Sean

Hattons fully digital point motor with CDU for £9 https://www.hattons.co.uk/554873/hattons_originals_hat_pm_01d_digital_solenoid_point_motor/stockdetail about the same price of a solenoid and switch normally. Also works on DC control and has terminals for LED connections

One thing immediately became clear to me upon returning to the train room was that I was never totally happy with the station plan and that if i wanted to motivate myself to finish the layout then certain parameters would have to change. the track plan had always been a bit of a compromise to use up old track and i knew well from the outset that it would never really be able to run modern rolling stock without sucking all of the fun out of things, hence setting the layout in an earlier time period. Not a problem except my collection of modern rolling stock grows whilst my collection of older trains slowly dwindles and this layout takes up a rather large portion of my room. so i would prefer compatibility with as much stock as possible. and so the P42 inglenook was born! whilst not based on any prototypical place the intention is to create a small rail yard based in the IR era which conforms to the rules of the inglenook shunting game. the bottom road is a through road to the running table putting all of the sidings on a back shunt. and off to the left the road heads down to the quay(which is still westport quay btw), whilst slightly awkward looking, this ensures that a pilot will always be assigned to the yard to build up outgoing trains and connect them to a road engine for pulling away. it will not be permitted to push any trains on or off of the running table, they must be hauled engine first, compounding the necessity for a pilot to be always stationed at this yard. for ease of build, reduced footprint and overall realism the 3-2-2 variant was chosen and 2 specific industries will serve the yard which will be based on a rural setting to serve short liner trains which were prototypical of the IR era. Industries were chosen based upon owned wagons and with short containers and beer in mind it actually became quite easy to come up with 5 unique wagons where a lot of the completed trains would actually look somewhat prototypical. 2 unique container loads 1 guinness loaded 1 guinness unloaded 1 bare flat which could belong to either industry, with the bare flat i thought the chances of getting a prototypical train load increase dramatically, the exceptional few cases where you might have a container on either end and a guinness in the middle or somthing are probabaly few and far between so its a happy medium for me for the moment. for the most part i will be seeing 3 car trains with the 2 industries properly coupled out with the odd train being an unprototypical mix. I can always reshuffle if i want a totally realistic train. So where is this going? its small so i can model it out quickly and focus on actually finishing it, along with the other modules which are not looking all that bad at the moment either. then i can start to focus on some actual proper detailing and maybe even a little weathering, this one is gonna stick around for a while now so I will continue to refine things on it and improve my skillset. because its essentially a small single loco layout I have finally been able to justify a single loksound because its just for this layout and not the whole fleet! (famous last words im sure because i really like the sound features now .) Finally, since its a shunting game, I want totally hands free running,I have invested in some uncouplling ramps and DCC point motors which will be added tonight, points are also the larger type. after that its definitely time to stop building and start playing trains for a while. it would be nice to restrict the speed of the shunting train so that i could give other people a go of the game without worrying about them crashing the trains or breaking any stock. Sadle with the ceiling height a backscene will not be possibile, but at the same time, with such ceiling proximity it probabaly isn't needed either. Next we are heading down to the quay for a look at recent developments. update might come tonight or i may postpone until the morning as that will allow me to take nicer photographs.

So rather predictably the next day that ballasting job turned out to be an absolute shit show although at this stage it didnt really matter as i had discovered the table was wide enough to take an oval of track! and along with that there is now space for an old forgotten layout to come out once again This will be the "train set" area of the room, for when i just want to chill and watch trains. more time had to be spent working out how to make a reliable link between boards, So now it IS merely just a bit of wood to bridge the 2 layouts and whilst it doesnt look pretty trains are running over it reliably, so it works and it is what it is until im motivated to build and model something a little prettier. with this I had been left with an open space behind the new branchline and after some consideration i thought it would be a good place to erect another board and start on a little PWD siding area. I had wanted a run around here, but at this stage i was rapidly running out of usable space, and track! this is why the spoil siding is curved at the end. 192 has been sent from dublin for PWD duties to be stationed here. Finally the rail spur to the new layout was started, nothing on this new board yet except for the trackwork, and since its a seperate project I will give it its own thread in due course Now with the boring stuff outta the way, future updates can focus on all that has gone on at westport quay and surrounding areas in recent times.

point motors; also hattons , and they still havent replied to my last email about the first one being returned. time to email again

with most of these brands its the exact same product but in a different can. and that includes the dealz/poundland stuff thats 1.49 a can, the dealz stuff however comes in an underfilled can with a terrible spray nozzle that clogs itself up for the fun of it. Rumor has it that if you take a spray nozzle from one of these more expensive cans and put it onto the dealz can then the quality achieved from the dealz jobbie is increased significantly.

had planned to make a bigger update but with the ongoing postal debacle I have been working on other aspects of the train room. a new fourth module has been born! and a little spontaneous modelling to boot. Initially just a lump of wood to connect to other layouts, the usual old problem has reared its head of millimeter differences in the different baseboards causing uneven areas in the trackbed that would eventually lead to derailments all round if the trackwork was simply pinned down to the uneven surfaces (Which i have learned the hard way in the past!) So a different approach has been attempted here and i think it is going to work out quite decently once the glue has dried. I have ballasted the track as if it were a real trackbed with a larger pile than usual and this has created the slight little gradient that the track is following and will take up any slack that would have otherwise been present on this board and the trains will be rolling over solid even trackage. I will probabaly end up doing some scenery on this additonal board now after i have taken the time to do this ballasting experiment but time will tell on that front. its not really a module as such as a means to bridge two locations together the little "street" with the mini running down it happened by accident however it is now staying as i think it would look quite well once the bridge has some railings and i put down tarmac underlays etc. after this bridge is where I will be connecting into the next baseboard, however this one does not actually exist yet as the layout in question is still only a figment of my imagination. but what about the third module i hear you ask? back to that soon . threw together a little fiddle yard then to make sure the new trackwork actually does all work properly, so far it seems solid but i havent ran a powered train over it yet. This fiddle yard will be replaced with another layout as soon as i commission the base board. also scored this table for free today which will eventually have an oval of track set up on it which will also be connected into both micro layouts. (all sounds very convoluted but im getting there now) and finally some new kids on the block, I figured that these PFA's will suit me fine as a 20 footer flat stand-in until IRM decide to produce one, Usually high level of IRM quality with these babies too however and a very impressive weight for such a bare chassis! definitely a huge upgrade from the home cut up plastic hornby chassis of yesteryear and i think they look quite smart behind a 121 with these CIE containers onboard. Sean

RIP Stripped for parts. Bigger and better coming soon

This item was unable to be exported due to one of the following reasons: Prohibited item Insufficient, incomplete or incorrect documentation It will now be returned to the sender. Please contact the sender for queries. no doubt it will be some bullshit relating to the cn22 considering it only had a few gaugemaster plastic kits inside and IRM bufferstops, one saving grace is that im after a few more point motors so hopefully hattons let me add to it before its sent back out, still super frustrating though as my patience usually has me waiting at the letterbox for days even before the thing is due to arrive. theres another package with point motors and uncoupling ramps coming through the same channels, so will be interesting to see if this one gets through safely, im expecting that it should and that this is a one off mishap. edit: according to anpost tracking the item was sorted at 11:07 with no mention at all of the cancelled export or customs which apparently happened nearly half an hour after this scan. the mind boggles, hopefully its an error and i actually see it this side of the weekend......

Impressed I am NOT. hattons too.

was getting a little worried reading this thread as i have stuff in transit. Feeling a lot better now, order was placed friday,

seems legit.. chatgpt built that site

One great thing about the modular nature of this layout; as the bug bites back and work has commenced on the third and final module, this can sit proudly in my living room in diorama mode looking all nice more to come soon

personally slightly dismayed by this as i hesitantly purchased a few of these last year due to not expecting another release of these for a considerable amount of time as the 201 rerun was to come first. that being said overall its great news for the scene to see another run of these finally pop up. oh well alll these new announcements are a nice reassurance that i dont need to be continually hoarding models in order to get what i need/want

Havent been online in days

its a prime candidate for the "powered item"

just normal jpeg but i stuck up a few vids of merlin a week or two ago that were about 600MB that i thought might of twigged somthing. havent tried since so perhaps it has been fixed.

That's actually a great call JB as those stilts never did look quite correct. Have had other commitments since posting up b125 so "nothing has happened on the layout lately" I did kindly obtain some rolling stock from a generous donator on here that will actually see use on the layout. Those are yet to be revealed along with a few more vans but nothing special really. Did a small bit with the corner module before the heatwave hit but I haven't been in the train room for a little while now.

Old thread but this exact thing is happening to me now, what is the fix? Put up some large videos lately was that a bad thing?

E is the broadest looking, Theres a lot to be said about the sleeper arrangement on C also.

B125 on her first run to the quay!

Some good points. I'm happy with silver fox type compromises a lot of the time as I more like to play trains than to collect models. Most of the stock on my inglenook layout is built at some sort of comprise to the Irish prototypes. But I also want a shit load of wagons so it's kind of acceptable to me. At least the ifm stuff is made from the ground up as opposed to the silver fox mantra of let's convert Hornby stuff. Brake vans are actually something I want to look more accurate as I have a good few br ones that I just can't bring myself to converting as they all look a bit off to me. And in comparing prices the difference is almost entirely attributed to shipping and tax. Which to be fair is entirely out of JMs control.

I don't think I would consider either version to be a toy really and in fairness there's also a little bit of a difference in price point (when all import fees paid) which might account for the few differences in accuracy and quality. Objectively speaking they are both 3d printed brake vans with a similar advertised wait time once you have placed an order. It's an entirely different ball game to irm. Who's models I can literally walk into a shop and buy on the spot for cash money whereas the selection of available models will be far smaller than what I can get from cottage industry. Also importantly they are models of two different types of brake van and are differently detailed accordingly. I own neither and don't speak for the quality or detail of either. the post isn't intended to thrash or poo poo either of these manufacturers rather to highlight than the only way to get certain desired models are via "poor quality cottage industries" I was not really comparing or questioning the quality of either product as both manufacturers seem to have tons of satisfied customers and it's not really the point. Without these so called cottage industries we would be without a lot of Irish rolling stock that a lot of modellers hold as highly desirable. The manufacturer of the 30t above also offer what is probably the best RTR curtainside cement available at the moment. IRM grade ones simply are not available anywhere.

Not an IRM brake van and a similar lead time to any of the other Irish brake vans.

As well as the grain size I do think the actual colour itself can say a lot about the condition of the ballast. Having done this recently, should I want to repeat the build I would use a much darker shade to insinuate older ballast.

Please do put up a link to where we can order an IRM 30T brake van and have it promptly dispatched to us with no messing about. Some of the last items of stock I need to complete my layout are NOT available from irm