Galteemore

Kernow Models do an LSW road van RTR which isn’t a million miles off…

I believe that some former pupils at the school have put together a little song inspired by those seeking a parking space….’I still haven’t found what I’m looking for’…..

The movie features in the Railway Movie Database, which says this….The film is supposedly set in rural Ireland but was actually filmed entirely in England and there are a number of railway scenes which were shot at Braughing (pronounced ‘Braefin’) station on the Buntingford branch from St. Margarets in Hertfordshire. To continue the Irish flavour the station appears as ‘Rathbarney’ and has mock CIE station signage. The first scene shows a four-coach train of non-corridor 3rd class stock leaving the station and though we do not see the locomotive, the coaches have fake CIE emblems applied. This shot is followed by a scene filmed adjacent to the goods yard with plenty of wagons visible, most of which appear to be four-wheel vans. There is then an arrival of a train hauled by ex-LNER J15 Class 0-6-0 No.65464 and a final general view of the station, again with train, which is seen later on in the movie. The loco was given a fresh coat of BR black by Stratford paint shops for the film and had the CIE emblem applied on one side only. It was worked during filming by a Stratford crew but when not required it worked normal BR services, complete with the CIE badge. The coaching stock meanwhile was stored at St Margarets for a fortnight before filming when it was repainted CIE green on one side only. It had ‘1st class’, ‘3rd class’ and ‘no smoking’ stickers added, in addition to the CIE logos. When not in use for filming, the coaches were stored in the long siding at Braughing, but there is photographic evidence of at least one (No.3280) in storage at Peterborough with CIE ‘snail’ logo in June 1955. This suggests that the set no longer saw any use after filming. The station along with the Buntingford branch was a popular location used in a number of other films, most notably Operation Bullshine and Postman’s Knock (both qv). it’s a fascinating story. And by simply adding a decal to a Hornby J15, you could produce one of the most authentic, prototypical ‘Irish’ locos ever……

An S class would be the easiest of the options to make 21mm-friendly….

According to ‘Irish Imdustrial and Contractors Locos’ it was an 0-4-0 vertical boiler type, in operation c 1885-95

Always worth a punt to see if he can use his authority to speed up delivery of those Rails 6w coaches…

The words of Jim McGeown on his 7mm scale generic coach kits always bear reading….. Although based on prototypes the concept of these coach kits is that they are very generic and represent typical coaches that were built by all the railway companies. http://www.jimmcgeown.com/images/6 Wheel Brass Coach Photo.jpg http://www.jimmcgeown.com/images/LNER Coach Side 2.jpg http://www.jimmcgeown.com/images/GWR Coach Side 2.jpg http://www.jimmcgeown.com/images/LMS Coach Side 2.jpg http://www.jimmcgeown.com/images/SR Coach Side 2.jpg These kits have been designed to provide the modeller with an economical coach that can be built in a reasonable weekend modelling session to a level of detail suitable for running on a layout. The modeller can then paint the coach in their chosen railways livery. By painting and lettering in say LNER brown livery a set of these coaches will capture the look and feel of a typical LNER rural branch line train made up of inherited pre grouping coaches. Your friends will probably make comments like "I see that you have modeled the coaches used on the Campbellwick Green branch in October 1936". You can then nod sagely and secretly smile to yourself knowing that the most distinguishing thing about coaches is their colour and lettering. Painted chocolate and cream they have the look of some of the South Wales railway companies coaches that were absorbed by the Great western and painted LMS maroon a Midland appearance and so on. The possibilities for these coaches is only limited by your imagination.

Yes, let’s draw a veil over it

But in an orderly queue

You want the Sisters of Plenitude!

Poor Clare - you left her out!

I always get her mixed up with her distant cousin Fran Ciscan.

What a delightfully elegant solution. Which would - mind cogs turning furiously - work just as well in 5.5mm scale where RTR 00 chassis are often used …..

Fabulous pic of No 37 showing how a monochrome loco weathers. Look at all those shades of grunge….

Make contact perhaps via Phil Parker who knows John Campbell. Phil has a blog -searching for something like ‘Phil’s Workbench’ will find it. From my own days as a 16mm modeller, I recall that his speciality is coal fired live steam. A basic off the shelf generic 0-6-0 live steam loco from a factory outfit like Roundhouse will cost around £1500. A hand built T and D steam loco by a master builder is probably heading towards or above 5 figures tbh. 16mm Irish locos are not common, largely because the prototypes were quite big units. Archangel used to do a Cavan and Leitrim 4-4-0T IIRC. Accucraft had launched plans for the same loco c2019 but I am not sure that production actually occurred.

One of my college lecturers said you could judge the literacy rate of a society by how far the graffiti was off the ground….. There’s some fascinating examples of 1950s graffiti in Keith Pirt’s Irish colour photos - including ‘God save Egypt’ chalked on an RT tank at Adelaide during the 1956 Suez crisis….

Interesting to see that it was not always thus. Pictures of Manorhamilton 2 years post closure show the yard full of carriages with every window intact. One wonders, without venturing into simplistic truisms, just how that could happen. After all, it’s not as if the youths of late 50s Leitrim had much to entertain them.

My kids had this - although mostly the plastic Thomas stuff, which we used to make massive systems. Something must have rubbed off - Galteemore Jnr is now a management apprentice with Transport for London….My own weapon if choice as a youngster was Dublo 3-rail, which was a robust and rather fun way to build fairly large systems fairly easily, albeit with an emphasis on operation rather than scenic fidelity!

UTA green is darker than CIE.

Yes. It wasn’t especially well lit. In reality it’s a nice mid green.

TS Hill Books in Dorking have a copy - see ABE Books

Here’s one I did years ago. Rover Brooklands Green aerosol. Sold on to another modeller, for whom I returned it to MGWR russet brown!!

Have a look at raylo.co.uk for more of this kind of thing