Sean

A few hours later....

Some more construction was definitely needed so filler had to wait. The wall now marks the slope of the incline coming upto the bridge. Not sure how it's going to turn out around the retaining column just yet. Trying to make it not too steep as I don't want a overpass wall blocking the trainspotters view but I also want it to be a rolling embankment where it does stretch down into the yard so I'm probably just gonna wing it and so how it goes. Maybe some rock face will be there by the end of it. On the other side I'm cheating and the bank is lower than the retaining wall so it just looks like a standard wall for the road.

Excellent news! 5 of your beet doubles are high up on my shopping list as soon as funds allow once more.

I had considered the archways DJ but decided against them as they feel a bit too urban to me. Never really see them in Ireland either. What I have in mind is more of a rural backwater depot at the end of a random branch line somewhere. That being said I have made a cutout at the end of the embankment so that siding can be just that little bit longer.... Picked up this javis tunnel mouth today at the show however when I got it home it was massive and completely unsuitable. Spent the evening in the shed doing some cut and shut magic until I arrived at what you see here. Pretty pleased with that. Definitely a little tempted to mix up some filler and getting to work forming the hillsides now.

Then there was two! And JUST enough space to run a double

Chuffed to have gotten this for a little lower then rrp And to think I was going to settle for an IE one not five minutes before seeing it sitting there waiting for me Now to figure out the double heading lol

Anybody in the know know if there will be a retailer with 121's in attendance tomorrow?

when i was about 10 or 11 i brought my h0 mehano train to the wexford exhibition at gorey and the exhibitor very kindly coupled it up to a set of toothpaste somthing or other coaches and did a few laps of the layout alongside all the irish stock. made my week that did.

Once again little has happened since the last post as I have once again been lost in DCC land... I did however do the street delete and cut out the turntable. Definitely makes a huge difference to this end of the layout and the transition is hidden much better now. A slight oil siding extension is being added but only to preserve the original length of the siding. To deal with the gradient I am imagining a very steep climb to hump back bridge style layout as is built at arklow and that should fit okay within the given space without it being too vertical looking.

is that the bachmann 1938 tube stock youve got there? i really want one.

hmmm, upon reinspection my 141 does NOT have the head and marker seperated at the moment, so what the hell did i do to think i did

when you extract the wavs from the MM201 .ESU file for a closer look........

Sure pull a rake of spoils with one. it wont spontaneously combust

yes, playing with toy trains has provided great relief and distraction from worries regarding world events over the past few months.

not a bad idea, those pictures are taken using linux off a 10 inch netbook so leave a lot to be desired. JMRI runs really well on really old crappy hardware so i like being able to upcycle what i have lying around and watts consumed are always on my mind so it was ideal candidate for JMRI. sounds complex but its simples really. JMRI(java model railroad interface) reads all of the data off an esu decoder without the need for an expensive lokprogrammer. (screenshot is the A class decoder but its all the same) its a bit like a spreadsheet then. the first column deals with each function and what it does in each direction. the second column programs just what the function does. i.e each aux corresponds with a physical connection wire somewhere within the loco and turns it on or off. take for example Forward.F4 - Aux 3 and Reverse F.4 -Aux 4 (rows 8 and 9) When forward is selected and you turn on F4 it will turn on Aux 3( the front headlight) but when reverse is selected it now lights aux 4(rear headlight) and aux 3 turns off because it is no longer selected. you can tie as many aux to a single function as you like and they dont have to be directional as can be seen on F2 which is currently linked to toggle shunting mode instead of a physical wire.. when everything is tweaked to your fancy, you simply hit write changes to sheet and it will reprogram the decoder with no need for an expensive lokprogrammer, my dcc base station/programmer combo cost me less than 20 quid to put together and can be reliably driven from an app on my phone for throttle control. its only 1.5 amps though which limits the amount of trains that can run at one time without some kinda booster.

is that confirmation on the IRM GM and Toothpaste range so? "POWERED ITEMS"

hey gph. take a look at my dcc workbench thread. this post will show you exactly how to change the F0 issue for the markers and headlights being tied together on the 141/181. thats using a 121 esu decoder in jmri. not sure about 071 i have never used one but im sure it would be a similar sort of nuance.

And just for fun here's the latest gl8

so here we go again. Admittedly the train to skaville soon blew up due to a myriad of issues with the design. I'll discuss just WHY when I give an overview soon, all issues came down to trying to run a 6 watt amp with a rather underpowered 5v converter and windows insisting on 100% volume everytime the Bluetooth clicked off and back on and trying to have a stay alive with no diodes. It worked for about an hour before going kaput However now impressed with the tech I'm after spending a few Bob on components that should bring the desired outcome with all of my locos. New soldering iron,, glue gun the lot. Will update soon with hopefully a working loco.

will try and get that for you this evening im also trying to put together sound projects for the jmri virtual sound decoder, only at the very early stages though,

dont suppose you can get your hands on a spare buffer beam for mm201 dave?

I dont have a specific guide but you need to put the loco onto the programming track and then open decoder pro and click add new loco, you get a list of decoders to chose from here but its best to hit "read type from decoder" and JMRI should select the decoder type automatically, when you have the loco added double click it and you will see a box pop up containing loads of different tabs. scroll down and hit read all sheets and jmri will read all of the settings from the decoder 1 by 1, takes a few minutes........ make any changes and the write sheet options as you can guess writes the new settings back into the decoder, you can write an individual sheet or the entire decoder from here so take care to select the right option. i cant really give advice beyond this as im using ESU decoders however all the steps up to this point should be roughly the same. FUNCTION MAP FUNCTION OUTPUT and FUNCTION SETTINGS are where you will find the programming options for the lights. (you want to be in function map for the initial setup) if you want I will read off the function map from an ESU decoder and post it up here. you would just have to change the physical wire parameter to suit your own decoder. you dont need any sort of special programmer at all with jmri, just pop the loco on the programming track. its possible to get the marker lights working independantly to the headlights with 141/181 using this programmer, a feature i know some users struggled to get going with other systems.

this is what we got as revenge.....

whys it being piloted by a really creepy looking boris johnson lookalike? i really enjoy seeing different exports of the EMD locos's the GL8(121) in particular went around the world and can be found in loads of gauges. https://www.facebook.com/ferromodelismorealrail.trenes/posts/1391265241059234/ theres also the GA8 variant making up a pretty large family of motive power. notice the tiny bogies on this one! I certainly never noticed those foreign 071 variants before now!

sheeeeesh same seller, not a bad deal until you realise youve preordered far superior versions of the same thing due in a few months.... maybe he wants these sold quickly so he can fund the new ones haha