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Coming together really well David: and the techniques you’re demonstrating are widely applicable

IRRS LONDON - Next talk LIVE + ZOOM : 18.00 – 20.40 Friday 21 November 2025 “Photos of Closed Lines that might Reopen” by Roger Joanes The All Island Strategic Rail Review of 2023 advocated reopening of several long closed lines throughout Ireland. Garnering high quality photos from 12 leading Irish railway photographers, lifelong enthusiast Roger Joanes recalls these lines as they used to be with photos of trains, stations and places long since disappeared. If reopened, the lines may look quite different so take this opportunity to relish their heyday. COME TO OUR LIVE MEETING ….. ….. at The Gallery at Alan Baxter, 100m from Farringdon station. Door opens at 17.30. The Gallery is a smart and spacious community space, ideal for our talks, and with stepfree access available. We hope as many as possible will be able to come along, see the speaker live, contribute directly to the discussion, meet the Committee and other members, and enjoy refreshment in a nearby pub afterwards. ATTENDING BY ZOOM To obtain a Zoom link for the meeting, please register by clicking REGISTER HERE and fill in your email address to be sent a personalised Zoom ink. You can register at any time up to (or during) the meeting, and you can copy this registration link to others. Please note that the link will be sent by Zoom (not IRRS London) and will arrive immediately after registration. Those who have registered should receive a reminder from Zoom nearer the meeting. Alternatively, open Zoom on your device and enter the following : Webinar ID: 820 9160 4904 passcode: 381075 For those participating in the meeting via Zoom, please note that should Zoom fail and there is no transmission, we will try and email everyone on the London Area email list with an update so please watch your Inbox PLEASE ALSO NOTE THIS ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE AREA COMMITTEE: LIVE MEETINGS - PLEASE COME We invite more people to come to our live meetings. Live meetings in the capital are the raison d’etre of the London Area. We are happy to share them by Zoom but f the live meetings themselves are not supported, there will be little purpose in continuing to have a London Area as such. The London Area Committee is concerned that attendance at our live meetings is slipping and may be approaching the point where live meetings cannot be justified – and that would mark the end of the London Area. For those who have a choice, we know how easy and attractive it can be to stay at home and watch on Zoom. But we do encourage you to come to our live meetings. It is an opportunity to engage with the Committee and others who share an interest in Irish railways, or to engage directly with the speaker. Perhaps enjoy a drink afterwards. And it will ensure that London Area meetings continue. (From Leslie) I cannot over-emphasise this "warning". We often have a speaker over from Ireland, at considerable cost and then find him speaking to less than a dozen folk, plus the committee. If you live within 50 miles of London, surely you can support the area in person? At least from time to time? Tonight's speaker, Roger Joanes, has travelled over 200 miles to give his talk. Like most of our speakers, he is a specialist, who will illustrate his talk with superb photography of the period. So, please, come along and enjoy a great talk!

Managed to get both ends of the layout 'blocked in' now, having thought long and hard about the composition. Post Tolworth, have been asked by the Gauge 0 Guild to write an article about Swillybegs/Fintonagh & while drafting this realised what I had done for this layout was also needed now. Looking through my many books again for inspiration, found it in two of my favourite pictures - one of the exit from Wantage Town & the other of Leiston, & the line to Garrett Engineering Works. Each show a railway sneaking away between houses and industry: in the case of Wantage, the buildings on the left are the town gas works, so both options provide plenty of traffic. So the right hand side of the layout is a mix of the two, with what will be the works office filling the space between the two lines and low relief gas works buildings forming the back scene. An access road crosses the works tracks [and this will curve away behind the gasworks on the back scene]. The two slightly fuzzy pictures below show how I tried to make a very low relief building look like it is extending into the back scene. One thing I've always disliked is buildings that are simply cut off at the sky. On the other side of the layout, finally got around to mocking up a hipped roof for the station house and likewise more structure to the platform. An old Slaters Midland Railway van has been grounded on the platform, while behind this, on the back scene, the rest of the platform [including part of a shelter] has been sketched in to suggest the line disappearing into the distance. As for the centre of the layout, a small milk depot is still favourite, but for now, I have plenty to be getting on with.

Old news questions asked by politicians who think there are lots of rolling stock sitting around to strengthen trains for Xmas. Some statements tonight on local media were embarrassing

More progress with the mock-up buildings. I'm afraid that even with computer-aided toys, my progress at rough mock-ups is far slower than Darius's construction of complete finished buildings! This is definitely proving a useful exercise. With few absolute dimensions to work with, and photos from a limited range of angles, making the mock-ups helps me to see how the buildings fit together and whether the proportions look anything like the photos of the real thing. I've already identified some dimensional tweaks that are needed, but I feel I'm creating the right atmosphere. The 141 has yet to be re-gauged - it's sitting on the checkrails which are at 17mm gauge.

WhatsApp Video 2025-11-20 at 20.44.15_9ad4a29b.mp4 New railway room! Oh christ i forgot, I'll go grab a photo now (20:41).

Not sure why in particular but I see a fair few media outlets up here reporting on lengthening Enterprise services, I thought this was old news or has something else happened?!

I've got a fair bit to do as well, representing tracks set in concrete. I'd also welcome ideas. My current plan is to use 1.5mm card just below the level of the rail tops, paint it pale grey and dust on talcum powder to give a bit of texture. Other ideas welcome!

Hi all, Just wondering how do you guys build hard standing concrete effect for a engine shed? Tks

Super space there. I see a Galway set hiding at the back. Echoes of Knockseo Junction in places.

And what’s it passing over?

Dun dun duuuunnnnnnnnn!

What a cute little loco. I can see these ending up on seversl members’ workbenches, getting weathered to within an inch of their lives. You’ve packed a lot of gear into a small space, and you’ve brought the price down compared to your other diesels, outstsnding!

At the very least. the new announcement from Accurascale is likely to provide a ready source of cheap secondhand 08s!

I have been considering buying a cheap second hand 08 for some time, and repainting it as a D. Why one would have ended up on a remote rural Kerry branchline in the 1960s, would of course come into consideration!

How many more Joko's do we need, we already have plenty of good 08/09's from Hornby and Bachmann. Now if you had done a class 81 . To be fair, the lights were very poor on the real ones. (I should know having worked on them in the past ).

I think at this point market saturation genuinely doesn't count when it's Accurascale because it's a given the product will be genuinely really good, fairly priced, sell out fast, and devalue other models, benefiting their buyers too. Unfortunately I don't have the disposable income to buy any RTR gronks models full stop so it's a moot point in my case... but best of luck, not that AS need it.

Nice one Lad. I was wondering, will have to wait so for a Southern option.l

Hi, I had a conversation with Silver Fox the other day prior to ordering a C Class kit (!), they tell me they are re-doing the tooling for the G class so at the moment this model is not available. Hope this is helpful to someone. John Bruce.

Lovely work Alan, this class of loco just screams 'GNRI' to me!

It's a class 10, so you may be looking in the wrong list? They were mostly based on the Eastern Region. Grantham / Peterborough area for this one, it seems.

I have the Hornby 08, Happy with that but needs Stay Alive installed at some stage. Sound is a bit naf and no lights so could be an order for my 1sty AS loco! Looks great and the DCC sound is fair too. Is there any payment plan set up yet to spread the costs? Tell me where was this one based please? Nothing on the serial and I have tried a few Databases.

Those splashers were hard enough in 7mm never mind 4! Great work

More work on Kieran's GNR(I) PPs. Pickups fitted and shouted at until they worked reliably... IMG_3925.MOV ... then a start made on the superstructure. Tricky stuff this, with a lot of soldering edge-to-edge in two planes. Difficult to keep it both straight and neat. This one will need a bit of filler here and there. The instructions recommend making cab beading from soft copper wire soldered round the edge of the curve, not on the face of the etch. I found this just about impossible to do neatly so resorted to my usual method of using scrap etch strip and filing it back. The little crankpin splashers were a job in themselves, each one laminated from two bits then soldered in place on the main splashers. I spent as much time puzzling over the instructions as I did making them. As is often the case with etched kits, head scratching and soldering require roughly the same amounts of time.