with an odd ball from Indonesia, so wooden flooring would be my guess at the load..

Good on, tell us... Who won the tug of war?

It was mentioned in a round about way in this article during the week: https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/spanish-firm-in-legal-challenge-over-awarding-of-650m-fleet-contract/a1117458650.html There doesn't seem to be any formal announcement of the tender award from any of the parties though..

In light of the news that the new Enterprise will be a Stadler product, I’m wondering if Noel had inside knowledge when he ordered his FLIRT??

The older tanks in the fleet must have been the best part of 25 years old, so these are long overdue, especially as the walkways etc on the old ones were very much the worse for wear! Hopefully, Givaudan will keep the Murphy's tanks on hire, and haven't replaced the entire fleet with these!

There was the skeletal remains of one dumped in the Boston sidings in Pearse well into the 90s.. The picture was shared on here not too long ago, I have a feeling by @Mol_PMBbut I can't locate it just at the moment.. Ah, here we go, Page 3 of the H van thread

I had seen similar pictures to these Noel, and have a pack of Accurascale Gypsum containers that may get a spray of Yellow as a result as the designs are similar.. However, are you sure Biomass is the intended flow? The containers in the picture are actually owned/registed to the Roche Clarecastle project(https://www.bic-code.org/bic-codes/bmuu/), and are currently used to ship contaminated Soil from that site to Germany and the Netherlands via Foynes. A few years ago before that project went live, I did hear mention of it being a possible rail flow from Ennis to Foynes, Waterford or Dublin. In the end it didn't go ahead at that time, likely as Roche/Indaver chose to charter their own vessels and route via Foynes which obviously has now rail connection(but will soon)..

The mine is back in production since late last year, but the product is being moved by Road by a fleet of virginia logistics trucks hauling sheeted bulk trailers, normally identifiable on the N3 by their Environmentally hazardous substances placards.. Access to the Alexandra Road tramway has been severed till 2027 for upgrading works on the Ports road network and apparently the rail network. https://www.dublinport.ie/e9-million-investment-in-rail-freight-yard-at-north-wall/

Try https://www.modellbahnunion.com/OO-gauge/OO-Mechanical-Wash-Plant.htm?shop=modellbahn-union-en&a=article&ProdNr=Bachmann-44-184&p=1063

Unfortunately any of the parcelforce services would be negotiated separately to Royal Mail ones on commercial accounts Even at the scale we are now operating at(having landed 4 newly tooled loco projects and 2 wagon projects since the 20th May, which was over 50K units of stock) in terms of the overall volume of orders shipped by our warehouse provider a minute fraction would be shipping to overseas customers and over the 2kg max weight for Royal Mail Airmail services. Our products are very much an outlier in many ways in an ecommerce fulfillment setting, both in terms of size, value and geographical reach. This means while in theory it sounds like a simple case of just slapping a Parcelforce label on the box instead of a Royal Mail one, the reality is much more complex.

They are temporarily out of stock as we are moving warehouses, should be back on sale in a few weeks though..

Wrong pic?

Those MK3PPs I sold you must have caused an itch.. Marks models in Greenogue had a pack of Lima mk3 execs last time I was out a few weeks ago.. might be worth giving them a call

Apologies if it has already been mentioned, but Ernie Shepherd's Waterford, Limerick and Western Railway book seems like a good place to answer this one and a few other loose ends in this thread related to the T&FR wagons and also tubular wagons in general. In the Rolling stock chapter, under private owners we find the following snippet that gives an insight into the Fenit Harbour Comissioners wagons. It would seem that the order for wagons and likely 299 came out of some disastifaction with how the the W&LR had been handling(or not) the available traffic landing at Fenit for onwards transit to Tralee. The harbour comissioners seem to have taken matters into their own hands, and decided to work the pier themselves with the W&LR then working the traffic from the station on to Tralee using T&FHC wagons. To allow for this, the harbour comissioners leased six open-centre covered wagons(convertibles) and twelve open wagons from the Bristol Wagon co in 1899. These were numbered 1-12 for the opens and 13-18 for the covered wagons. Upon passing to the GS&WR these were renumbered 4667-4684. I wonder if pictures might be out there of them in GS&WR days. Ernie then goes on to say "of even more interest(especially for us) is the fact that the commisoners leased two tubular 33ft 10in bogie open wagons, built by the Lancaster RCW in 1900" On passing to the GS&WR these became 4050 and 4051 with 4050 being altered into a covered fish van in 1903. So likely the wagon in @Mol_PMB's picture is one of these wagons, with the picture likely a manufacturers delivery one. However, it is possible that this is not the wagon seen in the pics of Waterford, as it turns out that the W&LR themselves also operated tubular wagons(albeit for a short while as open wagons). These get a separate section in the Rolling stock chapter which gives a brief history of tubular wagons including the foundation of a workshop in Barrow in Furness in the UK to built them and their trial use by a number of UK lines. It seems that the W&LR decided to trial 6 of these wagons themselves, with a few to purchasing some(Interestingly some of the W&LRs earliest goods stock was of bogie design). Two wagons were delivered to Limerick in July 1891(one low sided and one high-sided), but at over a year had elapsed since the initial order, so the W&LR cancelled the order for the other 4. It would seem that the wagons and indeed the whole tubular wagon concept wasn't the most sucessfull, as the wagons were out of use until Sept 1892, and were then converted into covered vans for the carriage of Hops and Bran between Clonmel and Waterford. The tubular wagon co went into liqudation in 1895, so the W&LR bought the wagons off the liquidator. Like the T&FHC wagon, one of these wagons was 33ft 10in(W&LR No 1178,maybe a similar design) with the second slightly shorter 33ft 2in(W&LR No 1179)..

At they filled with danish butter cookies?

Nice to see this shared with the public. Like Heuston North it’s an excellent piece of modelling and tbh it’s hard to tell apart from the real deal!

There are a few prospects including Grain to Portlaoise(the Gain feeds traffic that ran from Foynes, NW and Waterford in the 90s/00s) and the woodchip that is imported from South America in this ugly old tub for burning in Edenderry. Another flow I have heard mentioned is the import of new rails for Irish Rail, but of course this already moves by rail from Belview to Portaloise, so hardly justifies the branch rebuild.

Hi Tom, While it sounds in principal like a logical idea, the reality is our warehouse staff are there to pick and pack orders and wouldn't be privy to the ins and outs of US customs to select the best option for the customers. I have over 10 years experience of customs clearances but the rate of change in the US system at the moment is so rapid it's hard to keep up with all the rates, rules and dates without it consuming a few hours of my week. Trump annoucing something, and that information actually being translated into something that a customs broker can implement are two very different things. So as I said, for now the best we can offer is that the customer can review the rules for themselves, and contact us to have us ship there order with whichever carrier would be the most cost effective for them.

I was just about to comment how the Rail Freight 2040 plan dates from 2022, and there is no sign of any container service to Foynes emerging three years on with the exception of the special purpose flow of containerised contaminated soil from Roche Clarecastle to Germany for thermal treatment. Realistically we already have enough or even too many container ports in the south of the country, with Rosslare, Waterford and Cork all competing with Dublin for business. Cork has managed to corner the marked for deep sea services with services from South America(operated by Maersk, and with Bananas and other fruits as the base load) and North America(ICL). Interestingly, Cork also saw a call from ACL recently on their North Atlantic Express service. However, in all likelihood the next decade will see the closure of Tivoli with all container handling ops being focused on Ringaskiddy which is in the wrong place for a rail connection. Waterford obviously has a good set up from a Rail perspective, with dockside rail access, however it currently has a very limited service of only two intra-EU vessels calling a week, and sometimes even less than that in the winter. Ironically, it had a deep sea feeder service for the first time in a decade back in the early 2020s, but by the time XPO and Irish Rail had their liner service up and running, this service was closed by the opertors BG freight line. A white paper/alternate rail freight 2040 plan has been on my to do list for a good while now, but life doesn't allow the luxury of time for such things at the moment!

Obviously, as you eluded to, offering a better range of carriers is only part of the solution for our US customers.. But unfortunatley there is no "easy" way to do what you have suggested and have our system automatically calculate what the tarriff would be if you select carrier A or carrier B. I would like to think that there may be an app developer out there building just such a plug in for our software, but it is still very early days on the whole, so they may not have made much progress as yet! It is also very much be a case of trying to hit a moving target, with the tarriffs and the rate of exchange between the dollar and our base currency of GBP being in a constant state of flux. The best option I'm afraid will be for customers to get in touch with us over support shortly before we have a product arrival(for pre-orders), or if they want to place an order(for in stock items obviously) and request which carrier from our available list they would like their parcel to be sent with.

TBH I doubt any retailers have swallowed the tarriffs entirely, ultimately no business can fully absorb 30-154% increase in costs.. We are currently working to improve our shipping, particularly to overseas market and will be able to offer Royal Mail, DHL Express or Fedex for our US customers. We will leave it up to the customers to pick which one they want and which one allows them to best avoid the tarriffs. Just to state again, we haven't increased our prices, you still pay us the same ex VAT price at the checkout, you now just have to pay 30%(for today anyway) to your government for the privelge of importing it. That ex VAT price is the same anyone outside the EU pays. Any goodwill we would gain from our small US customer base by offering discounts to US customers would be far out weighed by the ill feeling from people in our other markets who don't get the same. After all, we live in an age of VPNs, where you can easily view what customers in another market are paying, and a lot of those services actively promote this as a benefit of their service. The discounts on the beet wagons as was outlined at the time, was a special case as we wanted to reduce our stock holding prior to closing the Dublin warehouse. If those discounts were to be front loaded as you suggest, then the barely viable Irish projects, would become not viable and we would see a lot less Irish models on the market