NIR

That's a really good 'ecosystem' you have there.

I just wish someone would discover a job lot of baby GMs in some obscure place, the only GMs I care for.

Doesn't play in my region, but I have a good imagination!

Crinken church, now that rings a bell, if you know a Joyce S say hello from me.

Thinking about it I remember going back through Collooney, in particular seeing the flowerbed with 'Collooney' in white stones once again, but not past Lough Owel which had left such an impression on me on the outward journey - so blue! - so maybe we really were diverted over the 'Burma Road'! This would have been on a Saturday as we always arrived in England Sunday morning ready for my Father to start work on Monday, so that fits with weekend engineering work. It seems I am truly blessed with Irish railway memories!

I'm not into steam but those WTs really look 'fully evolved' to me.

For me any more than a slight curve before the track goes offscene and the effect is lost as it immediately suggests an O or an L of track, so don't overextend the landscape.

I like that 'bit of a station' exit right, effectively making the fiddle yard into a station, and looking very Irish too.

Looks a lot like the Manning Wardle locos of the ironstone railways of Northamptonshire so maybe there is a kit out there.

Wikipedia tells me there was a mansion called Rocksavage in Cheshire, England that came into the possession of the Earls of Barrymore, who were from Carrigtohill, Cork...

I'm guessing mainline terminals had more unbalanced working than branchline terminals, a tidal flow, so the need for inward workings to be got rid of somewhere, therefore centre roads instead of runrounds, the characteristic trackplan.

It's the parallelogram of track I see in a few places on the Fry layout that seems to appear (later on) in Minories. Minories is said to be inspired by Bishopsgate Metropolitan line station in London but I don't see it myself, maybe the inspiration was the Fry layout?

Cypana Junction looks a bit continental to me. I can also see the essence of Minories in a few places, twin opposing crossovers on a curve, this was before Minories wasn't it?

I think Sligo's two platforms were an arrivals platform and a departures platform, the platform on the left when arriving and the platform on the left (the other one) when departing, so the arriving coaches were pulled out and set back into the other platform.

I remember watching trains being formed up within Heuston - propel in, attach, shove, detach, pull away, propel in, attach, shove, detach, pull away - the new set extending one coach at a time towards the buffers past a shunter defying death as everything bounced backwards and forwards. This would have been a Sunday afternoon in 2001 so maybe splitting and reforming Gaa specials, something like that.

Bricks and mortar, a physical shop, is not working out even for established businesses at this time and Waterford is a very small place. I live in a conurbation and can't think of even one railway model shop within it.

About the right length for an umbrella or walking stick?

You can true up levels, angles and joins in resin by immersing in hot water then remove and apply a little pressure until it cools.

Let's not cringe and forget the 'gift' they've already given us.

Is that an NCC open wagon chassis? Oversize and butted up, out of use?

Bus wire is thicker because electricity flows through it to/from lots of droppers. So dropper wire can be thinner and cheaper than bus wire but it doesn't have to be.

Great pic of that weird bogie. Coil secondary springs like the B5 but maybe set more laterally, like the dampers, to help with tracking/ride?

In the back of my mind there lurks a layout set on the Carndonagh extension. It had a ghost train apparently, after closure...

Now that's a proper junction!

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine Quick, I hear some of this stuff can still be found in Sainsburys...