Irishswissernie

I think it was Peco flexible Hom 12mm gauge. Somewhere I have a video of another Swiss loft layout which was both standard and metre gauge with a large viaduct. If I can find it I'll put that on as well. FOUND IT. The layout didn't progress much past the testing phase as it was extremely hard to get under the baseboards to the operating well. Later in 1999 it gave way to the Sligo & Donegal Junction. The video is 4:3 but this site can't cope with that so Double CLICK on the image to play it at the correct aspect Ernie

Mrs B is going through the photo albums and came across some views of other layouts which have existed for a time up in the loft. These are of a Swiss HOm layout based on an imaginary line from St Moritz to Chiavenna in Italy using Berninabahn stock. Over the years as well as Irish , Great Western, Highland, Glasgow & South Western, North Eastern I built some 5 Swiss layouts and N HO and O scale US layouts. There were probably others best forgotten! I think my daughter Lynne probably took these ones as she helped with painting the scenery.

Checked on Amazon and they have several page illustrations of the contents. There doesn't appear to be anything of railway interest/content/history and the book appears to be illustrated with woodcuts rather than photos. Ernie

All sold unfortunately as we went on to another project which was funded by then proceeds. Two more illegal photos have come to light with Alan playing with a Kitson-Meyer he had constructed. This also has the station buildings lying in the river so must have been in the early days

My wife Annie has been going through her old photos of the grandbairns and came across these of the deceased Sligo & Donegal Junction she must have taken on a clandestine visit to the loft Crappy camera! I don't remember building a West Clare 6 wheel saloon! Probably one of my son Alan's.

I took 30+ photos of Muine Bheag / Bagenalstown in October 2000. They are in this album ont flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/albums/72157629979572526 Might be of some help or might not! Ernie

Got sidetracked today, competition on the way - not long now hopefully. While I think on something for the 1990's - 2005 for IRM to consider! We need Guinness Fork Lift Trucks with the keg cage attachment and Guinness lorries for deliveries. Cement lorries etc

No I don't think so . On page 79 Bunch states the 11 coaches are at the platform , he doesn't say at the platforms , further the photos show coaches only at one platform face. I have also measured the part of the station on the map which conveniently has the scale reproduced just underneath it. This part alone works out at over 300 feet or 100yards + Ernie

Michael Bunch , Donegal Railway Diary Vol 1 Page 79. (This is well worth buying) Thursday 30 June 1955. A last school excursion was arranged totalling 14 coaches .There is a photo and a list of 11 coaches at the platform comprising numbers 53,17,12,14,38,40,13,32,16,15 & 28 These just fit the platform so if you can check out the coach sizes this will give you the platform length approximately. The other 3 coaches were the ex NCC Boat train ones and they were not allowed into the platform anyway as their lower doors fouled the higher platform height. Their passengers must have been unloaded onto the track.. This was some time after the official closure of the line 6 months previously. As to maps , Alan Godfrey Maps have published re-prints of parts of Northern Ireland and actually do one for Derry ca 1905. https://www.alangodfreymaps.co.uk/ld1410.htm Its the 25inch map reduced to approx 16 inches to the mile. Unfortunately only part of Victoria Road station is shown, most of the ex GNR Foyle Road station but not the loco shed. All of the NCC terminus is on the map. A fair amount of the lines along the quays are depicted but the Swilly's terminus at Graving Dock which was a long way from the City Centre is missing altogether. Ernie

Today I decided to run the layout, I think over the last 12 months I have only run one train so whilst waiting for the glue to set on the latest tree-bashing I gave the fertilisers a run and one train led to another. Here is a short video Glengarriff_train_tests_15april2020.mp4

Found a short video I took in 2014 at the Isle of Man Railway workshops in Douglas of the ex CDRJC railcars 19 & 20. Their re-building has been stalled for a number of years now. They were still in working order when I photographed them in 1995 2014_ex_Donegal_Railcars_19_&_20_Douglas_Isle_of_Man.mp4

Wey lads ar divvent knaa wot yees lot are tarkin aboot. Back een the ald daze in geordieland we dident givva bugga aboot latin n greek we wuz too bizee inventin things called railways.

Page 101 Patrick Taylor's West Clare book bottom photo A W Croughton photo 31 May 1924. The roof is in the background, had a plain timber ^ shaped end. Ernie

THanks for this its prompted me to get the titles correct. I've done some digging In Henry Casserleys records, the date is correct as stated 22 April 1953 and he describes views as near Dromohair. I just acquired the one lot of GNRI/SLNCR negs and the negs were in 6's strips, the others tie in with the records. The 1955 negs havn't been auctioned yet, the auction has been postponed until the early Autumn thanks to the current pandemic.

I have added to Flickr over the years extracts from a bound copy I have of the GNRI Working Timetables & the Working Instructions for July and October 1917 which appears to have come from the Superintendent of the Line's office. Adding this one today which covers the exchanges between Dundalk Barrack Street and Dundalk Junction with around 19 services each way. There were also extra shipping specials etc. This was at the height of the First World War with little road competition and before partition. The first DN&GR down train is shown as a boat train in italics probably because the steamer service to/from Holyhead was only on alternate days due to the loss of the LNWR steamer in a collision with a collier (passenger services ceased altogether in 1918) There were more than 3 passenger services each way on the Greenore line but the others started/terminated at their Quay Street station. If you are interested I have added the Warrenpoint-Newry-Armagh 1917 Working Timetable to Flickr and of course if you are not interested but suffering from insomnia I can recommend that studying it may also prove beneficial.

You have got the wrong Class there, Thomas is based on an E2 0-6-0T (E4 were 0-6-2t) They were designed not for passenger work but as shunting and short goods working tanks and after Grouping migrated to Southampton Docks where they lasted until dieselisation.

Bundle ordered! Ernie

I have a Casserley negative of 299 on Flickr. Built by Hunslet WN 557/1892 withdrawn 1957 supplied to Falkner for construction of the Kenmare branch and later sold to the Tralee & Fenit Pier & Harbour Co. acquired by the WL&WR when the Fenit branch was absorbed and then to GS&WR. Looks like a standard Hunslet industrial tank. Info from Locos of the GSR I've just seen what this book is supposedly going for; well it was £1221-71 yesterday but there is a copy on Amazon today fro £95 if you are quick.

Done a bit more over the last few days

The area to the west of the Loco sidings is labelled Rocksavage on the 25" 1888-1913 Map, Rockborough House stood in the Gas Works site to the east and on the west again there was a lunatic Asylum on the 1837 pre-railway map which later became a hospital so it might have been a not so polite term for the Institution. Here is 470 ca 1950

Yes that is the signal box in the photo. It was on the river bank. The best article on the line is a 26 page article in Railway Archive magazine No 2 entitled The Midland Railway's line from Londonderry to Strabane. S C Jenkins. There is a double page spread pages 20/21 of the station taken from the Craigavon bridge by HC C in 1937 which clearly shows the box with a further 40 photos in the article of the line, many also by HC Casserley. The box is not there in HCC's photo dated 19April1948 but the point rodding from the ground frame which was at the end of the platform looks pretty new.

Been cleaning the neg up , due to go on flickr soon. I've just had my annual hair cut!

My bolt hole is in the loft. When we moved to Haltwhistle 27 years ago I converted the loft into 2 bedrooms and a railway room with a proper staircase to it rather than a loft ladder in the previous house. The railway room also had hatches through to the bedrooms at a height of 3 feet and the first layout actually ran right round the loft space through the bedrooms with a station in my eldest sons as he was (still is) into modelling. THere were slight problems due to once the train departed the railway room you had no idea when it was going to re-appear plus there were objections from the other bedroom occupier (wives can be so unreasonable!) The next layouts retreated to the railway room but eventually as the 5 brats er sorry children grew up and scattered to other parts of the UK and the USA I was allocated a layout room on the ground floor supposedly the front lounge but basically a stable for pet rats ,rabbits and guinea pigs which also departed (this life). A couple of years ago my youngest daughter returned home with her husband so it was agreed that the downstairs layout room would be absorbed into living area and my trains, books etc returned once again to the loft. Glengarriff then appeared (see its topic for its history etc) One (probably the only) good thing to emerge from the current crisis is that it provided a stimulus for me to get my finger out and get the layout completed. I need a bolt hole as said daughter and son-in-law both work in the local hospital and he is working on the coronovirus ward.I have this feeling I should get something done instead of procrastinating and as I get up at 5 am to take the dogs out when the rest of the village is still kipping I have a few hours to fill in without any nagg er interuptions. Now if you think your layout room is cluttered don't worry the following photos should beat your 'lair' easily. Slides, negatives etc and computing still takes place downstairs , my argument that this couldn't be done in the loft due to the affect this would have temperature wise on the material was accepted by the authorities. downstairs with assistant on duty

If you look at their web site there is a members section which tells you how to do it. I think you have to send a flickr mail request from your flickr site with your name + membership number and they then accept it. Takes a few days. They have been expanding the flickr photo archive quite a bit recently. http://irishrailarchives.ie/index.php/archives/photographs/ Ernie

I found another view in the IRRS photo Archive on flickr (this is only accessible to IRRS members) taken by Norman Gamble of a wagon in the Kildare sidings with the water tower wall and but also that leaded window. All very interesting, please keep them coming Ernie