Galteemore

Fair point Noel - we can forget how bad the roads were pre EEC days. In terms of comfort, 60 years after closure Google Earth still clearly shows the train set radius curves on the SLNC trackbed where it borders my cousins’ land in Leitrim...reading a guard’s memoirs suggests a loose-coupled cattle special could be an uncomfortable journey all round for man and beast. There are some interesting photos on Ernie’s site right now showing cattle trucks (obviously vac braked) working through to Omagh from Enniskillen on the back of passenger trains. That definitely would have been more comfortable than SLNC metals or Fermanagh roads! To keep on topic, these brake vans are an iconic feature of Irish railway life. I have recently purchased drawings to make a 7mm one of an earlier genre. You can get a fair amount of 50s wagon stock card kits in 7mm but brake vans are a huge gap. I scratch built an MGW one as one of my first 36.75mm projects, but the next one will hopefully be improved !!

Thinking about a cow being subjected to 60mph in one of those cattle vans is enough to make you turn vegan.... I was three months old when that photo was taken - wish I’d been paying more attention in those days!

Cheers Leslie! Blade slap and a 37 - what a treat !

Nice subtle work. Any tips on how you did it please ??

Welcome! Lots of good advice here - just browse the threads here. Sounds a great project. Good place to start are books - have you got any on the CBSC? Some books will have station building drawings - these can help you make a start on scratchbuilding. John Ahern’s modelling books still help here although rather old now. BTW, the Historical Model Railway Society have a most helpful Irish expert in Alan O’Rourke;https://hmrs.org.uk/stewards/irish-bg/ He helped me with my build of an F6, a class very common in your chosen area...

My aged parent was also travelling that day in Jul 63. His train, he told me this afternoon, was a WT with a rake of slab-sided NCC 6 wheelers....

Two steps forward. And three back. And that’s just the settings on the rivet machine. Have spent hours embossing rivets on tank sides only to find they are too widely spaced .....you can see the difference between versions below. The better version has more closely packed rivets. Not to worry though - it’s been a huge learning experience and I also now have lots of spare riveted panels to practice weathering on.....

Lol my dad is at similar mental gyrations!! Ideally we need the WTT and weekly operating circular....

Lovely! Proper turf as I remember it in Leitrim....none of that BnM briquette stuff. I can see a few lumps nicely poised ready to fall into a signalman’s stove....

Put your feet up on this wet Sunday and explore Ernie’s 56 album. What an absolute treat. Look what this morning turned up...https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/albums/72157715532510616/page2 One of @leslie10646’s bread containers at Bundoran Junction.....and there is much more! Cheers, Ernie .

Like the ballast, especially, Robert. The sidings at York Road were full of interesting things in the 80s and that’s one I well recall...

Yes, not familiar to me. May have been an interim measure before going through the paint shop (Duncrue St?).

I asked my source, whose railway journeys really began around the time of this photo (he got to Killybegs and Kilrea that year). This is his text reply as received: Quite common in early post 58 days but after wasp stripes they disappeared more common pre repainting in uta colours by which time their crest transport is civilisation appeared on side panels only

Ernie - loving your 1956 shots. Had a very pleasant discussion session with my dad reconstructing the snapper’s afternoon in Co Cavan and Monaghan. Thanks to his amazing caption details, which are time specific, we can work out how he travelled into Belturbet by NG, up to Clones for a busy hour of traffic, and on to Enniskillen in time to see the SLNC 7:20 ready to go. He could presumably have then travelled on it. But no, yer man sleeps in EKN overnight and then goes to Omagh in the morning! Great album - can’t wait to see the rest! Thanks Ernie

Looks fantastic, David. Is the ‘tumblehome’ moulded in as part of the process or do you have to bend it in when assembling the sides on to the central box structure ?

Here’s the one in the RPSI collection, David ....https://www.steamtrainsireland.com/rpsi-collection/19/602-shell-oil-tank It’s not a million miles off yours ...

Depends how fussy or prototypically minded you are, according to how you look at modelling! They are not especially ‘Irish’ but some of the 6 wheelers would pass the 2’ rule if painted properly.

Poles apart from my modelling interest ....

Nice little layout -a good basis for making a small scenic setting with some operation.

Funny how taste goes. The millionaire racing driver Captain Howey, who built and owned the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, visited Barnstaple when the disposal auction for the L and B was taking place. As his biographer noted, he was probably the only person there who could have purchased the whole lot outright. However, he looked at the locos and dismissed them as ‘dreadful things with long funnels’ and walked away.....

Here’s a hint of an answer, David. From an earlier post by Angus, linked to Mike Morant’s photo site.....

Well quite. I well remember seeing 186 when it was first repainted like that. It just looked wrong, and yet it was actually quite accurate....

Don’t even need an airbrush to start. Can do a lot with powders and MIG oilbrushers too....sorry - some repetition here : Noel was writing as I was thinking !

And IIRC it’s one of those that still sits on an RPSI siding, still in that livery. Would be a nice project in plasticard.

When I spent some time in the late 90s immersed in the English PRO at Kew, it really was blokes in green smock coats who brought you the files....