33lima

Having renewed my interest about a year back I dug out all my old models and re-started work on the 'suburban' MPD set. Unlike my first two 'intercity' sets, this was going to represent a non-corridor compartment set, of which there were several varieties including power cars and 'mules' (as the unpowered MPD trailers were known). In the interval, my sources had expanded, having been joined by Colm Flanagan's excellent 'Diesel Dawn' (essential reading for anyone remotely interested in the subject) and other excellent sources such as Derek Young's superb 'UTA in Colour', Sam Somerville's 'NIR Runabout' (an excellent source fro UTA railcars in NIR days) and most recently, Derek Huntriss's 'Irish Traction in Colour', which includes a superb study of 'suburban' MPD sets at York Road. To be honest I'd intended to run Steve Rafferty's set as it was but he'd paint-stripped it before the swap. It was a basic conversion with a trio of windows in the brake end of two Tri-ang suburban coaches (as produced in the late 1950s and early 1960s), some side windows filled in, and sliding doors scribed on. Having acquired it unpainted I decided to do a more dramatic rebuild. The brake compartments on real MPDs were quite small and took up the space of at most a couple of former passenger compartments. Also the compartment spacing was much tighter than on the Tri-ang models. So I decided to do a 'cut and shut' job, removing the sides from the floor and razor-sawing the sides into sections which I re-assembled to give something approximating the correct compartment spacing. This was the point I picked up the work again, having to acquire a second coach - a non-brake version this time - as one of the originals could not be located. The rebuilt sides were assembled onto a lengthened roof, and a new cab front was built from plastic card on the old coach end, with the upper half cut away for the windows. Plasticard brake compartment sides completed the picture and I thus ended up with a coach nearer the correct length than the rather short Tri-ang suburban coaches. By this time of course I had been forcibly reminded of the stationmaster's advice to John Wayne at the start of 'The Quiet Man' about this not being the best place to start if you wanted to get to Inishfree (or build an MPD conversion) but I'd started and this time, twenty years later, I was going to finish!!!

Recently I re-started work on a 2-car MPD set, begun back about 1994. The immediate inspiration for this, back in the early nineties, was a Colin Boocock pic in 'Irish Railway Album', reproduced in typically 'muddy' Ian Allan 1960s fashion, showing a set at York Road in 1963; and some pics of a set Steve Rafferty had converted from a pair of Tri-ang suburban coaches. The latter came my way in part-exchange for an AEC set I built for Steve and formed the basis for this project, with a coach that went AWOL in the intervening twenty years being replaced by a recent eBay acquisition. The deeper inspiration for the model was my interest in the trains of my childhood. I was never much interested in steam, if only because of regularly getting an eyeful of soot when leaning out the carriage windows, as one was wont to do in those days, on a Portrush excursion. I didn't know the correct titles of the railcars I travelled on back in the 1960s and early 1970s on the Bangor and NCC lines but they WERE 'the train' to me. MPD unreliability may have come later because I don't recall them ever letting us down. Back in the early 1990s, a resurgence of interest revealed it was too late to experience them again, apart from snapping MPD trailer 532 on an ex-GNRI underframe at Whitehead. However, thanks to Mark Kennedy at the UFTM, I was able to acquire copies of a good many works drawings (many of which I have posted in my gallery at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/gallery/member/15566-33lima/) and gradually followed up various leads and got a lot of help from many individuals and other sources, including articles in the IRRS journal and managing to arrange to meet and chat with both CME WAG MacAfee and designer Leslie Stafford (whose signature appears on many of the works drawings). Some mysteries remained - like the 'turquoise train' I recalled we used to see on the Bangor Line from Carnalea for a time in the early 1960s (was it a 'eau de nil' MPD on trial, or was it an unrecorded livery for an MED set, not just the one car recorded in cream and pale blue-green in 'Diesel Dawn'?) but many other details of the pioneering UTA railcars were revealed. First effort at an MPD set consisted of a very limited re-work of a trio of Hornby Staniers, as described in issue 1 of the newsletter 'Irish Lines' in December 1992 (archive available here:http://newirishlines.org/archive-2/ ). This NIR maroon set was soon afterwards re-worked to resemble something closer to real MPD vehicles and was then followed by another 3-car set, from similar base coaches but with rather more attention to detail. ...which brings my MPD projects up to the point of the current one, which I'll describe next.

Thanks for the positive feedback guys! I'll post a separate thread re the MPD.

First model railway project I've completed in 20 years (apart from a signal box conversion and excluding revived-but-not-yet-complete MPD and MED sets) - an NCC brown van, with another one or two to follow: Replacement plasticard body on a Tri-ang horsebox. Kept the latter's roof with the ventilators sanded smooth; didn't bother with rainstrips as many seem not to have carried these. Only underframe modifications were to move the brake V-hangars closer to the centrelines and trim the brake levers to match, tapering the ends of the headstocks and adding seven little support brackets each side. Tho the preserved specimens at Downpatrick seem to have W-irons outside the leaf springs, older pics seem to show external springs so I left them alone. Now, back to the MPD!

Sorry Train Model, tried again and this time I think it worked! Re model power Kirley, I know modern can motors and such wonders only by repute and so don't much miss what I've never had. Perhaps when I get my layout up and running I will yearn for better slow-speed performance but I think not. I can see a certain amount of 'motor snobbery' online and frankly don't much care for it. Anyway I have had a bit of a soft spot for Tri-ang DMU bogies ever since I had to 'borrow' one from my kid brother's Blue Pullman to power my MED set made from maroon Playcraft mk 1 coaches with Plasticine cabs, before the Tri-ang DMU came back on the market about 1970 and I repainted that instead. I even liked the racket the original ribbed-tyre wheels made - never mind all this modern traction tyre, scale profile wheel rubbish Apparently people turn their noses up at traction tyres these days - sic transit gloria motor bogie, and all that. My current suburban MPD project will be powered by none other than a Tri-ang DMU power bogie. Most of my other stuff is Hymek-powered tho my green MED uses the Hornby Calder Valley DMU chassis and bogies. The AEC and BUT sets I built for Leslie McAllister all those years back had Black Beetle power bogies if i recall right and although they had the advantage of better wheels, ability to accept any suitable bogie frame and IIRC didn't intrude into the body, I don't think they performed particularly better than their 30-year-older predecessors, on a test circuit anyway; their hauling power certainly seemed less, if anything. My layout - ballasting, a horror unknown from childhood layout days, is under way - will be an expanded version of my childhood Tri-ang Super 4 layout (with Airfix trackside stuff) ie a double-track circuit, unashamedly train-set - except that it will be very broadly based on Carrickfergus, and a fair bit bigger and with System 6 track, steel rails throughout. Pic of bashed Hornby Signal box below, should have reduced the height of the base a bit and replaced the stock glazing units to reduce the horizontal bars to one etc etc but it's not too bad for the UTA-era appearance.

Thanks for the kind comments folks (and have PM'ed Train Model). They are really fairly basic conversions of Lima Mk 2 coaches, with only the blue & grey set being flushglazed, and using Tri-ang Hornby Hymek power bogies, which was about all I could get cheaply back in the early 1990s. Hope actually to have a layout to run them on later this year, basically a bigger version of my last layout, a double track trainset loop my dad built us and sold back in 1974; except this time it should bear a passing reference to Carrickfergus rather than a quick Airfix model railways accessory catalogue shot.

The Spring 1993 issue of 'Irish Lines' is available here :https://www.dropbox.com/s/ci3elrw2itkh88t/Irish%20Lines%20-%20Issue%203%20-%201993%20Spring.pdf In it I described my efforts at making an 80 Class set from Lima Mk2 coaches. I ended up making two sets this way.

Carrickfergus is another excellent NIR station, little changed from the Good Old days...whenever THEY were...