Galteemore

Lovely. Those Hornby Pecketts are very tempting indeed, and have spawned many layouts. We currently live v close to Dunstable and the sites are familiar to me - I have even exhibited an Irish layout in a hall v close to the factory grounds.

Very nice. Knot of track work on station approach v convincing

Possibly cattle wagons on occasion, Colin. But I’d suggest only if vacuum braked, not loose coupled.

In addition to horse shows (Belfast and Dublin) there were also occasional hunt specials (replicated by Richard Chown on his 7mm empire). Even the SLNC had a horse box…… Pre 1921 there was significant military horse traffic. In fact, a cavalry train was blown up (although the damage looks to be more from the derailment than the explosive charge) on the GN main line in 1921 by the IRA, an incident in which four soldiers and over a dozen horses died, many more being injured.

Great stuff. Old school modelling - love it! Primer is excellent in how it both conceals and reveals - blending parts together but also highlighting things you hadn’t spotted. Looking forward to seeing this one finished - looks promising.

Wonderful stuff. Bears out Sherlock Holmes’s admonition to Watson ‘you see but you do not observe’. This layout is full of real observation, applied and modelled. That abandoned rail, for instance, is spot on. It’s all about subtle tones and subtle transitions. Really good modelling - well done!

I actually remember shipping fish on CIE. In the days before fish farming, my grandfather regularly caught salmon on the River Bonet in Leitrim - valuable fish which were much in demand in the capital. Up until 57 it travelled to Dublin via SLNC- the railcar stopped at Lisgorman to collect, and it was weighed on the scales at Dromahair station to ensure the best weight was recorded. From 57 to c1980 it travelled by road to the railhead, wrapped in sacking and reeds, and was carried in the guards van of the Sligo Mail. I well recall one such trip, racing over the mountain to Sligo to catch the train. I suspect that much fish traffic was of similar nature.

Try @Weshty

That’s most interesting. Real niche you’ve found, which is something we don’t often understand about our hobby, I think….. I used to think modelling was all about buying and running trains - and many people do enjoy that which is great. But for me something was always missing. It finally clicked when I realised that scratch building locos and stock is achievable by ordinary mortals, and that’s what I really enjoy. Taking a drawing and a few photographs and making it ‘live’ again. Thanks for sharing your skills and achievements with us.

Thanks Ernie. I just think it’s where the red paint has faded to a greyish pink. Same effect on the buffer beam. I discovered last week that from 2015-2017 I had been living within 5 miles of one of Lissadell’s plates. Richard Casserley had it on his wall!

Hopefully this is the first post of many, David. Never forget the moment I stumbled on your layout at Beaconsfield show and saw Railcar B, which was a vehicle of myth and legend in my childhood home. It was just staggering to see the photo albums I’d pored over as a child brought to glorious 3D life and colour as large and small tanks went about their business.

Superb, Alan. Well done - if anything, looks even better now.

Cracking images - thanks !

So poignant Patrick - thank you

Left hand drive or right hand drive ….

Camogie

And that’s all that matters - looks fine to me too!

Thanks for the kind comments everyone. She’ll be boxed up now and indeed there will be no more posts for a while. I do have a significant project in hand, but will post when it’s fit to be seen! For now, a last glimpse of Lurganboy on the 7:20. Easy to tell that it’s easy gradients here - she’s burnt little coal since Enniskillen. Kilmakerrill bank’s 1/50 will change that!

Been an interesting week on the old SR. This was at my former local station.

Awesome work on a building I know well. You know the three categories of falsehood? Lies, damned lies, and General Arrangement Drawings!

WARNING - PICTURE HEAVY POST! ‘Abohill Halt’ was conceived as a test track for new locos. So it really needs new locos to be tested…at long last ‘Lurganboy’ is done. It’s been quite the learning journey. As an early version of the kit, it included the very stumpy chimney that was later replaced by a new casting: not much help to me though! So I had to source a new chimney - and Laurie Griffin came up with a very nice GW option which looks close enough. Far more challenging was The Great Rivet Disaster….read on if you dare. I was intrigued to find when I opened the kit that someone had done the original owner a favour by embossing the rivets. I was delighted - SLNC locos are full of them and it would save me a lot of work. Al went well until the primer went on - and the rivets were invisible. Charitable assumption is that thirty odd years of storage in various temperatures had caused the brass to expand and contract so many times that the embossing had faded - critically, on all the tanks and bunker surfaces. This is a huge problem - rivets on an SLNC loco are a defining feature. You may as well leave the chimney off as not have rivets. Mercifully I had some Archers transfers to hand. They’re not perfect by any means but at least there is some surface definition now. Anyway, we’re finished now. I realise that some people like clean engines. But let me make the case for weathering. Look at Lurganboy in clean black and red. She looks nice enough but none of the detail really pops. The underframe and body have little definition. But also look at the overall scene. The loco sits on the scene rather than in it. This is what, I think, happens on many otherwise excellent exhibition layouts. The elements are individually exquisite but don’t gel. Not saying my stuff is exquisite btw! So we weather to knock back the rawness, make the details stand out, and make the scene blend together. The underframe has had a scunge of enamels mixed on, stippled with talcum powder to give that greasy, dirt encrusted melange of a loco chassis. Above the frames it’s all just weathering powders. Black and dark brown from above, where the soot falls. Greyish brown dust from below where dirt rises. Go slowly and work from photographs. The patterns here are all taken from 1950s colour snaps of SLNC locos. Glazing, real coal, and crew added to complete the picture. And yes, it does actually run! https://youtu.be/9H5RIh9Uoc8 (oops don’t think track is quite as clean as I thought…..she runs sweet as a nut on the bench)

Thanks JHB. Is an LSWR royal saloon (Alphagraphix kit) now sold on to a purchaser in SE England. Lovely little kit with compensated chassis, which I finished in a fictional light railway livery. The chariot ends were a challenge…..The real life one is here ;https://colonelstephenssociety.co.uk/rollingstock topics/royal saloon.html

I’ve used Rover damask red for that kind of thing. Any solid maroon should work ok. Make sure you use red primer. I think Halfords may call it ‘nightfire red’ now.

The CIE experts will be along in a minute. As for NIR, 24’ flats were produced in 1972 out of old parcel vans (‘brown vans’ I assume), nos 599-608. 15 tons capacity. 610-612, 60’, were made in 1974 out of redundant passenger coaches. 30 tons capacity. Building credit in both cases is listed as LMSR/NIR.

Lovely. I’m after the Ruby myself for a project.