NIR

I notice lots of goods engines are 0-6-0 while passenger or mixed engines have a pony truck so are 0-4-2, 2-4-0 or whatever. What is the general reason for this, pulling power versus ride?

1 hour ago, Dhu Varren said:

Here is a picture of the whole of both gantries. 

There are no starter signals for the centre roads, as they are not running lines and are only used for shunting moves.

 

Just about worked out what the right-hand gantry is doing, the left-hand gantry looks like more complex trackwork over there. The home gantry in the distance looks much simpler.

6 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

Look at that signal gantry!

Those outline ones, wrongway shunt?

No starting signal on centre road?

1 hour ago, Angus said:

I'm not sure it works as I've compressed the eastern end to fit in a six foot length, the station is also a bit short. I've noticed compression seems to work the bigger the scale, 2mm scale really needs to reflect the real scale distance more. 

Thinking about it the ultimate in compression is 1:1. Look at any lineside photo, perspective compresses the track layout massively. Scale seems to impose a viewpoint, from distant to immediate. I expect the level of detail and the viewpoint need to align too.

2 hours ago, Old Blarney said:

I looked through "youtube", but cannot find anything there on our Sultzer locomotives. Lots of still images on various sites. Somewhere at the back-of-my-mind there is an image of a 101 travelling between Waterford and Dungarvan. I'll continue my hunt for moving images. 

Think that was posted on here around three months ago.

14 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

2.  DSER suburban, 1939. Where? Killiney?

Think so, there's that obelisk on the hill

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killiney_Hill

...never heard of Obelisk Hill railway station though.

1 hour ago, jhb171achill said:

I am intrigued as to why the "flying snails" are the wrong way round...........

Maybe everyone was struggling with the idea of something powered yet not having a front end and a back end. Did those Drumm battery electrics ever have a flying snail?

Wasn't there a LNWR station somewhere around North Wall?

12 hours ago, Patrick Davey said:

Cloghan Point spoil contract indeed it was:

https://www.geograph.ie/photo/3505762

I wonder are there any photos of the siding at Cloghan Point, nothing there now.

NIR was a once a year thing for me and the Larne line was always a bit confusing. Ballylumford Power Station seemed to move paradoxically in the landscape and Larne Lough narrowed to become Belfast Lough?! Lots of little halts with names like Glynn and Eden, then one year everything went industrial with overhead pipes, a jetty and a siding. A great little journey, underrated for sure.

6 hours ago, airfixfan said:

Yes they look similar to coaches 238 and 241 preserved by the RPSI. 50 years since the end of the spoil trains today even though one book said May 3rd!

Still, we have the second spoil contract to look forward to. I remember passing a spoil train in a siding at Kilroot mid-70s, there seemed to be a conveyor belt heading out to a new jetty being built.

9 minutes ago, airfixfan said:

80 built at York Road in 1925. Looks like the Larne line from what little detail we have.

Are those suburban carriages the ones known as 'Larne steelers'?

12 minutes ago, Broithe said:

Might be this..?

Killiney - Dalkey?

On Alexandra Road, Dublin Port

400 feet long

Timesaver with 'piano line' exit from upper turnout, no kickback so no loop required... maybe reverse lower turnout to a kickback and mimic a loop offscene to the right using a traverser

Compound off Alexandra Road, Dublin Port

400 feet long

Inglenook with sector plate entry and 'piano line' exit, allows working through to some other facility

Reminds me of this Bernard Manning one

A man says to his wife, pack your bags I've won the Pools

Oooh, where are we going?

Nowhere, pack your bags and f*** off

Between Downhill and Castlerock tunnel portals

400 feet long

Pointless, but you get the rare chance to model a somersault distant signal

That's one good-looking locomotive. Seems like the whole Balkans is plagued with that crappy graffiti though.

Hmmm... can anyone else see a 'flying snail' on that NSB loco?

30 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

I wonder does anyone know where the above "larger-121-class" actually operated? It would be interesting to know if any still exist, maybe shunting in some industrial complex in the USA?

Will be some standard GM switcher they can put whatever body you want onto.

The GL8, an export model

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_GL8

Taiwan, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Ireland, Brazil, so on four continents but the one in the photo might just be a sales prototype.

I had some involvement with GM/EMD and the spiel was they arrived by sea with a full tank and could pull a train away from the docks the same day!

On 4/24/2020 at 8:53 PM, David Holman said:

 

The parallelogram loop (offset exits, equal sides) really does add flow to a layout, where the more prototypical trapezium loop (inline exits, unequal sides) would look much too compressed.

So alongside the principle that offset mitigates linear compression (eg: Minories) maybe we should add that a loop only looks as good as its shortest side?

Maybe a scenic break on a diagonal to obscure the view from the front into the fiddle yard

\     |

    ^

It doesn't really need explaining as anything 'on layout'. Think of it as something in the viewer's immediate foreground, the corner of a building, a treetrunk, fencepost, or even the edge of his own pupil.

On 4/23/2020 at 12:19 PM, jhb171achill said:

That about sums it up, NIR, more concisely that I have! Yes, exactly. On such vehicles, whichever side you looked at, it was always pointing forward.

If that was the underlying policy it also explains why snails may have been improperly reversed on some railcars, single driving ends could very easily have been assumed to have a single direction of travel.

Is it fair to say the reversed snail only appeared on vehicles that had a single direction of travel*, ie: where the snail could be made to point in the same forward direction on each side by changing it's handedness.

* except, maybe, some railcars as noted

I love this forum!

Yep, before I knew where it was... I knew where it was.

I like rationalised track layouts, not the brutal remodellings but the gentler renewals that leave subtle hints of a former layout.

Abrupt transitions

Straightlined turnouts (x2)

Undulating loops

Resignalled with ground position lights and stop boards these remnants add character and history to an otherwise dreary network.

Spindly, wonky, unexplained... as characteristic of its time as the diamond crossing or the goods loop and something we should capture while we still can.

Any more? The no headshunt, the widely-splayed stub, the fan of one sidings...