Irish Railway Models to Release Cement Bubble in Iconic Orange Livery

[RedRich]

10 out of 10 Fran no homework for you this weekend, and the same score goes to Railer for noticing it. It's the little things that count, the research to make it as accurate as possible, the desire to make it look right in all areas. To produce a model that has the wow factor and is a front runner in it's market. If a modeller asks for that level of product or doesn't feel another product reaches those standards you get silly people calling them rivet counters, strange people indeed. There is no doubt about it but IRM are going to go on to even bigger and better things in the future and we will be the ones to benefit most from it.

Rich,

[Garfield]

2 hours ago, RedRich said:

...There is no doubt about it but IRM are going to go on to even bigger and better things in the future...

Like a G scale Turfburner... 

[Warbonnet]

3 hours ago, RedRich said:

10 out of 10 Fran no homework for you this weekend, and the same score goes to Railer for noticing it. It's the little things that count, the research to make it as accurate as possible, the desire to make it look right in all areas. To produce a model that has the wow factor and is a front runner in it's market. If a modeller asks for that level of product or doesn't feel another product reaches those standards you get silly people calling them rivet counters, strange people indeed. There is no doubt about it but IRM are going to go on to even bigger and better things in the future and we will be the ones to benefit most from it.

Rich,

You can credit Richie with the knowledge Rich. He’s delved deep into research to be as thorough as possible. I think he enjoys it really though!

[RedRich]

1 hour ago, Garfield said:

Like a G scale Turfburner... 

Am I after giving anything away Pat .

Rich,

[RedRich]

Just now, Warbonnet said:

You can credit Richie with the knowledge Rich. He’s delved deep into research to be as thorough as possible. I think he enjoys it really though!

I know Fran he does, he's top detective material like Poirot. We could make a mini movie about his prowess, murder on the super train to Sligo.

Rich,

[Warbonnet]

As you can see above, our orange bubbles are going through their final checks at our factory in China before taking to the skies. We have a huge amount of pre-orders to get through but we will do everything we can to get them to our Irish and British customers before Christmas.

If you would like to order wagons (including the orange bubbles) and receive them before Christmas we strongly advise you to place your orders ASAP so we can get them to you before Santa arrives!

www.irishrailwaymodels.com/shop

It's going to be very busy in IRM towers before the Christmas break!

[heirflick]

Excellent news Lads...just making more room under the tree for them, so take your time and hurry up!

[Noel]

20 hours ago, Warbonnet said:

As you can see above, our orange bubbles are going through their final checks at our factory in China before taking to the skies. We have a huge amount of pre-orders to get through but we will do everything we can to get them to our Irish and British customers before Christmas.

If you would like to order wagons (including the orange bubbles) and receive them before Christmas we strongly advise you to place your orders ASAP so we can get them to you before Santa arrives!

www.irishrailwaymodels.com/shop

It's going to be very busy in IRM towers before the Christmas break!

Wow - I can see enough boxes for about 750 more bubbles or 55 to 70 rakes!   Superb.

[Garfield]

43 minutes ago, Noel said:

Wow - I can see enough boxes for about 750 more bubbles or 55 to 70 rakes!   Superb.

There’s more than that.  

[Noel]

On 28/11/2017 at 5:32 PM, Warbonnet said:

. . . We love how the detail really pops out on the grey chassis in particular! What do you think of them?

Hi Fran. They look stunning, the level of detail is from another planet, and I will be ordering. You did ask above for feedback, so please forgive, but personally I would have preferred a darker grey on the chassis. Easily fixed however with weathering to darken the toy like colour. I know the prototype had a grey chassis but it probably looked darker in traffic with all the frame dirt and brake dust. But that is a minor tweak, overall its another stunning product from team IRM.  Looking forward to running orange bubbles which are now my favourite livery.  Noel

[Warbonnet]

32 minutes ago, Noel said:

Hi Fran. They look stunning, the level of detail is from another planet, and I will be ordering. You did ask above for feedback, so please forgive, but personally I would have preferred a darker grey on the chassis. Easily fixed however with weathering to darken the toy like colour. I know the prototype had a grey chassis but it probably looked darker in traffic with all the frame dirt and brake dust. But that is a minor tweak, overall its another stunning product from team IRM.  Looking forward to running orange bubbles which are now my favourite livery.  Noel

Hi Noel,

many thanks for the feedback. Your comments on the colour being ‘toy like’ is interesting. I understand these things can be personal preference, but we believe in accuracy, and having doing painstaking research and talked to the people ‘in the know’ who were most kind to provide us with pictorial evidence, this is the colour that the prototype carried. I think the fine printing and the serious hours of research and design that has gone into getting all the marking legible and correct also make it stand out, and personally think it would be a shame to lose it under weathering. After all, they stayed fairly clean compared to subsequent liveries. But that’s just me.

[RedRich]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on here we might not always agree with each others opinion and that is life. My own opinion in regards to Noels post is why when the lad's meticulously investigated the shade of grey on the prototype why would they then use a darkened shade if it wasn't the correct shade of grey for the prototype.

I know the lads at IRM and we consider ourselves to be friends so I know how much this means to them. Accuracy is hugely important to the guys they wan't us to have the best model for our buck, simple as that so to suggest that a darker shade would have been more to his liking ( even if inaccurate )  is an opinion I just can't agree with, it really is a strange train of thought to describe the colour used as toy like. If I had put all the work all the effort all the hours under the sun to get this wagon as close as possible to the prototype that kind of post would leave me dismayed. The lads asked for feedback but not to suggest turning out a product of theirs in an inaccurate colour. Going form the pics on here it looks a winner again gents.

Rich,

[Junctionmad]

I think the issue here is that in practice and for anyone like Noel or me for that matter,  who remembers the orange bubbles, I never saw the chassis in that colour grey, it was always quite dark , so I suspect the issue is between a factory finish colour ( CIE factory finish) and ones memory of the real thing . I cant comment on the grey cause I have no memory of ever seeing that colour, but thats not to say thats what came out of  the factory 

 

The only one Ive seen of new orange bubbles  is this one and its B&W

 

[jhb171achill]

That's actually the all-grey, the original livery. If that pic was colour, it wouldn't look much different!

All that changed later was the actual "bubble" becoming orange - the chassis stayed grey. Cement dust weathered bubble and chassis "cement-grey" which looked a bit darker when wet - in any livery.

Once the actual "bubble" became cream, chassis became black (until covered in cement dust!).

Nothing ever ran with black chassis and orange bubble.

The "factory finish" (good description!) was just the ordinary wagon grey of the day.

Edited December 19, 2017 by jhb171achill

[Glenderg]

4 minutes ago, Junctionmad said:

I think the issue here is that in practice and for anyone like Noel or me for that matter,  who remembers the orange bubbles, I never saw the chassis in that colour grey, it was always quite dark , so I suspect the issue is between a factory finish colour ( CIE factory finish) and ones memory of the real thing . I cant comment on the grey cause I have no memory of ever seeing that colour, but thats not to say thats what came out of  the factory 

 

The only one Ive seen of new orange bubbles  is this one and its B&W

 

That's not orange you're looking at. That's the grey/gunsmoke livery. The CIE roundels are orange, the text white, the bubble itself in grey. Were it Orange, the CIE roundel, inside text, and bulk cement,  would have all have been black.

The other thing is that when I was in Architect School a million years ago, a wise lecturer said that "the worst sketch is better than the best memory", and that applies here.  I had never seen them in that grey either, but we got access to superb colour slides which show what the colour was, literally, as it came out of the workshop. Beside it is a wagon that has done some work, and the grey is suitably toned down with track dust, but the W-Irons are also rusted and oiled and there's a skidmark of track filth all the way up along the bubble where the vac cylinder cover came off. 

If you desire to tone your wagons to match the nostalgia, go for it, they are a foundation for exactly that. But they are pristine, as per the prototype, and I'd stand in front of a man in a curly wig over it. 

R. 

[jhb171achill]

Yes, we all have our preferences, and if I decide to buy some bubbles and repaint them tartan, it's nobody's business but mine, of course! 😃

However, in terms of "toy-like", I can confirm that the livery they're supplied in is exactly correct. If anything, a darker shade might be taken as resembling black, which in Irish terms certainly is "toy-like", as these "black-chassis-with-anything" model wagons certainly ARE toy like - they're a Hornby invention!

While black chassis were the norm in Britain, they weren't here - and even in Britain they weren't universal.

4 minutes ago, Glenderg said:

 

If you desire to tone your wagons to match the nostalgia, go for it, they are a foundation for exactly that. But they are pristine, as per the prototype, and I'd stand in front of a man in a curly wig over it. 

R. 

Well, Glenderg, I think I'd prefer to stand behind him.....

[RedRich]

28 minutes ago, Junctionmad said:

I think the issue here is that in practice and for anyone like Noel or me for that matter,  who remembers the orange bubbles, I never saw the chassis in that colour grey, it was always quite dark , so I suspect the issue is between a factory finish colour ( CIE factory finish) and ones memory of the real thing . I cant comment on the grey cause I have no memory of ever seeing that colour, but thats not to say thats what came out of  the factory 

 

The only one Ive seen of new orange bubbles  is this one and its B&W

The issue here is him calling it toy like as it is  The lad's have explained in detail how many excellent colour slides they were able to work from for the factory to get the most accurate reproduction on the model. 

Rich,

 

[Junctionmad]

Quote

If you desire to tone your wagons to match the nostalgia, go for it, they are a foundation for exactly that. But they are pristine, as per the prototype, and I'd stand in front of a man in a curly wig over it. 

thats good enough for me , anyway I have 9 on order !

[Glenderg]

The actual process is very stressful. We've RAL and Pantone colour cards (damned expensive too) that we have to eyeball and colour match to what's in a photograph. But we go a step further and get out thaul paint and airbrushes*. As happened on the orange, I made up a batch of paint that I thought matched a colour, put it on wagon, and after 3 days decided it wasn't right, and started all over again. Once you commit, it gets converted to another system in Asia - Colour Matching System, so any slight error can be the difference between Maunsell Green, and Aer Lingus Green. I've seen it happen to another manufacturer recently where they had to bin a run of loco shells (this is public info btw) where even though they specified the same RAL colour, two different factories provided different shades. 

Richie.

*There's no we, it's just me  

 

 

[Georgeconna]

Massive Stuff, if anything I learnt there was a third Livery on the Cements. did not know that. Whens that run coming out then!!

[Railer]

That grey livery didn't last very long at all, only a few years so only a short modeling window, also the last batch of bubbles built were turned out in orange, they never carried the grey livery as it was phased out before they were built. Love to see a model myself, not sure the lads will do a run.

 

Edited December 19, 2017 by Railer

[Warbonnet]

1 hour ago, Railer said:

That grey livery didn't last very long at all, only a few years so only a short modeling window, also the last batch of bubbles built were turned out in orange, they never carried the grey livery as it was phased out before they were built. Love to see a model myself, not sure the lads will do a run.

 

If there's enough demand for it, we will do them. It probably will depend on how quick the orange bubbles go, as they would be a lot more popular one would have thought. 

[Weshty]

11 hours ago, Glenderg said:

... eyeball and colour match.....made up a batch of paint...after 3 days......start all over again.

 

any slight error...bin a run of loco shells

Dedication man, dedication.  

[Warbonnet]

Anyway, back to the orange bubbles. Look what turned up bright and early this morning (and I don't mean Patrick!) 

We are currently ploughing through quality control and packing with the first lot of shipments leaving very shortly with our courier!  

We are also delighted to say that half the orange run is now sold, which is amazing as we only announced them less than two months ago! Remember, if you would like to get your hands on them before Christmas, we thoroughly recommend you place your order before lunchtime tomorrow (Wednesday, December 20th) if you wish to avail of courier service to Ireland and the UK.  

 

 

[Garfield]

For those curious about what a freshly outshopped orange bubble looked like, here's one of the photos we used as a reference point.

Thanks to Barry Carse for providing his photo for research purposes, and for allowing us to post it here now.

[popeye]

Can i ask about the blue strips? Where they on them all?

[Garfield]

9 minutes ago, popeye said:

Can i ask about the blue strips? Where they on them all?

The blue strips appear to be some kind of tape, possibly used to hold the ‘Bulk Cement’ stencil in place while the paint was applied. 

[RedRich]

Well if proof was needed there it is. Thanks for posting the pic Pat we can put that one to bed now.

Rich,

[Tarabuses]

Surprise, surprise, my orange bubbles have just been delivered.  My first impression is that they are every bit as good as the ivory wagons.  All the above discussion has been very interesting, culminating in the photo posted by Garfield.  They are here now, looking good and waiting for their first run on the layout.

[leslie10646]

I've already said this to Fran in a PM, but ORANGE really was the "iconic" livery for these unique wagons, so I'm delighted for you guys that they are racing off the shelves, even if you're having to forego the usual pre Christmas drinks at the pub, as you'll be so busy packing! To quote Jon Bon Jovi (I had to listen to him endlessly while my elder son was growing up) - "Live when I'm alive and sleep when I'm dead". But, hey, stick around, I bet there are even greater things to come!

I'll be standing at the door all day Friday waiting for the "Man with a Van".

Leslie

 

[Railer]

Yeah the grey is spot on.

Without opening a can of worms here. The shade of orange is remarkable compared to the weathered wagon beside it, even though coated in dust the orange is darker and alot like the orange in the picture of 149 hauling the mixed orange and ivory rake. The pre production model shown in Blackrock looks very similar to the above picture compared to the final cut which is as accurate as can be.

I'm sure this is an exposure issue like the other thread with the Cravens in a golden orange and in normal exposure shot in Bray it's the tan we are all used to.

Edited December 20, 2017 by Railer

[heirflick]

Don't think I can fit any more under the tree! Thanks to the lads at IRM Towers for the swift delivery and secure packaging of there babies!

[Weshty]

If I may quote Thomas the Tank..."Shiny and Clean.....Shiny and Clean!!!"

[Warbonnet]

Thanks for the orders as always, men! We hope you enjoy them.  

[heirflick]

1 hour ago, Weshty said:

If I may quote Thomas the Tank..."Shiny and Clean.....Shiny and Clean!!!"

If I may quote the same lad.......