TimO

@Bob49 Great work on your wagon bodies, can I ask what paints and colours you used. For drawings of DNGR I suggest you PM @leslie10646 and ask him to forward your request to Richard who has scanned some drawings but I don’t know if he has done what you are looking for.

@Fiacra From memory the bogies on the new Mk2 coaches are fixed with screws. I should have taken a photo at Blackrock show. The sides are prototype width so they should take 21 mm gauge wheel sets and therefore will easily accept EM gauge wheel sets but you will have to reposition the brakes. Your best option with the original ones is either as you suggest to cut them and fix to a brass plate or use suitable MJT units.

@jhb171achill Thank you. Did this wide variety of Bredins and CIE 1951-53 stock run on basically the same chassis and bogies? Designed and built in Inchicore? Were the true laminates on the same chassis? I’m looking forward to your photos. Plenty of scope for new IRM models here.

@jhb171achill a little away from the core of this thread. How did the Bredins differ from later GSR wooden bogie coaches and early CIE wooden bogie coaches, ie before laminates and Park Royal’s? Did they use similar chassis and bogies?

Bring on the fast clock so that we can see the liveried samples….

@DJ Dangerous I agree the Manor is a very smooth runner on DC especially after some running in. The Manor uses a NEXT18 decoder in the tender so a 21 pin decoder will not fit. I hope this answers your question.

Had the delight of seeing this layout in Bray yesterday and observing the detail of the cobbles, stonework, windows and roof slates. The quality of finish on the turntables is outstanding. It all looks so right in 21mm gauge that you just take it as normal, the layout and its sister are inspirational and I look forward to enjoying the progress. Great work Ken.

@Horsetan The method of mounting the bogies on the new MM MkIId coaches is different to the originals and not compatible for a direct retrofit.

The IRM supplied axles are insulated to work with the electrical pickup for the coach lighting etc. Are you planning to work without the lighting or have you an alternative solution as I am thinking your P4 axles are not insulated? Tim

Fabulous as usual. Marvellous scenes at Tara Street and Platform One. You can just hear the lines from Ulysses carry along the platforms.

Thanks to @murphaph the NET packing line is up and running just in time for new year celebration.

Noel, thank you for these details, I’ll try out something similar and hope for similar results but it will a while before I do it.

That looks great, especially the look of the weathered galvanise with an element of shading. I think this is a difficult look to achieve. Did you apply many paint layers in the process and what colours have you used?

Hi Dan, Welcome to this community. The 071 class Murphy Models locos are hard to come by and the spares are even harden. You might try @WRENNEIRE on this forum. Alternatively you may be able to pick up a suitable etched one from one of the specialist suppliers at an exhibition or fashion one yourself using any type of fine mesh. Good luck with your purchase.

A little more consideration of your postings and some imagination. In Father Malone’s video at about 31 seconds in you can see the ship unloading bucket elevator in its out of use position, clear of the ship and up against the building. It is the device that has the profile of a safety pin, you can also see the arms that move it out over the ship. The loaded wagons behind the elevator building would have been moved by an electric capstan or a horse and then the next empty one pulled into position. I think it is most likely they used horses here. I agree with @Mayner that the industrial building behind with the large chimney was probably a mill and either a power house or boiler house, remember this was before the ESB was formed in 1926. Most likely this was coal fired but by the 1970’s it would definitely be oil. It is also believable that the elevator was still discharging 500 Tonnes coastal ships, they still brought grain to Dublin port at this time period. By then the shunting horse would have been replaced with a tractor fitted with a buffer beam each end. Going back to photo of the semi- covered wagons in the station. Grain, wheat, barley, oats and maize would have been carried in brown jute sacks whereas flour would have been in white cotton bags. Other commodities, perhaps cement, may also have been in white coloured bags. This is one reason I don’t believe these are sacks of grain. Interestingly the open wagon next to the one with cattle seems to have a number of wooden crates, could these be machinery for the mill or other industry? I hope this gives you more ideas for potential traffic in and out of your planned layout. I am also thinking, why not bring in rail ballast by coastal ship and load into ballast hopper wagons on the quayside? Thanks for posting these very interesting photos.

Sean, this is a fascinating thread. I did a little research on the SS Kelpie. It was built in 1906 in Troon (Scotland). It was purchased by J Bannatyne & Son of Limerick in 1916 and renamed the SS Keeper so your photo is definitely before this date. Very sadly she was sunk the following year by a German submarine with the loss of 12 lives. Your photo is thought to date from 1910 and certainly before 1914. I expect she was carrying grain from Belfast or Liverpool to Westport in your photo. The area around Westport was not known as an extensive grain growing area. As mentioned by @Mike 84C it looks like the ship is being unloaded with a mechanical enclosed bucket elevator, if you look closely you can see the top (head) pulley housing and the two legs. There is a similar, shorter one visible on the back of the building. This would have been used for unloading grain from railway wagons coming from an inland grain facility. The wagons behind the silo are being loaded from chutes. Whilst sometimes being referred to as a mill I believe this very modern and advanced elevator building was purely for grain trans- shipment. I imagine there was a facility to transfer grain to the large flat stores if they were also owned by Pollexfens. The grain wagons would have been closed up once filled, ready for collection by the local goods engine. The open goods wagons in the other photo seem to be filled with sacks of flour. I think these most likely came from a flour mill such as Pollexfens well respected flour mill in Ballisodare. Wagons from the grain elevator would not have been left open while being moved to the station! As you probably know the Ballisodare mill had extensive sidings to take in grain and almost certainly some of this came from the Westport elevator. There are photos of Ballisodare sidings somewhere on this forum. I hope this gives you a better idea of the date of the elevator photo and some information on the potential rail traffic. It looks like the open van next to the ones with the flour sacks is full of cattle. I wonder were they coming or going?

Fertiliser trains were also unloaded in Portlaoise goods yard. I don’t know if these were block liners or part of a mixed liner train with Guinness kegs also being off loaded by the forklifts.

Your layout sketching and backscene sketching are very a la Iain Rice, full of atmosphere and drawing us all in right from the start of the project. Love it. I will be watching this one develop with interest.

@MaynerThese wagons are coming along very nicely, lots of good detail. I particularly like the photography, a very simple setting that includes the typical (for GSR!) CIE grey stone wall as a background and taken on an overcast Irish day. I look forward to the next instalment.

Thank you, I’ll get that on order. For your info the ISBN is on the Book Details tab for each book on the Blackstaff Press website. I hope you can find it. Tim

@jhb171achillLooking forward to this book. Who is the publisher and do you know the ISBN number?

A42 needs to be on a track hauling stock, that’s where it’s at home. A perfect livery that is very underrated.

Thank you, that clarifies a number of issues and backs up your original post.

@jhb171achill In the first post on this thread you state that following A46 being painted in dark green with light green band there were another 12 A class locos (numbers listed) that were painted in this livery. Is this correct or were these other 12 in a slightly different dark green? Secondly you make no mention of any of the light green locos having a painted waist line. Did any of the light green A class have this eau de nil waist line or was that only on the light green C class? While looking for examples of above I came across two photos in the book “Irish Traction in colour” by Derek Huntriss. Page 59 shows A46 as modelled by IRM and page 83 shows a very clean A19 in the livery A42 is modelled by IRM, even the black staff snatchers are as prominent. Only a light weathering required on A42 but in many photos the light green livery looks much lighter green, for example A41 on page 58 of the same book. Was that because it faded alarmingly or was there a third shade of green?

The green A Class looks great with those coaches especially as they are 57ft with much less overhang on the curves that the Mk2s.