meathdane

Some great ideas, I have plenty of containers, including Cie 20s l, Lyons, Harps and a few others. I would certainly like to give them a run over Bantry. The track is being laid on 4mm cork, you can see it poking out on the track leading to Bantry, I'm in the process of laying and cutting track, then itll get the cork treatment. I think you've all convincede that a distillery is the way to go, I may have to use short radius points to get it in, but I think I can manage it, it may be simplified, using Bantry as a drop off point and a pilot loco to shunt it back up the line into the distillery, and shunt from the distillery into Bantry for formation into a train. More to think and consider. I do have about a foot more I can extend the baseboard to give me a little more room to build the distillery

Thought we were going alternative history, you know, only the good stuff, or Shtuff as ye say

I do have a rake of 8 Ferts that need use, part of a special occasionally I was considering it, I have a few bulk Grains, hence the idea of a distillery, could have Hs and grains servicing it. Plus licence for some private owner wagons. Possibly even a Guinness distillery, to use my Guinness 40s in an alternative world where a Cork based brewery still used the rails! @Mike 84C you're a bad influence you know!

Did some track laying. Hmmm'd and hawww'd about putting a distillery or a beets siding on the extension, but decided against it, there's enough operation on Bantry to keep me occupied, so just a small single track continous loop. The second line is a run to the small fiddle yard, disguised as a widening to double tracks, which connects back to the single track, and can double as a run around or storage siding when needed. Going to have a smaller runaround in the fiddleyard for smaller trains. Thanks all

Great stuff Alan, thanks again! The man himself to the rescue, I may have to name it Alan after yourself when it's all said and done

First part has arrived, the new 5 pole motor, which actually fits the current chassis and mount, so great success there! Will be using wires for the connections from pickups to decoder, back to Motor. If anyone has any suggestions for a small decoders that would work in the limited space of an 040 and is compatible with a NCE powercab, I would very much appreciate the suggestions Thanks all!

Thanks Alan, It is ambitious alright, but if I'm gonna try, I'm gonna really try! We'll see how this all goes, it could very well End up going wonky. If it ends up being half of the quality you put out, I'd be a very pleased man! Thank you for those links, exactly the kind of parts I reckon I'm going to need for this project. Though lamp irons are oddly awkward to come by. Most recommended etch is OOP from Markits, the owner of which passed away last month sadly, everything else seems to be coming up either 0 guage or wagon ones! Thanks David! Hopefully it'll come along, should be a fun little piece to try and learn! Gives me a good basis of wiring, quartering, light kitbashing, and getting a chassis running, plus expanding my toolkit!

I was thinking along those lines, possibly a local distillery purchase, loaned to the GSR during busy period, company goes defunct/transitions to road haulage and the GSR purchases it and allocates it to Bantry and surrounding areas as a light mixed traffic/shunter Arrives at Inchicore after transport, reboilered due to internal issues or The emergency causing oil rationing, hence the new chimney and dome, enclose the cab at the distillerys request and a handful of minor modifications, and we have the GSR 101S (Swindon) Not thinking too deeply or too worried about the history, this is just an exercise for the fun of it

Some great stuff on there as always Galtee, i did forget to mention I am going to enclose the cab and build a bunker, old one has been lost to time, but like you said, great practice for plasticard! As for the rest of the body, part of me does want to keep it looking as Hornby 040 as possible, kind of an ode to where many of us likely started, the other half of me wants to go off and do exactly as you suggest. I contemplated moving the dome further forward, not unlike ones seen on J15s. I do need to look into the chimney, at the very least it needs a new top (plasticard practice again? I am going to more or less sand the surface smooth and look into riveting it up myself, and that would include the smoke box. As for the chassis, I get where you're coming from, part of the exercise is to try and get the current chassis running as close as I can get to perfection, and as I said in the original post, realise the potential of the Hornby chassis. The other part of this equation is I don't think I have the experience or tools to build a chassis, I have been watching other build and my skills at soldering are not there yet, I am looking into building a couple of smaller brass kits before taking on and potentially ruining an expensive loco kit. If I was to build something, I'd love to try a Bandon tank kit for Bantry. I'd much prefer to put in that kind of effort to build something more prototypical I think in this instance modifying something existing is easier for my purpose, tools and experience

Time for a new project! I've long considered how far you can take the old Hornby pocket rockets. I decided I'm going to try and see, learn some new skills and bring my first "Irish" locomotive back to life. The victim is going to be my old Hornby 040 from the Irish Freight set. I have purchased a 5 pole motor that should work (in a perfect World), I may have a look into the feasibility of a small flywheel, going to order a DCC chip + stay alive and, change to Kadee couplings, I'm going to consider adding in a lights depending on how busy the internals become. On top of all that I am going to try my hand at detailing it. But my main concern first are the wheels, they seem out of true and gauge. The metal bands seem to be coming off the wheel inserts so they'll have to come off, so if I have to sort them out, while the wheel is off and axle out, I'll upgrade the drive gear to a metal one and install metal bearings too because, well, why not? I want to take this as far as it can possibly go! And for all those who are thinking why not just buy a new chassis and stick a chip in it, I absolutely can, and may just go down that route if I mess this up, but I want to try and see what I can accomplish with it, and see if I can make something that runs better than it did before. So I do have a handful of questions, Looking for recommendations to find some Irish-y detailing parts, Lamp irons + lamps Buffers Hooks Sandboxs Shunting tools Whistle Handrails + standoffs Smoke box handle Mechanical wise Worm drives gear Bearings Or recommendations of a new gearbox I could try and install Looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks and any recommendations! Thanks all! Dane

Scenic extension/fiddle yard/continous loop area built for Bantry. Base board legs need a little reinforcement and some gaps need filling but temporary track laying can begin to figure out a plan proper

Starting the run in process now that I've a working layout! A15 ran in A3r is being run in On the list after are A39r A42 A46 B131 B147a B165 Than onto the less appropriate locos for Bantry B181 B185a 078 203 210 Thankfully a rolling road makes life easier!

And we are live, A15 on test duties, so far so good after a good track cleaning session! Great to have bantry up and operational. Now on to remedial work in the garage and then it's extension time! VID_20250312_203335.mp4

Hi all, I was approached by a member of the Dunshaughlin Harvest Festival who are very keen to have some Model railway layouts at the festival. The event takes place during the last weekend in September, the layouts will be in a secure building with barriers and volunteers to help manage the crowds. Unfortunately with my work schedule, I will only be present for one day, though I am hoping to have Bantry present on the Sunday at the very least. If anyone would like to have their layout present, the festival would love to have them and be very grateful, seemingly there is interest in the community to see these displays. If you would like to have your layout of any size, scale, or outline involved, send me a message and I will get you in contact with the events team. Thanks, Dane

Guess the 800s will be making a cameo on Bantry. Maebh and Maca ordered. Fantastic looking model, and from the videos I saw, a great runner too! Well done to IRM, can't wait for the next 10 years!