Irish Rail train

[Tom a.k.a. eastawat]

I've been wanting for a while to design an Irish Rail diesel of some sort, in the old orange livery. I considered a few options:

• The 001, old 201, 113 and 121 classes, which I quickly dismissed as they're so old I've never seen them
• The 141 and 181 class, with distinctive narrow mid-sections - too narrow for a battery box
• The GM 201 class, still in service, but with 6 wheels on each bogie instead of 4, making them very difficult to work with for train motors and difficult to scale to a length short enough to navigate standard Lego curves

I settled on a 141 class. Worst case, it doesn't need to be motorised and I might be able to push it with some motorised rolling stock; best case, I might invest in a 9v train motor and convert my plastic track to 9v with copper tape: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRogkroM9Rc

Here is the result! It's 7 wide (plus a little bit, as the orange tiles along the bottom of each side stick out by half a plate thickness).





It wasn't possible to get the thin upper white stripe to continue along between the windows unfortunately, due to the use of some SNOT techniques, and I decided not to tackle the challenge of a brick built CIE logo - it's been done before but I think it would be impossible to do right without severely plagiarising!

[John]

Is that digital or real

[Tom a.k.a. eastawat]

Digital for now! Might get around to building it next year, depending on how other projects go.

[John]

That and carriages ..you'll be busy and nursing sore fingers

[Tom a.k.a. eastawat]

I have an idea for some accompanying freight wagons... to be revealed when I've finished the designs!

[David]

Super build, well done on this. Love the colour combination.

[Tom a.k.a. eastawat]

I've finished designing rolling stock for this. I can now reveal (drum roll please):


The Irish Fertiliser Industries ammonia train!

This highly recognisable and sometimes controversial train transported ammonia between IFI's three factories at Marino Point, Arklow, and Belfast. I owe my Irishness to IFI, as my parents moved here in 1990 when my dad took a job at Marino Point, so when I wanted to build some kind of Irish Rail diesel locomotive, ammonia seemed a fitting cargo.

Here's a closer look at one of the tankers. Notably, this is the first time I've ever found the Lego colour "bright light orange" useful - it looks just right for the stripe. Supposedly the chassis was dark green but these things were constantly so dirty that it's hard to verify that from photos. Depending on part availability I might change all the white to tan - it would be a better representation of the dirty white tankers!


And here's a barrier wagon - these carried water which acted as a defence against spillages of the highly flammable ammonia in the event of a derailment. These also never showed their nice dark green paint jobs. I might change the colour to black, especially if sourcing the dark green parts is too expensive or awkward (I'm looking at you, inverted radar dish).


I doubt I'll ever go so far as to build FOUR tankers, but it would probably look strange with any less than three, so when it comes to building this in the brick it is going to be a monstrous undertaking, given that it will also require two barrier wagons.

[John]

And a serious amount of track ,a station ,work hard , railway crossing and a bridge just to make the undertaking more overwhelming

[Tom a.k.a. eastawat]

Thankfully planning permission for all the infrastructure is already approved, and a large portion of the materials are already in place or arriving soon!

[AndyW19]

Looks great, always wanted to get into lego trains.