Garfield

All the Dutch vans had generators...

Some cracking shots there, especially the colour pics of Kilfree Junction and the Guinness railway... nice to see photos of how the narrow gauge Spence steam locos were able to run on the 5ft 3in sections! It's a crying shame that the Guinness Hudswell Clarke diesel shunter wasn't preserved.

I must say I'm partial to a game of World of Tanks, especially the Blitz version for the iPhone... Steel Fury looks interesting, though!

Ha, no big deal anyway... I do get it hard to keep track with all the different variants!

I think that's a sturmgeschütz (StuG) rather than a panzer (although it's built on a panzer chassis), but never mind... great work!

I can move it into the main 'for sale' area if you want... this section is for genuinely free items, though.

€60 sounds pretty hefty for an item of that size. What service are you using? Please note that it is not permissible to hide the cost of the item as postage in the 'free to a good home' section, nor can you state 'PM only' in the terms of sale. Transparency is the name of the game.

Bidding on that item finished yesterday...

It can only be regarded as a speculative piece; written by a UK-based rail industry professional with an interest in the Irish scene, yet there are no references or direct quotes from any of the parties mentioned to back up the claims being made...

There's a photo of a 7mm scale model of 800 in 'Modelling Irish Railways' by Stephen Johnson and Alan O'Rourke, which I think may have been built from the Leinster Models kit. It was also painted using a supply of genuine GSR green obtained from Inchicore in the days of yore!

Right there on the forum homepage...

I'm pretty sure they produced an 800 class kit in 7mm scale. Given the work they undertook for the Fry Model Railway, I wouldn't be surprised if they produced 7mm scale kits for some of the diesels, but I can't be certain. Years ago I saw a 7mm scale Cork, Blackrock & Passage Railway 2-4-2T that they were commissioned to build, and it looked rather good.

RMS Leinster was wearing similar camouflage when she was sunk in 1918...

Iain Rice's books on constructing whitemetal and brass locomotive kits are essential reading if you want to go down that route... very informative, straightforward, and lighthearted. The only problem is they're out of print so you'll have to scour through Amazon, eBay, or other booksellers for secondhand copies.

Mad collection of motive power there; Metro Vick, Gleismac, Deutz, Hunslet, Ruston, Simplex(?), Walker (sort of), a BnM home brew, and what looks like a Wickham painted white...

It's the same class of loco; the difference is that the 'original' features the as-delivered colour scheme, which as Mayner says, had the wrong shade of orange, plus an all-white 'broken wheel' CIÉ logo. CIÉ gradually fixed these issues after the 071s entered service and this is what Murphy's 'Supertrain' version represents.

Can I kindly remind you all to keep this thread on topic? (i.e. the scrapping of IÉ's Mk3 fleet)... thanks!

Iwata have a few in their range... the Revolution TR2, and the cheaper Neo TRN2.

Sad news coming through tonight that actor and comedian Robin Williams has died. He was a fantastic talent... RIP.

Welcome to the forum, Phil! I think their website is well out of date at this stage, Seamus... their Irish kits are like gold dust now!

You only need to reply once...

Hope the missus doesn't get jealous! Enjoy! Mine was waiting for me when I got home... I've had a look through and, apart from one or two minor niggles, I'm fairly happy with how it turned out.

Hopefully the ones which are still outstanding will be delivered over the next few days... still waiting to see it in the flesh myself!

They're a favourite of mine, too. There's still plenty of them in service, despite the fact they're older than our own 071s! I have a Jouef version in 'En Voyage' livery, but I need to pick up a few more...

As I said, it was impossible to get decent shots of the scenery along the way, but I thought I'd throw in a few photos of some interesting rolling stock I spotted from the coach window. The first is this old graffiti-covered 'Inox' coach. A lot of these coaches still find use on permanent way trains, where they are used as mobile workshops and staff accommodation. As well as Inox coaches, many permanent way trains seem to have at least one wagon-mounted 'portacabin'. Often windowless, and with air conditioning units bolted onto them... I'm still trying to work out what they're used for. This next wagon really only finds use during the winter months. It's propelled ahead of a locomotive and the 'brushes' on top of the central structure are used to knock icicles from tunnel ceilings, removing the risk of them crashing through a cab window or punching through a coach roof... Just after I alighted on the platform in Nimes, a pair of X73500 'saucisse' (sausage) single unit railcars arrived. The lead unit is wearing the old 'regionless' TER livery. After an overnight stay in Nimes, it was time to take a TGV back to Paris. There is assigned seating on TGV services, and LED-lit boards like this one show passengers where exactly their coach will stop at the platform. Seems a lot of rail users in Nimes are heavy smokers... A glance towards the far side of the station led to an encounter with an old friend... BB 67574, which I travelled behind the previous day, was waiting patiently to leave with a service back to Clermont-Ferrand. And then my train arrived... A TGV Duplex (double-decker) heading to Gare de Lyon in Paris. Nimes is in the Languedoc-Roussillon region, so it's no surprise that the train passed by vineyards along the way... In less than three hours the TGV had made it all the way from the south of France to Paris. As it rolled into Gare de Lyon, this 'La Poste' TGV set was sitting outside a running shed, ready for its next duty carrying mail and parcels to some place or other. Behind it is a Duplex set. A line-up of TGVs and suburban EMUs at Gare de Lyon: After arriving in Paris, it was time to transfer to a TER service to Beauvais, from where I flew home... One for JHBachill171... Another quick/poor shot of an RRR push-pull driving trailer... this time an unrebuilt version in 'Transilien' colours. A permanent way siding with a private contractor's train stabled in it... ...And a siding on the approach to Beauvais. The bufferstops are a standard design found all over the country. Et voila! The end!