Sean

shied away from work on the layout over the week as a disastrous first operating session had been plagued with constant wagon derailments on points, particularly during reverse shunting, chalked it down to a mixture of hornby points combined with an extremelly unlevelled track bed. I had considered replacing all the points with peco(which i still may do for reliabilitys sake). Had another go friday and had a nice few hours of operation over the weekend , up until now i had not seen any need for DCC and sound chips and all that malarky, despite having a degree in audio production! but now i am seeing it as one of my most wanted features to add to the loco's and im thinking about other ways i could experiment with incorporating sounds into the layout. Perceptually its a bit weird seeing the trains going around without making any sounds, a bit like driving an electric vehicle for the first time! a full yard will be a rare sight. MM203 the odd one out on era. perhaps as they climb in value to approach the 2000 euro mark some kind soul will trade me for an immaculate toothpaste IR 071 which is still in a sealed box video-1644720336.mp4 video-1644720329.mp4 video-1644720323.mp4 We did manage to catch a few videos of train movements down the newly built street, once you cross the tracks the road will continue left and i might get to squeeze in something low relief stuck onto the backscene, in to the right is the train station car park where ill be able to display around half a dozen cars, as i add them to my collection. Cheers!

Interestingly relevant I have been working on converting this IRM flat for push pull operation as a camera dolly to give the "drivers experience" in the bits that i shoot, of course its gonna have the same issues of cropping and ill need to pan it to avoid staring out into the abyss when the train is moving in certain directions, but it should be cool for building little video narratives of the movements. one thing ive been trying to do with all my latest layout pictures is to get the camera lens down to eye level and attempt to shoot as if im a little 1/76 person holding a big camcorder, im hoping practice now should pay off with really atmospheric shots once the layout develops a bit more. im noticing its a little tricky at times given the size of modern phones!

anything i post onto here is done using the phone and cropped to hell,possibly filtered have an old slr that i was gonna sell but have decided to hold onto it since getting back into fish and railways, i know i will only regret it, only like 8 megapixels but so much choice given it takes canon lenses.

got some myself last week they are super quality.

We catch a quick glimpse of 143 as she arrives in with the dublin service, 007 awaits signal to depart with a liner.

I have one of these that i built myself using a 6w hornby van, the middle axle should slide in and out as the wagon goes around corners.. if thats a silverfox unit it should be the same chassis from my oggling of the photos, the couplers should also turn through corners

Will the ladder and lid be removable to allow to become the ballast wagons as well?

hopefully this, and that they will be modular just like the 40's with different options available over time. beet, containers, tankers etc. I feel like it might be coaches though.

+1 On Irishmail from me too, just took delivery of a beautiful 143 a very painless transaction.

All track has been temporarily lifted and the basedboard is gone away until tonight to have a backscene installed. that being said the holy grail has arrived!!! (definitely an unplanned purchase but too good not too buy :D) more pullin power than this whispy backwater will ever need. find me 071 in this livery now and i will have the full fleet. has to be mentioned that im MUCH happier with these handrails than i was with the ones on 130

As the bank has been broken several time over the past week , this was seen as a good opportunity to finally finish some kits. have made them my own with the addition of the strenghtening girder. already liking how these look cant wait to get a coat of paint and some decals on. ten miles of hertigate railway exist on a rail spur approximately 15 miles away from the terminus, with the aquisition of mk2 stock, these have been passed along to that railway which they plan to use to instate a second daily service on their line. initially as a push pull, later as a dmu once the green car sees an overhaul, as a future project, we will see a better representation of this railway.(new thread soon) to compliment their mixed steam special that leaves the station once a day, quite unusually the cattle van has been converted and carries the mail for the village post office, along with any other small loads that the locals might want to charter. They even have their own volunteer ran PWD division, Irish rail allow the use of the railhead facilities for ballast deliveries and any other heavy supplies which may be difficult to get out the winding village lanes. they too rely on fuelling facilities here and the weekly fuel delivery is split with 15% being reserved for the heritage side. a heating van is also used on passenger services during the winter months. a group of eager catfish await the 16:00 home from the lakeside.

PM sent

Today on the Railway; video-1643579857.mp4 Railcar turns on turntable for the first time, with a satisfying index click to altert the user on proper alignment! next time ye shall see 130 use it under its own power. a thought crosses my mind; sure why bother motorising this if none of the points will be and your going to just be sitting there within reach anyway! its not as if the real ones were motorised in the end. so we shall see on that. when asked about the ongoing issue of siding lenghts at a recent meeting, a senior engineer piped up with "Just build a BRIDGE and get over it!" so thats exactly what has happened. leaving both generous loop and sidings everywhere Sean

ARGH, have wanted one since they came out however never got the chance being a snotty teenager and only getting back into things in my late 20's early 30's now. I would find it very difficult to ever pay more than the price of a new 121 class for one of these ever. as we all know you cant just stop at one either so that figure compounds that being said I cant see them not being re released at this stage. the demand is clearly there now more so than it will have been a few years ago. If paddy doesnt i dare say IRM will take the reigns at some stage and come out with their own variant. IR Diesels were THE iconic thing for me on the railway growing up.

Great to hear it! will PM now.

are provincial still going the website doesnt instill much confidence

probabaly the final track plan, offering heaps of siding space and a massive loop. still need to tweak lenghts on the fiddleyard, a balance must been found between loop lenght and siding size in order to maximise workability. fuelling area is a the loco spur now, which actually gives justification to have the spur and its also space for a rake of tankers. have been liquidating some old BR stock in order to finance the trackwork, donor for the cravens spray are now gone however however this is now of little concern as shown below. Finally have everything laid (except the turny. more to come around that, im bouncing between 2 very different ideas) backscene soon as i cant avoid it for much longer nearly time for the A class to travel under its own power for the first time. need to set up a circle of track somewhere for that all important running in. also got some new containers. not too fussed about the livery being prototypical here as im sure clients will have changed from time to time on the real container network. im sure the evergreen car will derail violently at the level crossing at some stage and become lodged for a few weeks. and then........ unobtanium! Some lovely new mk2's have been sourced in order to handle passenger travel on the branch. the colour on these seems to be closer to 130 than on 007 so adding in stripes and such should be easy, however it is far more plausible that they kept this ST livery into the 1990s if they are working this backwater branch station all the time so i may keep them as is, "Intercity" is just the livery that i remember from growing up, was a little too young to see or remember any supertrains. hopefully i should get the backscene on in the next few days and from there on the real construction can start. sizing up the sidings and loop. actually, yes. there was the end of a course of meds in the tank when i took those pics so the water was slightly tinted green, have changed the water since and i do agree that there is somthing about the lighting here. theres a long flourescent tube just inside the lid of the tank but the way its shining slightly outwards definitely seems to project more light over the models and its getting diffused uniquely by the water.

Hey guys. Bought 2 of the hornby twin pack containers today containing a 20 foot and a 40 foot, thing is i only actually bought them to get hold of the 20 footers and the 40's dont suit the layout as well. If anybody has any spare 20ft containers they might be looking to swap let me know. Liveries are evergreen and fesco. and they are decently detailed. I will consider any type of 20 foot livery in return. alternatively make me an offer.

to the torment of the driver they are also 1:76 scale

I would gladly rehome and put some to good use jhb if any are left

Following a successful trip to marks yesterday planning permission for the fiddle yard has been granted in the most unusual of locations, hopefully the drivers do not become too distracted by their new aquatic overlords. PWD have been brought in to take care of construction of the new line. (very tempted to turn the spoil boxes into 4w barytes although i know i really shouldnt, lol) the baseboard is sitting on a keyboard stand, so luckily i can simply lower it to the same height as this surface,. It will be nessesary to build some sort of bridge over to the baseboard, which also will have to curve onto the other wall. ill have to take the bridge out when the layout is not in use so it needs to be easy to setup and put away. gives the trains a little bit of a run then instead of just shunting from one end of a board to another.. finally able to start working out how long the loop and sidings will need to be now that the key pieces of rolling stock have been obtained. when working in rail modeller i like to work on the measurement of "pieces of settrack required to hold this rolling stock" and adjust things from there. given space constraints i couldnt do this properly until i had bufferstops in my posession. going back to my original diagram, I will move the fuelling area to the loco spur, as discussed in an earlier post. that way i can dump some tankers in there, most likely will try to model the houston-alexandra road set of 4 tankers. the fiddle yard allows the parking of 2 locos and 2 rakes. and either loco to take a rake of choice whilst another loco COULD be up waiting to depart or shunting the layout on a particularly busy day, but given the location of the layout it is rare that traffic will ever be so busy. an extra rake being parked in the station in the "old" siding will also regularly be seen, for some variety. to solve the issue of turning 130 in the fiddle yard, she can propel in with the push pull set and couple straight up to a goods set and depart, then she can turn around at the station and either park up or take the wagons back to the fiddle. occasionally it can be turned by hand or a a lazy driver might simply drive it back to the station going the "wrong" way. it is unlikely she will ever double head. rakes are to remain short but prototypical as i have seen to be typical on the quieter lines during this era. pallet cement wagons are likely to be my next acquisition but i have loads to keep me occupied for now, I want guinness too!, so if i cant find IRM loads anymore i will have to try my hand at making them. it is likely we wont see much 201 class action on the layout(due to it not yet existing in this layouts world), however I still want to have the option of running whatever i like from time to time so therefore all headshunts have been designed with her lenght in mind.

have you documented the mod anywhere i would love to see it.

yesssssss. the only things missing off my wish list at the moment are RTR 141 and 071, was too young to appreciate or obtain the earlier runs.

getting back into my 00 project boxes, its really nice to be reminded that ive already bought 99% of the trackwork and buildings that are planned on the layout and that things will be allowed to progress somewhat quickly. track is down to test out clearances, whilst the layout is good a little tweaking needs to be done regarding the loop and sidings length, i reckon i will compromise with slightly shorter sidings so that the loop can hold 120 foot of rolling stock. my goal is to be able to fit class 201 into either of the headshunts and 3 flats or 2 cravens within the loop. so its gonna be tight! but just about doable. worst coming to worst i will have to shorten the approach fiddle just a little bit. have a few solid ideas for the turntable but have as of yet to attempt to execute any of them., a shaft, motor and gearbox have been mated to the dapol turntable, but i havent gotten any further than that just yet as ill need to mount it to somthing before testing it out. the motor has a rotary encoder for position sensing with a microcontroller, so im confident i can pull somthing off with it. plans for a fiddle yard are in the works, however as im very space limited it may have to be set up and put away with each operating session. in that case i would really like to be able to operate the layout with no fiddle. once buffer stops arrive i will be able to work out just exactly how long the sidings MUST be as it the moment they are simply based on settrack lenghts and guesstimation.

Love this photo, just the type of atmosphere im going to be going for.