Galteemore

Most interesting John. From 2015 to 2023 we lived near Aylesbury and regularly visited Luton. My younger son was obsessed with buses (he’s currently restoring an ex Dublin Olympian and our house is full of Dublin Bus moquette fabric). So we often used to go to Luton and ride the Dunstable portion of the Luton Hoo line - now converted to a guided busway! The MRC’s Copenhagen layout is a beast, with some very clever modelling

Begging for a Planxty really, Patrick…..

Great little book. Frontispiece shows GN compound in what was arguably their most elegant form - original boiler and blue livery. The book is also a fascinating snapshot of Irish railways on the brink of huge change - LLSR, Schull and Skibbereen are included. The SLNC is listed as having 2 0-6-0 tender engines, and the Lough tanks are not yet featured - hadn’t been paid for or delivered !

You don’t even need to get obsessive about accurate livery

800 was last in steam in 1958. 801 was retubed to work a tour in 1961.

The old Airfix LMS period III coaches could help make up a passable rake for a late 30s 800 in GSR trim. If you are running it at scale express speeds they will certainly pass the 2’ rule.

Regner do a live steam one in 32/45mm gauge

Not my scale, not my scene, but am hiding my credit card! Fabulous. What will really make these models pop, I think, over the excellent Scot conversions around will be the factory-applied GSR blue-green finish. Fabulous product - well done.

Walker Fenn motors in the 30s used gramophone-sourced governors which acted as a regulator - speed could be adjusted to allow some precision. Drew certainly regarded some mechanisms as more suitable than others for shunting, given the demands that frequent stopping/starting imposed. Drew’s system, as Leslie remarks, was very precise. Locos and loads were adjusted by ‘boxes’ - the number of turns of the spring necessary to take a train precisely to a given point. It was far from unknown for Dublin enginemen to appear at Drew’s house to admire the operation.

Delightful. And modest too. That chimney’s a fairly complex shape !

LMS Royal Scot prob close enough - three cylinder loco with similar cylinder dimensions

Indeed it was. I remember being awed by pictures of it when I was a child. Drew Donaldson was convinced clockwork would make a comeback. It does have the ‘authenticity ’ of having an onboard, finite source of power, like the real thing. Also requires some skill in loco management. Having seen Fred and Drew’s stuff, even the Palitoy Mainline stuff of the late 70s seemed really anodyne. Nothing quite like the roar and sheer mass of a heavy clockwork train moving at speed - captures something of the physical presence of the real thing that DCC sound (due, I suspect, to such physical constraints as the Doppler effect) cannot. Google a video of ‘Hornby O gauge clockwork’ and see what I mean. Oddly enough I always found that running Hornby Dublo on a hard floor produced a similar effect.

Absolutely so John- that’s Fred. We also have a BCDR tank loco that Fred built - one of the large 4-4-2Ts. Don’t have a pic. He also did a fine WT class.

Lovely, Michael. Had a vague memory you did. Bizarrely, the images arrived on the very day I was putting my first ever GN 4-4-0 back together after painting. It’s an etched kit but Fred’s work matches what any kit designer can churn out.

Many years ago I was brought to see Fred Graham’s clockwork layout / think Drew Donaldson but GNR. When Fred downsized, we bought some of his models, quickly loaning them to a museum. So I haven’t seen them for years, but this week they returned to family custody and I was sent some pics. The blue is original Dundalk paint. Should I try a 36.75 conversion @David Holman? The bubble wrap holds a 5” gauge S class…..

Very tidy backhead David. Something rather lovely about glimpsing that worn copper and brass through the cab doorway. The firebox door looks like it could work !

Are you sure being in the legal profession aligns with your personal values ?;)

Saints days and Sundays are also exempt for Catholics ….

Hi David - I used some square plastic rod, coupled with whitemetal valve parts from SD Models. The tube has a core drilled through it which nicely replicates the gauge glass inside the shroud. White plasticard backing with chevrons completes the look.

Very handy little engines, the Ts, Leslie. On loan to the NCC, one managed Belfast to Carrick in 12’45!

Achingly slow progress on the PP. Cab is more or less done / even if reversing gear moved too far right when I was glueing it Few bits of toning down to do but almost there. Making transparent gauge glasses was ‘fun’

Unlikely. Sambo was Dublin based and Pat was in Cork. Even then, Pat tended to stay fairly aloof from other locos..,.

Always a good show. Sorry I didn’t make it this year. Big draw for me was always the trade support. Many traders in 7mm don’t have elaborate websites so shows are the only chance to browse and see what’s new.

Irish Lines Drawings Index (J.P.James, 1992).pdf

Something has stirred in the oul brain…I have a vague memory Mac Arnold may have advocated it. It’s easy to forget now but in preservation’s early days all kinds of weird and wonderful liveries could be seen in GB. In fact, even the RPSI’s 186 was initially turned out in SLNCR livery - plain black with red rods ! People had, I think, become so used to steam locos in appalling states of decay that anything which captured a bit of colour was welcome. NI enthusiasts had spent the years since 1948 watching locos gradually become a universal shade of dirty black. With no prospect of ever seeing the prewar NCC livery again, I think Mac may have advocated applying it to the Jeep, presumably on the basis they’d have carried it if delivered pre 39.