Sean

as discussed in my last post, it really did only make sense to tidy this area up and to turn the passing loop into a tight inner siding. Down the other end ive torn out the PWD yard and tidied up the trackage into the goods yard. this has allowed me to stretch out my running loop by almost double the amount of straight. n gauge layout jacked up and back-scene added, this gives me approx 5x1 feet to create a nice little scenic branch line section on a blank canvas that fits in perfectly with the theme of everything else.

https://webapps.geohive.ie/mapviewer/index.html this site is a great resource for old maps and satellite imagery going way back

The most obvious difference in these motors is the number of cylinders but most people cannot seem to hear a difference in this regard. the other less obvious difference is the 181 series were supercharged whereas the 071 series are turbo. Perhaps 076 was given an odd configuration for some reason that we dont know about or maybe the overall configuration of them has changed, im sure someone more knowledgable than me will come along and fill in the gaps soon enough

PLENTY of videos around of Cummins, Perkins, Wilson etc generators around but with a massive variance in sizes, cummins nt400 seems a very common type of genny from the 70's-2000ish era of manufacture, particularly the nt400 line which i am seeing a lot of listings for. What kind of power output would these things have actually had in order to be able to reliably power a full train? would this be a good ballpark guesstimate of the type of thing i am looking for? Sean

I think theres a bit more to it than this though, I have been looking into the same thing on and off for about a year, as well as testing alternative solutions such as virtual sound decoders, both on mobile and pc. no solution performs as well as a proper esu chip with B-EMF feedback in my experience for me the biggest issue has been making up solutions actually small enough to fit inside of a loco shell but even if i do knock something up I will then have no real software to run on it and would also have to develop this on top of the device. if we break down the individual components of a sound chip also, the price we actually pay for the sound element of the chip is not all that much.. maybe 50-60 euros, for that we are getting the industry standard in sound design software and build quality. its 26 euro for a blank lokpilot, there are cheaper options available, but the difference in features and running quality is quickly apparent and you quickly see where the money goes. a blank loksound fx is 64 at the moment and a blank full featured loksound goes for 94. on top of this we are usually also paying approximately 30 euro for the sound project from a third party who will supply everything set up and ready to go. you can get around this by making your own project and asking the retailer to flash it for you but only some retailers will. I can also spend zero and use a virtual sound decoder but tbh i find them quite shit and not worth the time. so 60 euro, thats what i really consider the cost of adding sound to a loco, beyond that im getting the best motor control on the market and paying a sound engineer for his time spent in the field recording and building up the project afterwards. I actually have a keen interest in digging deeper on this and if you want to continue the conversation and possibly share where we are at with it dont hesitate to PM me. I dont think bike are a good analogy as prices will vary massively by brand and as you get into bigger CC's bikes are more of a luxury than a utilitarian product and things are priced accordingly. 2 tyres for some of my bikes cost more than 4 decent car tyres. batteries in particular would be a more mass produced subsection of automotive parts and would be priced based on their size rather than any sort of perceived demand. All that being said, to bring this full circle you have reminded me of 2 good examples of why the cost of these things are so high. Back when i started riding about 15 years ago any new learner had to restrict their bike to 33BHP or essentially they were riding unlicensed. different limits today but essentially the same system applies with different rules and regs. in order to make a lot of bikes "learner legal" they had to be fitted with a restriction kit that usually consisted of a few large washers within the throttle bodys to essentially make them smaller or sometimes it would be a small bracket that prevents the rider going full throttle, or a combo of both. Anyway it eventually became the case that you needed one of these kits installed and certified by a mechanic in order to be able to take out insurance on a larger bike, but there was only one manufacturer of these kits, and they had somehow lobbied the industry to only accept their kits and certification's, which cost an outrageous 300 euro with no alternative available whatsoever. I worked in a bike garage at the time and often complained to the owner about this who used to complain back stating that the company have massive R&D costs as they have to develop solutions specific to every single bike that is released. so fair enough i thought, i much prefer small cc yokes anyway than strangling down a bigger yoke. Eventually someone did copy their designs and started selling them on ebay with his own certificates for 50 quid, got one of these myself and the bike ran alot worse than it would of with one of the expensive kits, I also had trouble getting the certificate recognised by my insurance co who had never seen one of these before and i was actually turned away from being able to sit my driving test due to having one, eventually i did see where the extra 250 notes was going to with the dear kits. on the other hand, i used to tune 2 stroke mopeds when i was younger and this is where the difference in part prices can come very apparent, a racing cylinder built to the same specification of an OEM one could sometimes cost double or triple the price despite being built sometimes even in the same plant from the same processes. (one example would be Malossi racing cylinders having the same "brevatto" casting on them as the OEM vespa cylinders) OEM will be producing millions of these whereas the tuning firm might be producing them in the hundreds or thousands, tuning firm have also spent considerable time refining the OEM design for all out performance or a balance of more performance and reliability, it is not uncommon for a cylinder to cost 5 or 6 times the price of the OEM one. so whilst that is a bit of a ramble the final point is simple, of that 60 euro approx cost to add esu sound to a loco, how much of that 60 is going towards the software engine on the chip and further R&D to improve it? you are buying more than just the hardware when you want to add sound to a loco.

As i was saying earlier. i think these things are just a bit too loud for my size of room, after all you can hear the sounds of engine tickover over the sound of people talking at a busy exhibition hall, so the speakers are capable of spreading their sound over a particularly large radius which all in all is only a good thing. So i started messing with my master volume CV and settled on a baseline of around 70 for each loco (default is 192) definitely suiting the room better now and im more spatially aware of where a loco is and they sound distant when they are at the other side of the room. BUT when i fired up three chips together the sounds didn't all sing together and there seemed to be decent separation between all of the speakers. noticed a big difference in the 2 sounds when locos are coupled up and with decoder pro open on program on main I was able to tweak the volume of these 2 locos on the fly and it allowed me to set up a nice and balanced mix between the two locomotives. This definitely merits further investigation, however that can be for another night, i need more loksounds

as far as i understand it theres a little more to it than this. only a select few units initially got the whole 645 transplant whereas later the entire fleet was fitted out with 645 cylinders and liners for parts standardisation, the latter fitout would not really have changed the overall sound of things as it was still mostly a 567 motor with the same power output so it kept that characteristic 567 sound. I also see reports of at least 181 getting a 567 sp i think by the end there was a good mixture of engines and sounds in service together, open to correction on that though. ive actually gotten two MM 567 chips that i assume are from different batches and they both contain 2 completely different prime mover recordings. so its proving useful for experimentation. ive been messing around with both sound decoders as well as watching videos from yourself and others and i have been taking notes of why people dont like running 2 sound chips together and ways that could be improved on including old suggestions from legoman on RMweb for getting nice sound into 2 consisted locos. I definitely get what your saying about all the sounds melding together into one big mess but i really do think this can be overcome with a little tuning of CV's as there are videos of american locos with 2 prime movers onboard and running independantly on a single loksound and these sound quite good. not sure if these locos are fitted out with multiple speakers or not but theres only one audio out on the loksound as far as i know so all speakers would be playing the exact same sound. they even have the response from the movers delayed different amounts at throttle change so you dont hear that weird resonance when they both notch down to idle at the exact same rpm/time Funnily enough that you mention the doppler effect, I definitely am hearing one when i run a train around although because im in a box room running around a 6x4 loop even when the loco is furthest from where i am sitting the prime mover is still unrealistically loud to me and i really have to listen out for it. the microphone on my phones camera really does not like the volume either, despite neither of them overpowering my ears when listened to. I actually think all of these issues are intrinsicly linked and can be solved. going down the rabbit hole tonight, will report back.

This is a great bit of info a definitely what I was looking for, would the generators have been of a standardised nature once they started to replace them? ie when switching to cummins would they have fitted the same model of cummins across the entire fleet in order to reduce their parts inventory? were they all of a similar size in terms of footprint and output power? Mostly i am interested in what was in the re built dutch vans although the project could easily replicate any of the GSV's with the right sound recording. if they all used a similar sort of engine at any given time then of course that would greatly cut down on the required amount of work and research.

The google machine is telling me that the FG wilson gennys in general used perkins engines and heres a further elaboration; FG seem to be an Irish based company and both are a subsidiary of caterpillar now, very plausible that these were more widely used than believed, its a good starting point for me, Im strongly thinking about building an inexpensive sound capsule to suit these vehicles.

I'm looking to purchase a couple of loksound FX's for experimentation purposes, can anybody tell me a good retailer for this at the moment? eu preferable or pre paid customs if UK. I also do not have any kind of programmer at the moment, so ideally i would like to find a retailer who will program the chip before sending it out to me with one of the free projects. not asking for much am I? anyone able to point me in the right direction on this. Sean

when i was younger I always thought the EGV/Attatched to most trains was simply a luggage van and never gave too much heed to the idea that it might be doing a bit more than that. Typically this seems to have been a diesel generator and a steam boiler but to get a bit more specific, just what was fitted to these vans? Particularly the dutch rebuilt vans and mk2 EGV's I am interested in but lets open the discussion to a more broader one to emcompass all the irish power and heat vans which may be often overlooked until last when building a collection but are often essential for a prototypical rake. is there any information on the make and model of the type of generators that could have been fitted? i note that downpatricks site lists FG wilson generators as the source of power in their mk2 coaches,, however i cannot find much comparable information on whats in the southern stock of a similar vintage. Sean

Simple but interesting question today for the group. I see according to wikipedia we had the 567 and the 465 in service at the same time across the baby GM classes and as we all know double heading members of these classes was also a very common sight here in Ireland. my big question is simply, did matching the engine types matter at all or would it have been a common occurrence to hear the 567 and 645 running in consist on these trains?

have just been mostly testing things this week and getting the tracks cleaned up as well as learning the ins and outs of CV's but after a brief hiatus i did get some more building done that will shape the rest of the layout and the room. no videos yet as im still getting to grips with all the fun sound features like drive hold and making the notching sound more realistic. After a decent bit of consideration, Particularly the fact that i am still getting to grips with the concepts of compromise, extrapolation and minimalise in relation to model railways coupled with the idea that I would like the trains from the inglenook to have a destination to go to/from and that I kinda need somewhere to run passenger stock to/from with all the nice upcoming releases. This final board might just suit my needs perfectly until I have the confidence to expand it into a large running loop that goes around the whole room( thats a WHILE away though just a pipe dream for now) somehow against the odds i have managed to fit in a small passing siding on the main loop without breaking geometry, its usefulness is a little limited though however and might be better suited to a tight siding on the first radius that i could squeeze a rake of coaches around, time will tell on that one as i have now officially used up all of my track except for a pile of hornby points that will be put nowhere near this layout one thing i actually didnt want to compromise on however was the size of the running loop as overall this would limit the possibilitys of what can and cannot be done. so another country terminus was actually perfect. its also a coy place to station yet another pilot engine. and so the result is that i have actually gone back to the old westport track plan and rebuilt it over this side of the room as it offers several advantages, once a train has loaded up at the inglenook it can be driven here and a few cars can be switched in and out and the train can be sent back to the yard and shunted again in order to reset the game and one can repeat this as many times as they would like in a given running session. since this is the original quayside station again and no run around is available, 121's must run bonnet forward here to and from the quays in order to ensure the layout keeps operating smoothly. the main running loop shall be considered single track mainline and bonnet forward is not allowed during continuous running. the loop itself can accomodate 6 mk2's and a dutch van which would be a prototypical rake, however the only downside is that on my main running loop such a train gets to look as if it is chasing its tail (lol) hence the future plans to expand, I will mostly run prototypical half rakes unless there is a special event running which requires the use of a full rake.. looks a bit awkward with the computer but its actually okay, Im considering running a blue curtain along the back of this board in order to act as a backscene that i can open and close as is needed. One conclusion i have reached during this process is that at this scale I really am into the idea of building super detailed micro layouts rather than vast continuous runs of track, mostly for space/practicality and financial reasons. it can be very difficult to get even the most modest of running loops up and running in oo gauge, the idea of basing a larger layout around smaller modules also really works well for me and my average attention span. To that effect I am considering jacking up the n gauge layout approximately 6 inches so i can put a solid backscene along the front of the running loop and could model another scene along here. it would be a great place to squeeze in a micro "bog road" type layout that would overall actually only be a few feet long.

Its deadly, from the side with the billboard and the 071 picture angle due to the left turn and embankments its a real reminder of the arklow bridge. the shots where you are standing street level looking straight under the bridge is 100% esmonde street with the small few shops just to be seen underneath the bridge. I showed these photos to my parents a few months ago when you were at an earlier stage and they were able to tell me the location without any prompts, they are not railway people.

Ive been watching these for a little while and the euvirail review perfectly sums up how i feel about the current state of DCC sound. the only downside is that from what i have seen so far there does not seem to be any USA diesel sounds available so were very limited to what irish trains it will suit. another option ive been looking at for a while; https://soundtraxx.com/products/econami-digital-sound-decoders/eco-21pnem/ These should work out a lot cheaper but by the time you add in shipping and customs you are almost at the price of a loksound anyway so they are hard to justify. Hopefully it is a good thing in the long run but being a hornby DCC product who knows

Have you also used the arklow road bridge for inspiration? the one you go over before esmonde street if on a train going into gorey. as someone who passes under these bridges every day i really do think you have captured the essence of both of them excellently depending on what photo I am looking at.

certainly wouldn't be bad to upgrade such an order to DHL for ones own peace of mind. not worth it on small stuff but thats an exception id make

John this is exactly what happened with my two packages its a joke really... one of them took two weeks to get back to hattons and the other one only got back today! a full month in postal limbo, hattons are actually very decent about it, made my latest order via germany to avoid these headaches as the DHL fee isnt worth it for a single item for me. the packages did a LOT of sitting around doing nothing over that month before it got back to them as well.

what type of decoder are you using? it only works with esu decoders as far as i know.

that would imply that there are two of them...

Over the past month or so I have managed to get my hands on two different 567 loksounds for my 121 fleet. both were new and sealed in the little plastic shell that they come in. The first one came from an Irish retailer and i assume may have been a more recent batch. its definitely a 567, Has the irish horn and station sounds as youd expect, no real complaints with this except the functions do not at all match up to the function list supplied on the MM technical area of the site and idle and run 8 seem to be disabled, although manual notching works good once i worked out where the buttons for it were. The second one arrived this week from IRM so assumedly its older stock. once again its a 567 and all the relevant irish sounds are there except for this time the function list actually corresponds to the MM technical document. Interestingly enough the prime movers loaded onto these chips have a considerably different sound. the first one has a longer engine starting and shutdown sequence but i had always found the aux sounds such as compressor, air breaks and break squeal all to be just too loud and had planned to go in with the programmer to turn them down. The second one has a much shorter startup and shutdown sound and overall the audio mix seems to be a lot more balanced with a completely different and less annoying brake squeal. the prime mover also sounds like the microphone was placed differently and i am hearing a lot more of the throatiness and spit of the exhausts whilst the first chip seems to have more of a geartrain sound and the kinda whine i remembered from my childhood. the only physical difference between the 2 chips is the code printed on the sticker although im not sure if this actually signifies anything. does it? Anybody know what might be going on here? would the supplied sound project have been updated by the manufacturer at any point? despite being weird to me there doesn't seem to be anything actually wrong with anything and as a sound engineer this difference in sounds is quite useful to me. Whilst both are unmistakably 567 prime movers, the timbre of each locomotive is considerably different, and in a consist I am not hearing any degradation in sound from destructive phasing, infact as both speakers are recreating a different part of the prime mover they are summing together to provide a much better double heading sound than i had expected. It is very interesting to me.

Check the tracking on royal mail; mine showed up like this whilst on the royal mail site it shows them up as having being refused by customs. and returned the anpost tracking seems to stick up a generic message like this every time the item gets scanned within the country that doesnt actually tell the customer what is going on at all. one of the packages i was sent on feb 7th is now showing up as the item is no longer with anpost whilst on the royal mail tracking it shows "your item is now leaving the uk." despite it being back within the uk postal system somewhere. hattons recieved back my other package and refunded that one, this one has been in limbo since feb 16th but the tracking pattern was the exact same so it should be back with them soon..... at the same time i reordered on dhl and had the stuff within 48 hours which kinda made the outrageous price(for me at least) a little bit worth it. all customs bullshit was taken care of before the item even landed in Ireland and it was out for delivery on the next van after it landed.

I reckon the best course of action would be to buy up a few black ones and stash away the orange ones whilst you still can, youll miss them once theyve gone

+ as we roll into the 90's In an alternate timeline the rail spur has miraculously survived, mainly due to the primary school having being refused planning permission on the proposed site of the old station. With this IR seen opportunities to create a small barrack street style spur on the old station site and the railway survives for a few local businesses who visit the inglenook yard when they wish to convey goods over longer distances.This in particular includes many of the local publicans who still receive their kegs via rail..... the old station still had to be demolished to make way for this yard and thats where the inglenook sits now. the two warehouses in the background are now apartments. the mill has long closed off and has been fenced away to rot. a few customers particularly near to the quay are lucky enough to be able to take deliveries from the quay directly. only served by the sundries store. Typical deliveries to the quay will be a cage of kegs and a sundry container to be manually unloaded however occasionally these deliveries will be bound for a boat which will take them off to some of the local islands. Atmospheric shot, kega are the only suitable load i have at the moment for here but ill change that soon enough. modded the silo a bit to look more prototypical, not in a rush to finish it off really as i dont posess the skill to finish it to a standard that i would like just yet. All in good time. Harbour wall was a kit, meaning i had to cover up my nice waterwork, will be worth it to redo it in the longer term Back at the yard everything seems to be functioning well, I was however quite annoyed at having to mount one of the point motors on the top of the baseboard. That being said, I did a pretty good job at hiding it within a pair of containers. and i was able to work out how to handle the other three that ive got for the hard to reach points on the running loop. So thats it for now, as things are up and running im sure you can expect some running videos soon enough, and an update of what to expect from the mystery board, as plans always change in that regard!