Galteemore

Now that WAS a railway. So glad I can remember it - so sorry I didn’t enjoy it even more than I did. This will be a great project to see developing.

Should be a great ‘watching the trains go by’ layout, especially if set in 1970s-80s period when so much was loco-hauled. Mosney was also the site of a potential ‘might have been’, if that’s not a tautology. Billy Butlin went through a phase of putting old steam locos in his camps as an attraction and a number of UK locos were so saved, subsequently entering mainstream preservation. Butlin was apparently interested in acquiring a VS for Mosney. Just think what might have been….

Very elegant solution Alan. Agreed - the fore and aft bolts can cause all manner of issues

BUT what does it mean ?

That Sligo one is terrific. Just wish they could have found a clean tender !

That’s looking great Alan, and a nice solution.

Agreed and the PPs would have looked endearingly like Edward the Blue Engine!

S class got it in the 1938-ish rebuilds. The big mystery is why the U class got it (eventually) but the Qs never did!

Wasn’t it 1936 that the blue appeared ? The compounds were black when delivered in 1932.

One of my recent exhibition favourites was an enormous 009 layout which had a number of stations and one could track a train’s progress around it. Fabulous ly entertaining. I suppose the key thing is that elusive ‘atmosphere’. If a layout has that, sometimes even a sparse train service js enough. It’s all about theatre and staging at the end of the day really. Sometimes it needs a full dress cast and stage scenes to get it right - sometimes a bare stage with two actors in black polonecks can achieve the same effect !

Think A15 was 1971 Patrick but can’t check exactly as my books are still mostly boxed up after moving last week…

Yes, it’s the kind of layout that has really gone out of fashion, but was once fairly standard. Peter Denny - whose work I have been studying a lot recently - blazed a trail in 1940s Britain by downscaling the concept to EM, and emphasising scenery. As modelling has ‘evolved’ - and as knowledge of actual historic rail operations has faded away - the emphasis has shifted in different directions. I’m just so sorry I missed the opportunity to see Castie Rackrent, which is arguably the best Irish-focused operating system ever built.

Thanks Paul. That’s a fab layout. It’s the sort of setup up that I think CJ Freezer talks about - the trains might as well be tennis balls - what matters is getting the block working right, and the rolling stock/scenery are incidental !

Sublime Ernie ! Especially pleasing to see what looks like an I13 at Bundoran. Gives me proof that they made it so far west and an excuse to run mine!

The tender has probably been used with an S class, as it has the slots for fitting single line tablet collectors on Derry Road trains.

That’s interesting. I am working on a blue engine next and noticed that there was a rather pleasing shade of dark blue that appeared in the late 40s/early 50s. Quite how it weathered to the tender’s shade has attracted all kinds of speculation. In his seminal book on loco painting, Ian Rathbone singles out GNRI blue as a colour no one seems to agree on!

Indeed David. I am actively scoping 3d printing myself. Now Laurie Griffin has shut up shop that’s my main source of loco castings gone…..mercifully I have enough in stock for the next 3 locos but after that…..

That’s very impressive @Broithe. Hardly seemed to affect South Oxfordshire at all! I see that Laois continues to lead the way in avant-garde sleeve styling

Something mesmerising about those huge wheels. Lovely loco

Fabulous. For some odd reason I’m getting echoes of Leiston Works Rlwy….

After attending Mass of course

And unless you are modelling something like a main line running into a big city, you won’t be running many trains! As has been observed elsewhere, on such layouts, movements tend to be sparser and more drawn out than the paying public might like. Imagine a layout based on a typical Irish branch with about 6 train moves a day if you are lucky !

That’s most interesting. I saw Drew Donaldson’s layout about 50 years ago, which was operated to a timetable. Part of the ‘evolution’ of model railways towards more scenery and detail has been a dropping off in prototypical operation. Many show layouts simply run trains - nothing wrong with that - but an older generation (Peter Denny, Norman Eagles etc) emphasised operating. I find it quite an attractive idea - the issue may be finding your staff! You can of course have one station and still run a prototypical operation with proper signalling, bells etc. Some day I’d love a layout with proper bell codes etc going on… there’s a few books around about how to do this, but as a start, get yourself one of Denny’s books on Buckingham

As a 7mm scratchbuilder, you’re often like one of those old American wilderness farmers who visits town once a year to stock up on nails and rope. I my case it’s an O gauge trade show - basically like an old fashioned market with small traders selling their wares: stuff you’ll struggle to find in shops nowadays. Next one for me is December - thankfully it will only be half an hour away. What happens when these traders stop selling (as some have of late , most recently Laurie Griffin, which is a huge blow), who knows?!

Sadly he’s dropped off too….would have been handy for where we’ll be