Sean

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.

how about permenant way duties during this period? would this kind of configuration of pwd have been seen during my era? it would be possible to make up some barytes quite easily from the spoil boxes..... mixed liner, would love to get my hands on a few guinness kegs to use as a load for this. i reckon pallet cement and beets will be the traffic to serve the layout in question!

would you believe that is exactly what i had planned in an earlier drawing, the approach line was a bit shorter and the level crossing and road on the very right hand side of the layout. the bottom siding was going to run off the baseboard and onto another small little modular scene that i could change as i seen fit and served with a diesel shunter. sort of abandoned this idea due to space constraints as i have also sort of turned into a fish tank hoarder over the past year and thats a dangerous game within itself! the current plan allows the user to operate with or without the fiddle yard as space allows. got to love irm sunday delivery. now i can start planning siding clearences. can anybody tell me how much space i need to fit the rawie buffer stops?

So after another year im coming back to this, emails from IRM about the A class running out had got me thinking about the 00 layout again, and ive been messing around with the layout a good bit i railmodeller, finally this week i caved and bought one of the last 007's from the site, then i caved even further and bought the last spoil pack listed, hopefully i can afford another one from marks next week. combined with some tanker wagon kits and some home made 20 foot flats and cie containers that i already own along with MM130. the spoils will be converted into flats for liner traffic and the oil tankers will bring fuel once a week. there will be one other freight working which has yet to be determined. I am thinking timber or beet or bagged cement. (or a bit of everything as cash allows) liners will stay short but prototypical to smaller lines. a push pull set of coaches and a set of cravens will be available for passenger traffic. these form the basis for a solid set of rolling stock which suits the period just fine, early to mid 90's with the odd appearance from a brand new 201 and the odd heritage special organised by one of the preservation groups. the headshunt is long enough to accomodate 201. onto the track plan, i have coloured in the different elements for easier reference. i am basing the layout on a terminus in a yet to be decided location in the IR points era. the train enters by a fiddle yard on the left side and the view will be obstructed by some large building placed within the red area. the track crosses the road leading up to the station in blue and stops at the station, passenger traffic either runs round the train and exits, or simply push pull exits the layout. 130 hauling cravens must use turntable. I am hoping to motorise the dapol turntable for this project but thats neither here nor there at present i have a solid idea in the pipeline for that. the rectangles in the top right corner represent a fuelling point for the locos and the green box represents an old disused goods platform, inspiration for this taken from the old westport quay goods platform. the middle siding does not see much use since the end of loose coupled goods and will be suitably weathered, but it is occassionally used for overnight storage during busier periods. the bottom gray rectangle will be the freight yard and the track will be buried in the standing to give vehicles access to both sidings, have always loved this look so finally need to try that out. originally there was a gantry crane but i have removed this in favour of the large forklift type vehicles. this also allows me to model a number of different industries as time and money allows as the yard will not be defined to have one single purpose. to use the middle yard or siding the loco must first run around and then propel its rake into the destination siding. finally the small siding down by the turntable is simply a small loco spur to be used when a loco has to stand for some reason but it will give the operator scope to work 2 locomotives on the layout during a session. would it be better to move the fuelling area down to here also or is it better left situated where i have it now? perhaps i could plop an old engine shed here. Ive already got a nice baseboard for this, but i need to make space for it, so im going to take the oppertunity to upgrade it a bit and add a backscene and sides before i get started properly, should get a test track down pretty soon though as 007 is in the post! would love to know what people think of this idea as a whole? i want the actual operations on the layout to be as realistic as possible but there will definitely be some artistic license to running some non period stock also. Thanks Sean