DoctorPan

While you are totally justified in your cynicism Jonathan as someone who works in the industry, this is different. The entire industry has changed. Prior to 2022, there was one major company that offered a rail deisgn team in Ireland besides Irish Rail. There's at least now 12 firms offering rail services with Irish teams, (hell I was poached to a rivial company to help set up their team) and Irish Rail hasn't stopped hiring civil engineers since 2020, at the moment I think theres nearly 100 vaccenices on the website. One or two firms deciding to gamble on Irish expansion, I'd wouldn't be so confident but the expansion of firms and Irish Rail suggest that these projects will be delivered and the loss of institution knowledge that occured since the 2000s won't be repeated again. Plus from a finanical side of things, we're about to be fined daily for not reaching carbon targets so increases in railfreight and decarbonastion of exisitng railways suddenly make a lot more finanical sense. Thirdly the management side of Irish Rail have woken up to the fact that Rail Freight means money into their pockets that they can spend themselves instead of having to pay their NTA masters. Oh and Fourthly, having spoken to contacts in DoT, Ryan ran his term in the understanding that he's only going to get a one term chance to implement his policies as the Greens would suffer the fate of all junior partners and be wiped out in the next election, hence his quite hands on approach to a lot of things, including his battles to get project planning revamped in the government. He is reportably furious at how long it has taken to roll out the network section of Bus Connects Dublin, let alone the infrastructure side of things- and that's before we get to BC Cork, Galway and Waterford and the DART + projects.

Nos 1 & 3 get their lining and I get a reminder of why I hate lining, especially narrow gauge locos.

No.4 got her final finishing bits, including her crew of Cork Driver, Connolly Driver and RPSI Loco Representative to join the Cork Guard in 3173. And the full set on depot preparing to shunt on a Steam Dreams tour to Backwood Of course, 4 can easily slip back to the 60s and 70s

3173 has gained her guard and a RPSI crew member, now she's ready for railtour duties.

A test fit of the body and chassis after painting means the project is nearing the finish line.

The last word that was said on them.

Thanks. Its a custom mix job of Humbrol 62 and 174, I think fairly 1:1 ratio.

A parcel delivery on Friday finally saw the last bits arrive for the Jeep project. Here's what 4 current looks like awaiting a trip to the paint shop.

Mk3s were not scrapped because of the livery change, they were scrapped because they were knackered. Also if the ICRs had been delievered in BnT, doubtful we'd have seen the climb in passengers carried since their introduction. Even now, the BnT livery is synomous with the public of late, dirty and unreliable trains.

Two GNR(I) coaches ready for service now.

Having done two of the GSR/CIE Pullmans, I was left with a spare and I fancied adding some GNR(I) brown to my carriage fleet which lead me to ponder how to justify Dundalk purchasing a Pullman. An exploration of a "What-if" scanerio developed between a friend of mine and myself after disucssions on how things would have changed on the railways if certain key decisions went the other way. This being, what if Dundalk had build that Ten Wheeler proposed by Clifford in 1911 and what would have happened to the GNR(I) rippling out from this?

You've two options, go for the LNER white/black/white lining - something I used myself on my 801 model: https://www.fox-transfers.co.uk/general-white-black-white-lining-58401 Or order white lining and black lining seperately and do them seperately. If you look at the Fox's website and filter down to 00 gauge lining colour of choice, you'll get packs of straights and curves. Pick the ones you need.

Order from Fox direct. Them and Steve from Railtec are extremely helpful, quick and never seem to get the notice of Customs!

We're always the boogeyman. DART is always in a constant state of being prefect/needs changes/don't change it. The rail usage, and customer demands and expections of 2023 are far different then the demands and expections of 1947...

You would think but when you have a planned frequency of DART services of 3-10 mins, hour directional Enterprise services, existing Dundalk services and Tara Mine trains, quad tracking becomes the easiest option with the most resilence.

There was originally part of the scope of DART Coastal North to produce a quad tracking report or an addditonal project around the same time but got dropped.

Speaking with the day job's cap on, there's is a potential set of traffic flows that could open up with that section opening up in conjuction with what is being done further south with Foynes. Dublin Port is growing busier and with the reopening of Foynes, Ballina liners could be diverted down the WRC and down to Foynes, saving paths on the congresed Port- Athlone section and having to run around on the mainline at Kildare for Waterford liners. Again highly dependant on IWT and XPT switching ports to Foynes but who knows...

While having the MSR fleet lined up for the first time in a while, I became aware of Duke's less then ideal finish and general unhappniess with his look, so a strip back and repaint has him looking far better. Still need to get around ordering lining and nameplates for him, but he can sit there, looking more like how No.1 should look like.

Thanks, narrow gauge just has this charm to it.

As one of the engineers involved in DART +, there's no obstruction to electrifying the network. Tunnels can be lowered, bridges raised or diverted and rebuilt and some of the suggested timelines for that amount of work is laughable. Remember a brand new underbridge spanning the Sallins bypass was installed in a weekend. Electrification is coming, we have carbon emission targets to reach and already we are paying harsh penalties for failure to meet them. 071s and 201s are old tech and have good lifetimes but technology has progressed and its time for their replacements. Enterprise fleet advisory tenders are out and its dual electric locos with a small diesel power-pack is what it looks like it's speccing

Latest addition to the narrow gauge fleet, No. 4 "Stuart".

Some photos taken during yesterday's duties. Both GNR 4-4-0s were in fine form and gave brilliant performances.

I'm guessing they're refering to the red of the NIR logo and what RAL number or equalivant it would be.

I've always joking refered to the random platform in the car park near Platform 10 as Platform 8.

Edit - misunderstood.