Galteemore

Thinking about it, there is probably an inverse, if not causal, relationship between the comfort of the consumer and the interest of the enthusiast. Most Leitrim farmers would have been delighted to see a railcar working the 7:20 to Sligo it if was a winter’s night. Not so the enthusiast who would quite happily have bumped along in a mouldy compartment coach behind ‘Enniskillen’ or ‘Sir Henry’….

Dr Pan - as I hinted above re the toilets, got to agree on much of what you say. As a consumer, the railway is much more pleasant. What one does miss is the ‘atmosphere’. Perhaps ‘chance’ isn’t so much the word as ‘events’, JHB. On the old railway, there were much more ‘events’ - pretty much as you describe them above. And we used to talk of ‘railwaymen’ (adjust for historic gender bias) - with the sense that this was a caste who did this as a vocation and not a job. We can’t romanticise the past of course. But the facts show that some drivers did come in on days off to shine up their locos. And the knack they had (I’m thinking of Frank Dunlop here - NIR’s Chief Loco Inspector) - was of taking these events and calmly imposing that logic on them, no matter how challenging the events were !

Yes I do understand that. I do think however that we have now lost a great deal more. Insofar as one can analyse these things with any degree of objectivity, the CIE network of the 60s-90s was effectively a steam age railway without steam. Most Victorian railway staff, bar the loco crews, would have seen the essentials of their daily tasks going on much as before. I have often tried and failed to analyse what I like about railways. But I think much of it has to do with the inherent tension between a fixed system and the world of chance. This is at its most obvious in the steam age. The train ran to a timetable but depending on the fettle of the loco and the character of the crew you could have a run to remember. A degree of that persisted into the 90s. Would it be a 141 or a 121? What odd stock might appear? What freight might you see on the way? Would the tablet exchange be smooth ?And those fascinating glimpses from the window of long closed branches, rusty rails trailing off into the wild green yonder. All that has gone, sadly.

It’s probably fair to say that the 1990s was the last gasp of the classic Irish railway as we knew it - a railway that would attract the English enthusiasts seeking a world they had lost. That no longer applies - IE and NIR are effectively diesel tramways. At least we still have them. I’m just glad I experienced the bang and thump of a GM with Cravens over jointed rail, under semaphore signals. One thing I don’t miss is the toilets…..

Excellent. Triang TT3 Jinty? May be worth joining 3mm Soc if not already a member. They have a most useful 2nd hand sales service for such items. Could be a useful way of getting 12mm stuff….

This is one of their other coaches. Interesting photo angle. Shows how wide 3’ gauge actually is!

Nice. Fred Dean visited just a bit later….the chair has improved !

Don’t think the plastic vacuum pipes would survive such treatment….

Indeed they were ! Those rough oul toast racks were dreadful too. One thing the SCR did brilliantly was recall the Irish roadside tram. Schull or Clogher Valley stock would have been amazing. Here’s one of the Belgians @Southwold

Excellent Ken. I have recently built the 3mm scale WW etch of the NG Drewry. It’s good / but basic!! Great level of detail already from your work. Love the way that signature features such as the radiator and fuel tank are so faithfully replicated.

Although to be fair, the old Mainline LMS ones aren’t far off …

I knew it wasn’t a Metcalfe kit but that’s a totally different level again. Real sophistication of technique here - thanks for sharing.

Now that’s very fine work. Looks really well - picture 1 especially impressive. What’s the process behind the station buildings ? They look really good

Here’s a video of a recent model….

But of course, Hawthorn Leslie was a North Eastern workshop. Bound to turn out ugly stuff. You need to head to Manchester for true locomotive elegance

No way could I do such a thing myself Mike but I know there’s some who might find it a short cut to a chassis ! if I was building a Bandon tank it would be an Alphagraphix 7mm one…. The A5 looks a lovely model and it’s another NE one for you Ernie!!

Lovely Ernie. Having visited a few times, I get the charm of it! I had a an IOW terrier in 7mm before I moved to 5’3”. The Vectis lines are almost Irish at times, with a gentler climate. These are good times for OO modellers - Sonic models have just shown a GCR 4-6-2T, one of my favourites, which might be a useful donor chassis for a CBSC 4-6-0T if you can live with a few discrepancies…..

Great - thanks Ernie. That tool hut looks suspiciously like the pay carriage off the GSWR ‘Sprite’. Image courtesy ‘Locomotives of the GSWR’ via RM Web

Great stuff Ernie. Hope you get some positive news on the health front.

And some fool spots it….I can do none of the things you mention there but do spend much of my working life editing text …sorry Ken ! The wagons really have a classic Irish look and a world away from the repainted BR box van with a flying snail transfer that many of us have passed off as Irish!

“Very pleased with how the detail has poped out once painted” Excellent work Ken, although I am struggling to see the Roman influence……;) In all seriousness these wagons look the business

Tracked it down. RPSI PWI special was 1985…..https://www.geograph.ie/photo/3789663

Wasn’t there a special for the PWI with RPSI wooden stock, steam hauled with a number of loco changes?

They operate at the other end of the supplier spectrum to Hornby etc and production fluctuates! I am pretty sure I saw it at Scaleforum a few years ago. SE Finecast do a thin corrugated sheet which I think would be more amenable to bending than Evergreen sheet and certainly than Ratio’s toffee-like slabs.

IIRC Ambis Engineering do or did corrugated sheet like that. http://www.ambisengineering.co.uk/Products/Products_Index.htm