The High Queens of Ireland - IRM Celebrates 10th Birthday With GSR 800s
2025 marks the 10th birthday of IRM!
That's right, it's been 10 years since we first made a public appearance at the Dublin show in Blackrock with some CAD drawings of a ballast wagon and some leaflets on a school table.
We've come on a bit since then!
It's a major milestone for any business, and we've had some interesting challenges thrown our way over the years, but a lot of success too. That's down to you, and your support for us and what we want to do.
So, with that in mind, we really wanted to mark our first decade with a truly special model. An icon of the Irish rails. We also wanted to produce the first highly detailed, ready-to-run, authentic Irish steam locomotive. There was only one place we could go to; the GSR B1A Class, or the 800s/The Queens as they are better known!
Despite the high profile of the three B1a locomotives, and even with 800 Maeḋḃ, being preserved since the 1960s, we found ourselves in the position of having very few dimensioned drawings to work from, with just Rod and Pipe side elevation and front elevation official drawings being sourced. Thanks to the late Ken McElhinney, a few more drawings were shared which at least gave a starting point, but to really get to grips with the subject, it was decided to 3D scan the loco.
Fortunately, we’d already decided to make a start on the Hunslet 101 project and so we found ourselves at the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum in Cultra one April morning in 2022 with two locomotives to scan; our British based scanning company partners having made the trip across the Irish Sea for the occasion. A full photographic and measurement survey was also undertaken at the same time, which gave us the necessary information to begin the CAD process.
As ever, a master drawing needed to be completed from the cloud point data and from there, using as many archive photos as could be sourced, the variations across the three locomotives were also drawn up, allowing the factory to complete the process by adding in the requested 5-pole, fly-wheel motor and the gearing, prior to tooling.
There were two particular areas that we particularly wanted to address in the model; the realism of the sound and the connection of the tender to the locomotive. Steam tenders in the modern era of railway modelling tend to be connected to the locomotive by a fixed coupling, with a loose wiring loom connecting to the PCB via a ‘devil’s plug’ connection. We wanted to avoid this, and so tender and locomotive will be connected by a multi-pin connector integrated into a kinetic coupling, which will allow push fit/pull apart connection and, hopefully, a better tender to locomotive close coupling distance, with the cab fall plate covering the gap prototypically. Early testing has proved positive in this respect, and the full DCC fitted deco samples should refine this further.
We also wanted to improve the sound ‘experience’ for customers, so in addition to the new ‘megabass’ main speaker that has been fitted into the tender (with suitable outlets for the sound to ‘escape’), a secondary sugar cube speaker has been mounted in the smokebox, directly beneath the chimney, and this should replicate the distinctive exhaust ‘bark’ of the B1a locomotives.
The sound project has been built from the ground up, using a combination of newly recorded 4-6-0 3-cylinder sounds, which our sound engineer has then married to the sound curves taken from archive recordings of 802 Táilte. This should provide for a complete authentic sound file, with great drivability.
With assessment of the first EP now completed, and very few issues, the artwork files are currently being finished off and passed to the factory to produce the deco samples. The PCB schematics have been completed by ESU as well, which means that the deco samples should also be fully sound functional, an exciting development in the project.
Once the decorated samples arrive with us we will continue to test ahead of production of this very limited run. Like our NIR Hunslet locomotives, this is planned to be a very exclusive production run due to the nature of there being three class members in various guises during their all too short careers. We cannot guarantee that there will be a future production run of these locomotives, so we would advise anyone who wants a museum quality 800 Class locomotive in OO gauge to get ordering ASAP from this production run.
With a large amount of diecast construction, a wealth of detail, separately applied parts, a museum quality finish, a vast tooling suite to cater for detail variations and a high quality drive and sound system, we feel that we will do the first ever, authentic highly detailed Irish outline steam locomotive justice!
Due to the highly limited nature and quality level of this model, it is priced at €349.00 DC/DCC Ready and €449.00 DCC sound fitted. This is in line, and in some cases cheaper, than large British outline steam locomotives of similar or poorer quality, despite them benefiting from larger production runs and sales.
Delivery of our Celtic Queens is slated for Q3 2026. You can reserve your loco below with a €40 reservation fee via the link below.
Pre-Order Your GSR/CIE 800s Here!
MODEL SPECIFICATION:
Die-cast metal locomotive chassis and footplate, with ABS plastic body.
Locomotive/Tender weight of 498g.
Centrally mounted, high quality 5-pole skew-wound motor, with single flywheel.
Helical gear box for maximum performance and slow speed running.
Gearing arranged so locomotive can achieve a scale maximum top speed of 100 mph (128.75 km/h).
Scale lengths:
Locomotive: 163.917mm over buffers.
Tender: 104.916mm over buffers.
Operation over a minimum radius of 438mm (2nd radius set-track).
Blackened 00 Gauge RP25-110 standard 11.3mm bogie wheels, 25.8mm driving wheels and 14.8mm tender wheels, set in blackened brass bearings or contact strips and conforming to Accurascale standards of 14.4mm back-to-back, on 2mm axles.
Fully fitted brake rigging, aligned to wheel centres for 00 Gauge.
Fully detailed die-cast underframes with all cylinders, linkages and piping applied separately.
Eroded metal, plastic and wire detail parts, including (but not limited to) handrails, lamp brackets, running gear, brake gear, draw gear, nameplates, cab side plates.
Prism free flush cab glazing.
Duel-LED flickering firebox.
Locomotive/Tender connection by multi-pin custom designed male/female connector.
Designed to work with the ESU LOKSOUND V5 21-PIN Decoder.
Decoder and main speaker located in the tender, for easy access.
Supplied as DC Sound Ready, or DCC Sound fitted (based on archive recordings).
Fitted 25mm x 25mm x 7.50mm rectangular 8Ω ‘Megabass’ speaker in tender, with separate ‘Sugarcube’ speaker fitted in smokebox.