Galteemore

Awesome work Tony. Very like the pics I have seen of the real thing. Can just hear an SG shunting off stage.....

What an absolute gem! Wonderful clarity of colour - and oozes atmosphere. Oil burning loco too...

Fantastic work Patrick. Speaking as a Co Antrim native it looks highly realistic!

Looks good Patrick - convincing scene. Did the other two nuns just get fed up waiting and catch the bus?

Eighty years on, Bredin would be proud!

Yes I’ve seen that on early locos. Must have caused a few injuries

Absolutely gorgeous loco. Shades of Liverpool and Manchester ‘Lion’

Thanks Patrick. It’s Dromahair on the SLNC. I’m hoping to finish it within the week but here’s a window for now....

Thanks Patrick. Those family connections are special. I’m just finishing off a model right now of the station where my grandfather’s freshly caught salmon were weighed before despatch to Dublin. I even found a 7mm model of the scales!! (The weighing scales, not the fish scales )

Think we all need a glass of Benedictine...this thread is well and truly derailed!

It’s turning into an un-convent-ional thread...

Ah but where’s the third nun gone?! Did she get off in Strabane?

That’s terrific, Patrick. I love the way that the nuns are placed - looks as if they are all watching the approaching train ....

As another thread on this forum points out, it really takes the Irish preservation scene to reduce a loco to that state! In all seriousness, it doesn’t take long for an unmaintained loco to get that way. Here’s dear old Lissadell, courtesy of Ernie’s Irish railway pics on Flickr...

Here’s another GNR loco - if much less rare. It’s one of those magazine type collectables but actually looks not badly done - if a little pricey! Dundalk scrap line c1960! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/N-GAUGE-scrapyard-4-4-0-loco-and-tender-heavily-rusted-and-weathered/303273080950?hash=item469c7bf876:g:f5UAAOSwEGhdb8XQ

Great stuff Patrick - nicely atmospheric. I do like dioramas and as a native of Co Antrim I always liked the NCC 3’ stuff.

Hence the bus at stage left! Glad to see you’re not leaving any prospective passengers stuck...

Wonderful ! Not difficult to envisage a little 2-4-2T coming through ....

Now that is clever!

None of my business, of course, Patrick, but that seems a shame. Would a Parkside Dundas kit be a cheaper way of doing it? Or bodge one up from thin plasticard?

Totally agree. It’s good for people to see a layout under way and in terms of local interest it’s hard to beat!

Sad but entirely believable. Any heritage line requires the golden triangle of cash, crew and crowds to keep it going - a sustainable money flow, staff/volunteers, and paying punters. Some of the Irish schemes seem to start off with a burst of public money but are unsustainable after that. The RPSI seems to thrive on a few tightly packed seasons of fully loaded trains, especially in the Dublin area - having many years ago ruled out the viability of a branch line type operation on the mainland UK style. Downpatrick have made it work but I suspect Ireland simply cannot support too many such schemes with the population base it has. There are some signs that even the UK preserved sector is struggling in places. And as the folk memory of railways in public life invariably dies off, there will arguably be fewer people ready to commit themselves to recreate a railway atmosphere they don’t actually remember.... From my own highly unscientific observations, the lion’s share of labour on heritage lines here in the UK is provided by healthy retirees in their 60s and 70s, who can give their time and energy to trains because their mortgages are paid off and the pension is rolling in. That pool of labour may not exist in such quantity in the years ahead :economists have shown that the current working generation in the western world now is the first generation in a long time to be worse off than their parents..and will not be able to retire at 55/60...

Who needs Schroedinger’s cat?! This is an even better problem. If the last train hasn’t run, does that mean that the line is technically still open ?

Or as the station staff at Buggleskelly on the Southern Railway of Northern Ireland used to say.....

Lovely work and will blend in nicely with the existing mise en scene.