Galteemore

Yes. If a Belfast factory was making linen sheets to be sold in Limerick, it’s more than likely that a Belfast railway company’s wagon would be used. Old photographs of UK railways certainly show lone wagons ending up hundreds of miles away from home.

Lots of variety, Mark. Look at SLNC trains in the 50s and you’ll see GN and CIE wagons freely mixed in with the home stock. WLWR and GSWR would have been common in your chosen area, DSER probably less so. But you could have had GN and BNCR wagons heading south to Limerick, for instance.

The cutting would make an ideal scenic break too. As David says, a good short term project. Also a good way of trialling scenic and other techniques - that ground cover is DAS clay territory. In a small space you could really go to town on the scenic detailing. Wouldn’t require masses of stock either. Ideal for a 21mm starter project in many ways - convert a 141 or new A class, and build a few H vans. Although I’d probably get Marcway to do that three way point for me !

Oh we have a smorgasbord of such suppliers in 7mm, JHB! Alphagraphix has an email address so is quite cutting edge by comparison with some ! His catalogue is £2 but you get £1 off your first order. JHB is right about the liveries but perhaps a display stand full of GSR grey might not be so appealing.... It’s all part of the charm .

No dramas Mark. I’m a 36.75 modeller myself and have had a turnout made by Marcway. New Irish Lines is brilliant and the editor Alan O’Rourke is a very helpful bloke. He has already given me a lot of tips! You won’t find much about Alphagraphix online - it’s mail order mostly and a few shows. Here’s a list of their card kits for 7mm -easily scaled down to 4mm..... David

1. This is useful https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=irrs+mgwr+pictures&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi5ytyWjfXoAhVHXhUIHUoQCsQQ_AUoAXoECAwQAQ&biw=375&bih=553&dpr=2#imgrc=UXCO1gXLMirpRM 2. The MGWR drawings from the IRRS are good. I used them to build this. Not the best model but one of my first scratch builds. 4. Alphagraphix have some good MGWR models in card which make good coloured drawings for scratch builds.

Here’s some from my dad’s collection. Think this is at Collooney post closure. One is more of a drovers van.

Brilliant David ! Fantastic to see the Sligo Leitrim stock out again.

Nice work, Angus!

Have you got O’Rourke and Johnson’s book, MM? Great pics of Moate on p.40. Cheap as chips secondhand btw. https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781857801859/Modelling-Irish-Railways-Johnson-Stephen-1857801857/plp

Really sorry to hear this. Prayers and sympathy for his family at this dreadful time.

Old railway companies used to paint their locos grey for a workshop portrait which showed off the detail. A similar process with Halfords’ Grey shows the mistakes ! Lots of the 3 Fs ahead - filling, filing, and futering....

Reminds me a little of the altered GW ‘Toads’ used for PW work, where a verandah was similarly boxed in.

After another soldering session today, fixing a few bits that had made a bid for freedom, and adding some details from various photos of the real No 42 (such as extra pipe on fireman’s side and some odd lifting loops on the tanks) the F6 had a thorough rub over with scrapers to get off the excess solder, followed by a number of washes. She won’t be brass for long.....waft of primer tomorrow will reveal additional areas for filler on top of those I can already see! I managed to knock off the white metal whistle - which is in a rather vulnerable spot anyway. Replaced with a Laurie Griffin brass one.

Iconic piece of Irish railway infra. Nice work

Fair enough! I meant commercialised in its broadest sense, and the outcome would depend on who was running it! What I essentially meant was that the mere prospect of Dick running up and down between the metropolis of Fintonagh and the contiguous attraction of the junction is unlikely to stir the soul for many. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon it ain’t. So the only way such an attraction would survive in that location would be as part of a wider ‘interpretive centre’ or ‘experience’. The aesthetic sparseness of the original being compromised by the clutter of cafes and market stalls. Having spent much of my early life fundraising for the RPSI, I am keenly aware that main line steam in Ireland is kept running by flogging cuddly toys, raffle tickets, and other ‘gizzits’ on board a slick series of money-spinning Santa/Easter trains, with support from other commercial inputs such as the London ‘syndicate’. It could not be otherwise. What I am also thinking of is the Giants Causeway scenario, where the original bucolic charm has (necessarily?) been overtaken by something very different. And did the Blennerville experience really replicate the charm of two grey tanks battling through to Dingle trailing a caravan of dereliction behind them? To revisit the original scenario, as an astute traveller to our land observed 250 years ago, ‘nothing lasts long in Ireland except the miles’. The tram would eventually have been replaced by some fibreglass monstrosity on an agriculturally welded angle iron chassis pulled by a tractor painted brown. With ‘Dick’ written on the bonnet.

Edited reply below!

Unfortunately, I think it would have been over-commercialised and sentimentalised. Think Disney World. The tram did run again - once. When the Belfast Transport museum was opened - initially at Queens Quay, a horse was requisitioned from Harkness hauliers to jog the assembled dignitaries down the yard. The Lord Mayor took the reins at one point !

West of the Bann. A world apart. One that I have always found more congenial than the east of my youth!

So I understand. And not only that - ‘Dick’ was a mare!

83!! Worth a soaking. He was still driving when I went to school, and I saw some others of that class, like Davie McDonald, but driving an 80 class was a bit of comedown for them with not a lot of scope for virtuosity. Sorry to hear about 10. Didn’t the real one have a hole in the cab floor by the end?

This layout is terrific. It’s got that elusive thing we are all after when we model - ‘atmosphere’. That was clear when you put up those initial pics without trains in them - always the acid test of a layout!

That’s lovely, Leslie. More Harry Ramsey’s driving style than Dan McAtamney!

Looks an indeterminate shade of disgraceful grot - ie just right!

You’ve been busy, David!! That’s a useful tip on the turnouts.