Galteemore

Lovely work as ever Eoin. Nice to see white metal being affixed with solder and not 5 minute epoxy!

Worth talking to the Historical Model Railway Society. They have a very helpful Irish adviser, Dr Alan O’Rourke.https://hmrs.org.uk/msc

Thanks - as I say these are early efforts and I can spot the flaws! The Open wagon is an easy start - drawings are in Ernie Shepherd’s MGWR book.

He doesn’t make many MGWR wagons - just a card kit of a van or two. They are about £3 but that just gives you a basic body - no wheels etc. My first two attempts at building wagons were MGWR - scratchbuilt from drawings. If I can do it anyone can!

Not sure what you mean, MM- is that what you want to try building? 32mm is standard O gauge and that you can buy off the shelf. It represents standard UK gauge of 4’8.5” and many Irish modellers use it for convenience. Now you can go the whole hog and build your stuff to 36.75mm gauge - which is of course scale 5’3”. Perfectly doable but you will have to make your own track. Points can be supplied by Marcway in Sheffield. Saying that, the 2-2-2T is not straightforward to build to 36.75 gauge as it uses a rather odd single driving wheel. Slaters (the O gauge wheel people) don’t make that special tapered single driving axle in 36.75 gauge (which they can supply for ordinary standard driving axles). You’d have to turn up a new axle yourself or get an engineer to (that’s what I did). I’d pick one of Roger’s small tank locos as a first build instead, if I was starting again in 36.75 - the axles are much easier to get hold of!

It’s a nice little kit - are more pics on my thread of my build. As JHB says, they were a very early MGWR type and all the 2-2-2Ts had finally gone by 1905 - but had long been sidelined to minor work and only lasted as stationary boilers by the end. I cheated and pretended that mine lasted until the 50s and got a smart coat of black! Also included a pic of a sample one on Roger’s stand - in proper green! And a pic of what they looked like when delivered - this is one left in Brazil....

Looks good to me!

The book is available here Jack for £15 all in, which is pretty good. It also includes a few drawings so you can build your own wagons etc. It’s a good resource for such a serious project - and costs less than a Hornby wagon! https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&cm_sp=SearchF-_-home-_-Results&an=Shepherd+&tn=Midland+great+western+&kn=&isbn=

Jack : see Midland Man’s thread here for info. Ernie Shepherd’s book on the MGWR has a station drawing https://irishrailwaymodeller.com/topic/8420-mgwr-formations-and-liverys/?tab=comments#comment-130393

Leslie, I think it’s Carrickfergus , given the two sheds. The left hand one has smoke vents indicating a loco shed, and that would fit. See attached pic from RPSI website. Could occasion be the lifting of the harbour branch? I also thought of Ballymena but I think that was a brick shed.

A friar if you want to be precise! The brown habit would denote a member of the Order of Friars Minor, popularly known as Franciscans. Monks tend to be fairly fixed creatures whereas Friars tend to wander about...

And that was south Leitrim. North Leitrim is another story again!! Michael Hamilton tells a fantastic story of an SLNC guard on a break between turns at Enniskillen (Fermanagh, I know, but the SLNC was really a Leitrim railway ) on 12 July or similar occasion. He ended up getting rather gregarious in the refreshment room with some of the brethren, culminating in him parading through the town banging a drum. Another guard had to be found for the return goods..,.

Another good option for Swilly modelling would be 15mm scale in the garden - a suitably wild garden naturally, strewn with rocks and heather! In that scale one could even contemplate a coal-fired tender engine....

Alan Gee’s ‘Burtonport’?

A pleasing knot of trackwork in lower pic. Shaping up nicely

As opposed to a trunk route. To keep vaguely on topic, the bridge that crossed the Bann near Macfin can still be glimpsed in the depths of the river on clear days, according to friends who farm adjacent land. I think part or all of the girder structure was simply dropped in the Bann when the line was lifted !! On a similarly riparian topic, one of my favourite sights on the trip to grandparents in Leitrim was the blown up SLNC border bridge at Blacklion. Probably the most substantial piece of SLNC engineering infra left for us to see! Pics courtesy Facebook , Canoe NI and Thomson Reuters.

Thanks Mayner - not being a 4mm modeller I took a stab in the dark at code 80!

Closely related to the U class ‘Lough Neigh’!

Great stuff. Rail is dead easy - it’s old Peco code 100. Sleepers from Marcway. Scale Seven Society do 36.75mm gauges. If you don’t fancy the 5’3 thing, it’s dead easy to get track gauges for standard 32mm

Indeed there was. Shannonvale Mill in Clonakilty..... http://homepage.eircom.net/~decmac/images/millhorse.jpg

I’m an arts grad meself I had to get my gauges made for 36.75mm but 00 gauge ones should be easy enough to find. You will find that hand built track has a much finer look irrespective of scale. Here’s a link to the rail and gauges https://peco-uk.com/products/code-80-flat-bottom-rail Marcway will do sleepers. http://marcway.net/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_profile Prototype info above. As for modelling it, making your own FB track is as easy as anything with Code 80 rail or similar, and copper sleepers. An hour with a soldering iron and you’ll have loads ! As long as you paint and ballast properly it’ll be fine to have the two types together. But if it’s a lightly laid beet line, don’t ballast it like a main line! Here’s some I made earlier...

Yes, they have lots of advantages. Low cost, easily stored, can be finished in a reasonable time, and don’t need much stock. Not much use if you want to see an A4 at speed with 8 bogies, but sometimes one has to compromise ! Carl Arendt’s site was always a joy - not so easy to navigate as the site has gone through changes since his death, but here’s a reasonable link: https://www.carendt.com/category/micro-layout-design-gallery/

Light railway and industrial modelling has really taken off in the UK - certainly in 7mm. This fits in with that. Small trains which mean one can have a layout in a small space but with some quirky variety. This is like the Model Rail Sentinel which came out a few years ago - which similarly included a bonus Irish spin-off!

Yes but if he had bog rolls in the hold the shareholders would be set for life! Better than cheap tin trays....