Galteemore

It’s a flat sheet of card that you cut out and stick together / old school modelling. Generally it makes up the wagon body and floor, to which you add the metal buffers and running gear. Many of us use them as templates to build more solid plasticard ones. But here’s one I built straight from the packet a few years ago, as my first 5’ 3” wagon. Plus photo of what a kit looks like, and a plasticard wagon using Roger’s kit as a drawing.

Now those look the business !

In the world of 7mm small suppliers, that is a warp speed change! It’s good to see Roger taking steps in this direction - he’s a great friend to Irish modelling.

They are a huge asset. I have built several of his brass kits and use his coloured card kits as templates for scratchbuilt stock. He’s branched out more into Col Stephens type stuff lately but if Irish modellers keep buying.....

His Irish range used to be bigger and you could effectively build a complete CBSC steam layout off his offerings - complete with the T and C !

My childhood flashes before me.....before those accursed 450 class abominations came along and the Larne line became a glorified tramway.

Alphagraphix, beloved especially by 7mm modellers, now has a developing website ...https://www.alphagraphixkits.co.uk/.

Lovely work. I have one of those tube clamp cutters - very useful.

One for A class fans today. 1959 Radio Train Thurles

And the CIE weed sprayer

Not so far fetched. Andrews of Comber kept going till about 1997 or so I think. And up to 1950 they had a siding on the BCDR main line...

Some lovely GN atmosphere there Patrick

That was the height of modernity. This is a broken down old timey bus .....

I’ve nothing against some green railcars being produced

Yes the days when you could tell a train apart from a bus in Malahide

Well done, those look terrific ! Nice and subtle.

Collectors have their own way of looking at things ...I bet this lady would pay a high price for this set which most of us wouldn’t give house room to. Having sold a lot of my children’s toys on the Bay (with their permission!) I am often amazed at what is considered ‘collectable’. I don’t get it myself, but then some might consider my counting and stamping out individual rivet heads rather odd.....some of us like researching trains, some of us enjoy collecting trains, some of us like running them, and some of us like building them. Some of us will have gone into palpitations because I said ‘train’ and not locomotives/rolling stock/railway infrastructure. And in any one of these scenarios the red mist of excess can descend. Which reminds me, I have planks to count...

Taking shape nicely. That yellow sign is another ‘signature’ that marks it out as a specific location and time. Making me home sick now - haven’t been able to get to Larne for almost 2 year now. Maybe this year...

Not sure - here’s his phone no (UK) 01543 483045 and email atroposltd@aol.com He was scaling back some of his Welsh stuff a few years ago - don’t know what status of his Irish stuff is.

Looking at my copy of the book, David, it appears that the rear part of the vehicle - furthest from the engine - was probably used as the pay office, with staff receiving pay at the rear door. I’d imagine a desk with a lifting counter across the doorway. Probably with racks on either side. A bank in one of the heritage villages such as Cultra or Beamish might give some inspiration as to the style of Victorian cash handling. @jhb171achill may remember banks like this - I know my dad does from his working life. The rear compartment with conventional seating and perhaps a toilet as you say. The safe may have been in either compartment - in such a small vehicle it’s equally vulnerable wherever it goes! Given the amount of interference that went on with the railways 1919-23, I’d be interested to know if it was ever stopped and robbed - it seems a very vulnerable and predictable target with such regular patterns of use. I wonder if they included a Royal Irish Constabulary/Garda Siochana escort - Irish Army more likely than police post 1922 I suppose given their armed status.

Thanks Jim - I think they kept the low building to the right of these two old views ?

Sheer size of the drivers is also an issue - 6’8” !! Even bigger than an 800 class ....although to be quite honest I think stripping off the air pump, adding a smoke box door wheel, flying snail on the tender and lots of weathering, and she would look very passable indeed as a ‘generic’ Irish type 4-4-0.

Nice view of the late Olderfleet hotel too !

Those Robinson WLW locos are beauties. Even the 4-4-2Ts have a real grace.