IRM Fert Wagon

[NIRCLASS80]

These look fantastic lads. I personally find these the most exciting model since IRM was founded. 

Off course when you announce the Class80 then it will be king!!!

[Warbonnet]

3 hours ago, DiveController said:

Hi Fran,

Sorry that wasn’t clearly scripted. I meant that the ploughs didn’t come in CIE style/livery and the orange bubbles cane after the ivory and with only six individual numbers, bauxite Tara’s and more recent version of the Ferts wound seem to indicate a preference for IRM models to be more contemporary. than some modelers K

I get you now Kevin, that’s for clearing that up.

As I said before we find in our market research and in sales that the older CIE stuff does not sell as well as the more modern scene. The Orange bubbles for instance, while selling okay and IMHO are nicer looking that the white bubbles (most of which are labeled CIE too) haven’t sold anywhere near as fast. We’re certainly glad we only done two packs in the end. Until stuff likes them starts flying off the shelves at a similar rate it’s hard to see that experience changing.

Thankfully the Fert wagons carried roundels for a long time so I could see some ending up in the rake we do. It’s also fairly easy to add a transfer to the sides of them if you want an all CIE rake too.

cheers,

Fran

[Broithe]

I only got orange bubbles because I was too frightened to have anything with a black chassis.

[Noel]

3 hours ago, Warbonnet said:

. . . The Orange bubbles for instance, while selling okay and IMHO are nicer looking that the white bubbles (most of which are labeled CIE too) haven’t sold anywhere near as fast.

In fairness Fran that is most likely because folk did not know about the Orange bubbles in advance, and most had already ordered what they may have assumed to be the only livery available in the short term.  For example, had I personally known about the Orange bubbles at the same time as the Ivory, I would have ordered less ivory and more orange.  Not complaining btw, just pointing out a possible rational explanation for why the oranges didn't shift as fast as the ivories.  

PS: Noted with keen interest "AS" exciting move into O gauge.  I harbour an interest in a possible future O gauge 141 class - one day far far in the future.   

Edited July 15, 2018 by Noel
lexdysia strikes yet again

[Garfield]

57 minutes ago, Noel said:

In fairness Fran that is most likely because folk did not know about the Orange bubbles in advance, and most had already ordered what they may have assumed to be the only livery available in the short term.  For example, had I personally known about the Orange bubbles at the same time as the Ivory, I would have ordered less ivory and more orange...

Thing is, the remaining ivory bubbles continue to outsell the orange versions.

We expect all to sell out in a reasonable time, but the remaining ivory stock will be depleted well before the orange ones. 

[Warbonnet]

Exactly as Patrick says. We also said from the outset with the bubbles that we would do it in all liveries, so it was hardly that much of a surprise surely? Much like the bauxite Tara’s are first, but we have said blue Tara’s are going to follow. 

Orange bubbles remain on sale for anyone who wants to buy them and prove to us that CIE sells as strong as more modern liveries!

[Warbonnet]

Friday evening teasing. Here is the artwork of one of the forthcoming fert packs.

More details in the coming weeks. Enjoy!

(and yes, there will be CIE Packs too!) 

[NIRCLASS80]

Can't wait, keep working day and night. 

[popeye]

Looks great, I'll be working day and night too.

Is that a pic of the CIE one?

[John-r]

Friday evenings seem to be getting a whole lot better.   Fantastic looking , thanks Fran.

well done lads.

[Glenderg]

2 hours ago, popeye said:

Is that a pic of the CIE one?

No, Popeye, that's the 6th wagon of the eight proposed, so the markings are in around the 2000 year, and they are sort of set out in a chronological order. The faded wheel will be barely noticeable on the real thing to  (hopefully) capture the "end of life" look these beauties. The first and second twin-packs have the straw roundel, and the last wagon it begins to fade as the time period moves away from that branding. 

Richie. 

Edited July 27, 2018 by Glenderg
forgot summit...

[jhb171achill]

Mostly, the CIE roundels were on the second panel door from the left, as you're looking at them. they were all like this when new. By degrees, they tended to turn up on any of the middle 4 doors, though I am unaware of a CIE roundel ever appearing on one of the two end doors, either end. The illustration above shows one with a roundel on the fifth door along; this, while quite possible, was much less usual. I don't particularly recall seeing one in this place myself.

After 1987, when CIE became IE, and the "set-of-points" logo was introduced, it was not applied to ferts at all - and indeed, was not applied to almost all wagons. they just repainted them plain brown. In these times, the reddish background to numberplates and painted numbers, so often seen now, wasn't there - plain brown.

In pre-'87 days, an occasional fert, perhaps just repaired, would have had no logo, but most did.

It is worth mentioning that now, when bogies emerge from Limerick, little bits and pieces on them are green, red, black, whatever; they don't paint them all-brown, in fact they probably don't paint them at all. Each component part is just the colours of whatever they've been when taken out of their Bachmann boxes. In CIE days, bogies were all painted brown. The once-blue Taras, the once-duck-egg blue with black bogie shale wagons, all became plain brown at first repaint.

 

The illustration above shows "48 TONS" in large writing on one. I never saw that - was this an exception, or is it just on the illustration? It certainly was never a normal part of the markings on them. I never saw it at all anywhere, and the font of the "48" is not one used by CIE.

Edited July 27, 2018 by jhb171achill

[Warbonnet]

7 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

Mostly, the CIE roundels were on the second panel door from the left, as you're looking at them. they were all like this when new. By degrees, they tended to turn up on any of the middle 4 doors, though I am unaware of a CIE roundel ever appearing on one of the two end doors, either end. The illustration above shows one with a roundel on the fifth door along; this, while quite possible, was much less usual. I don't particularly recall seeing one in this place myself.

After 1987, when CIE became IE, and the "set-of-points" logo was introduced, it was not applied to ferts at all - and indeed, was not applied to almost all wagons. they just repainted them plain brown. In these times, the reddish background to numberplates and painted numbers, so often seen now, wasn't there - plain brown.

In pre-'87 days, an occasional fert, perhaps just repaired, would have had no logo, but most did.

It is worth mentioning that now, when bogies emerge from Limerick, little bits and pieces on them are green, red, black, whatever; they don't paint them all-brown, in fact they probably don't paint them at all. Each component part is just the colours of whatever they've been when taken out of their Bachmann boxes. In CIE days, bogies were all painted brown. The once-blue Taras, the once-duck-egg blue with black bogie shale wagons, all became plain brown at first repaint.

 

The illustration above shows "48 TONS" in large writing on one. I never saw that - was this an exception, or is it just on the illustration? It certainly was never a normal part of the markings on them. I never saw it at all anywhere, and the font of the "48" is not one used by CIE.

Thanks JB. All the artwork for our models are taken from photos from the real thing, which would explain the placement of the roundel and the “48 TONS” in this instance. Rest assured it was taken from a photo of the real 35083!

Cheers!

Fran

[jhb171achill]

Another observation. The running numbers carried on the ends were unique as far as CIE stock was concerned then. No other stock had end numbers. 

However, initially, they had numbers on the sides (first left hand panel, I think - possibly other end), but as doors were switched and swopped, it tended to be on the ends only.

The CIE logo on the illustration above appears to be tan. While some types of wagons had dual-coloured roundels (tan surround, white letters) when grey, no brown wagon of any sort carried these. Logos were always, from the outset, all-white on anything painted brown.

2 minutes ago, Warbonnet said:

Thanks JB. All the artwork for our models are taken from photos from the real thing, which would explain the placement of the roundel and the “48 TONS” in this instance. Rest assured it was taken from a photo of the real 35083!

Cheers!

Fran 

That's an interesting one, Fran! Must have been a one-off. And I can't help feeling that it was a short lived one. I don't know what the initial loading for these things was, but could it be that the one with the markings you show was restricted to a smaller weight? If they were all 48, that large number's a new one to me - as you'll have seen from photos.

I would have been highly surprised if you hadn't perused photos, given your superbly accurate rendition of everything else you've put your hand to! Keep it up!

[Warbonnet]

6 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

Another observation. The running numbers carried on the ends were unique as far as CIE stock was concerned then. No other stock had end numbers. 

However, initially, they had numbers on the sides (first left hand panel, I think - possibly other end), but as doors were switched and swopped, it tended to be on the ends only.

The CIE logo on the illustration above appears to be tan. While some types of wagons had dual-coloured roundels (tan surround, white letters) when grey, no brown wagon of any sort carried these. Logos were always, from the outset, all-white on anything painted brown.

That's an interesting one, Fran! Must have been a one-off. And I can't help feeling that it was a short lived one. I don't know what the initial loading for these things was, but could it be that the one with the markings you show was restricted to a smaller weight? If they were all 48, that large number's a new one to me - as you'll have seen from photos.

I would have been highly surprised if you hadn't perused photos, given your superbly accurate rendition of everything else you've put your hand to! Keep it up!

Thanks JB, just to say that the roundel on this is faded white, not Tan. When we show the rest of the artwork at launch you will see strong white roundels for the CIE era wagons. This pack is aimed for their latter years of service.

Cheers,

Fran

[jhb171achill]

Perfect, Fran - as always!!!!

As I mentioned before, my layout environment of 1955-65 may have to be compromised with some of these things - too good to miss! Why couldn't CIE have introduced them in 1961!!

[Mayner]

5 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

 

The illustration above shows "48 TONS" in large writing on one. I never saw that - was this an exception, or is it just on the illustration? It certainly was never a normal part of the markings on them. I never saw it at all anywhere, and the font of the "48" is not one used by CIE.

The bogie fertiliser wagons were originally rated at 40 ton capacity and appear to have been uprated to 48tons at some stage during the IE era. Would be interesting to find out whether the product was getting denser, additional pallets were being loaded, or simply the capacity was increased by 8 tons to reflect what was actually being loaded.

Fertiliser traffic started to run down during the 1990s one possibly two rakes of fertiliser wagons were converted into 42'9" container flats by 1996-97.

Due to load limits on the steeply graded New-Ross branch  laden fertiliser trains from Albatros Fertilisers were worked in two trips to Waterford before being combined into one train for the journey to the final destination,.

[Glenderg]

Spot on @Mayner about the weight rating. I'd say you're right about density, would make sense since they didn't fill the central two bays with more pallets. 

@jhb171achill I've slides and photos showing the roundel clearly in white, and clearly in straw yellow, not tan, so both will displayed on the plates, and we'll take it from there. I can't publish them, sadly. 

This is the Max Load 48 Tonnes marking, as seen on both wagons June 2001.

Lastly, this is the roundel on the fourth door. (With a straw roundel) 

HTH, Richie

 

[jhb171achill]

.................I've slides and photos showing the roundel clearly in white, and clearly in straw yellow, not tan,................

 

Exactly. The white is self-explanatory. The "straw yellow" is the white weathered with brake dust; but white underneath. And there wasn't a tan version.

White lettering, numerals and so on, on anything railway-related, never stayed pure white for long - look at the white line above window level on black'n'tan coaches - and they were regularly washed, while ferts and other wagons were virtually never washed.....

City buses had roundel transfers which were off-white, incidentally, with white lining round them. All railway wagon roundels in "brown" days were initially white, but obviously would become dirty over time.

[aclass007]

8 hours ago, Mayner said:

The bogie fertiliser wagons were originally rated at 40 ton capacity and appear to have been uprated to 48tons at some stage during the IE era. Would be interesting to find out whether the product was getting denser, additional pallets were being loaded, or simply the capacity was increased by 8 tons to reflect what was actually being loaded.

Fertiliser traffic started to run down during the 1990s one possibly two rakes of fertiliser wagons were converted into 42'9" container flats by 1996-97.

Due to load limits on the steeply graded New-Ross branch  laden fertiliser trains from Albatros Fertilisers were worked in two trips to Waterford before being combined into one train for the journey to the final destination,.

As an end user of the fert., I can shed some light on the weight issue.... Basically, a pallet of fert is made up of 40 x  50kg bags, which equals 2 ton. The weight of the bags or loaded pallet hasn't changed over the years, except for a slight variation after the change from imperial to metric measurements... With the beams in the two centre compartments, a fully loaded wagon would hold 20 pallets, which was 40 ton....... However, in later years, a lot of the fert comes in large bulk bags. A pallet carries four of these large bags. Some bags hold 500kg, which means a pallet with four of these bags still weighs 2 ton, and didn't alter the fully loaded wagon weight. But...some of the bags hold 600kg of fert. So, a pallet of four would weigh 2.4 ton. and a wagon fully loaded with 20 of these pallets would be loaded to 48 ton.....

[NIRCLASS80]

Great info lads. 

[popeye]

So, I was wondering if the fert wagons are able to be loaded, how do you get the loads in and out?

And what about the middle bay with the two beams across the middle bay? 

[Irishswissernie]

I think as I'm weathering my proposed rake its more a case of shades of red and grey rather than lettering

Tralee June 2001

ERnie

Edited July 30, 2018 by Irishswissernie

[Warbonnet]

7 hours ago, popeye said:

So, I was wondering if the fert wagons are able to be loaded, how do you get the loads in and out?

And what about the middle bay with the two beams across the middle bay? 

Hi Pop,

We will be doing loads with the wagon (we had to do a bit of reworking of the bags after we showed our fert bag expert. Yes, we found one!).

The centre beams in the middle two bays will be included!

thanks,

Fran

[Railer]

On 7/12/2018 at 12:47 PM, Warbonnet said:

Hi everyone,

Here's a look at the Fert with the centre beams. @Glenderg has done a stunning job on this, along with all the other project 42 bits! 

We will have news on the Ferts such as liveries, running numbers and price very soon, and will throw open the order books.

Cheers,

Fran

Just a quick one about the CAD that stands out to me.

Shouldn't the bogies be more recessed under the frame of the wagon, same with the brake wheel? To me they should not be flush or sit proud of the base frame of the wagon.

[Warbonnet]

2 hours ago, Railer said:

Just a quick one about the CAD that stands out to me.

Shouldn't the bogies be more recessed under the frame of the wagon, same with the brake wheel? To me they should not be flush or sit proud of the base frame of the wagon.

Yep, it looks odd in the Render, but rest assured in the CAD it is correct!

[popeye]

The detail is amazing. 

Will you be able to take the loads in and out through the top?

[scahalane]

Not sure if this has been picked up or its the angle of the render, but the scale looks a little out here.

Edited July 30, 2018 by scahalane

[Warbonnet]

That will be sorted too @scahalane but there will be manufacturing tolerances to consider.

We’re working with the factory to find a nice and easy solution to remove the loads @popeye

cheers,

Fran

[scahalane]

I don't doubt the finished item will look the dogs danglies and really looking forward to this one.

[Mayner]

34 minutes ago, Warbonnet said:

T

We’re working with the factory to find a nice and easy solution to remove the loads @popeye

cheers,

Fran

Working doors, forklift (battery rc)and choice of pallets with 50kg bags or 50okg bulk bags?

[Railer]

Great footage from 4:20 on.

 

[jhb171achill]

Wonder what happened to all those models seen round 7:15?

[Noel]

8 hours ago, Railer said:

Great footage from 4:20 on.

 

IRM any plans to model the ferts as they appear 01:27?  

[Warbonnet]

37 minutes ago, Noel said:

IRM any plans to model the ferts as they appear 01:27?  

No.