murphaph

Hi all, I'm at the early planning stages of my layout which I intend to be "the big one" that outlives me. I was originally considering a Limerick Junction to Limerick Colbert layout but the angles at LJ make something halfway prototypical very difficult in my available space and room shape. My room is a basement room ca. 30' x 10' rectangular in shape with one ceiling height window at each long end (plan is to effectively forgo natural light and treat the layout like a stage, with appropriate lighting to simulate nightfall etc.) and a single door dead centre along one of the long sides I've thought a lot about what I want which is a large degree of computer control of long and busy mainline sections with "a little bit of shunting" at one or two spots. I really like the famous Yosemite Valley Railroad layout by Jack Burgess (great YouTube videos) and he recommends picking a prototype location because if it worked for the real railway, it will work for a layout. I feel the same and want to model a prototypical location in Ireland that fits the above criteria. After a lot of thought I think a suitable idea would be to model the GSWR/IR route section from just north east of Newbridge, through the Curragh Mainline, Kildare, Cherryville Junction (line to Cork goes off scene just after here, disappearing under the current R445, then N7), Athy (line to Waterford goes off scene just after here), Barrow Bridge, Tegral factory. How can I possibly fit all this in however? The plan is to build the entire thing as a shelf layout spiralling around the outside of the room (crossing the door on bridges) on a constant shallow grade of about 1.25% (except at locations where wagons need to be shunted. These limited areas should be flat to avoid wagons running away) I would need to make Kildare flat (for running around) and also the Tegral siding. The Tegral siding itself would be a bit of a compromise over the prototype because I can't fit the headshunt (stub of former Wolfhill Branch) in and I will need to come straight off the Barrow Bridge and curve into the factory, running around inside (looks like there was a headshunt inside the factory that would have actually allowed this). I want to run to a timetable that is close to a real one from the mid 90s, though I will probably pretend that mail trains continued for a couple of years longer. Athy was a fringe cabin to CTC back then so I will have colour light signals on the layout as far as there and then a few operational semaphores around Athy for interest. What about staging? Well I see the layout being built so that Athy is in the lowest level, spiralling around with ca. 1 foot of separation between the decks/shelves with Newbridge being the last visible station in the scenic area. Given this, I thought I could "simply" continue the track to a level below this, close to floor level to represent the staging areas (call them Waterford and Cork/Limerick/Galway etc) for the provincial termini stations. Above Newbridge the track should continue on up to a staging area above which would represent "Dublin". A single line hidden track would need to be included behind the facia of the spiral to allow repositioning of rolling stock that would obviously look wrong if traveling in a given direction (I don't ever want to see laden Gypsum or fertiliser trains on the up line heading towards Dublin, for example). This hidden track would also be where trains heading south or west would disappear onto when going off scene on their way to "Cork" or "Waterford". Any thoughts? I find very very few examples of such constant grade "nolix" around the room layouts. I'm guessing they are just not suitable for many as they require a decent sized room to enable the required vertical separation between decks to be gained within one lap of the room. I reckon a room much smaller than mine would preclude this design. I'm considering a raised step permanently built around the room enabling better viewing of the uppermost reaches of the modelled section. I have ruled out helixes because as I want to model in 21mm (this is a showstopper for me. I will make compromises elsewhere before contemplating not modelling in 21mm) I'm looking at a minimum radius of about 2' 6" and that would be cutting it tight but even at that a helix would be at least 5 or 6 feet across including fascia which would be an absolute monster of a thing, dominating the room and I'd probably need a double track one to prevent trains waiting on the scenic area to enter it. Accessing a derailed train in on the other side of a helix in the corner of a room looks like a real pain as well. Do you guys see any potential pitfalls I should consider with such an unusual design? It's very much a long term project if it's deemed feasible. A fair bit of track to make by hand but outside of the staging areas relatively "few" points. All in all I guess about 250' of continuous mainline track.

They must be the best travelled railcar/DMU on the island. They must have gotten just about everywhere between being leased to IR and being used on specials. I'd love a couple of em.

I agree but for me personally the flats offer more possibilities to run varied looking trains by simply swapping in different containers from Arran. I'm already looking forward to the next empty flats re-run

Done. Best of luck chaps.

I'll have to order a couple of the Garda Landovers. Irish army nissan patrols with the massive aerials would be class. I'd love to recreate a cash in transit convoy of the 90s:

A mine of information as always. Go raibh mile maith agat.

I was thumbing through my copy of Irish Traction and noticed that the author refers to a 07.50 Saturdays only Limerick-Inchicore empty barytes working through Ballybrophy on the 8th of May 1993. Was this really a timetabled working in 1993? I have the WT from the 18th of May 1992 but not the subsequent one and I see no mention of this train as being timetabled. How of ten did this train run? I am led to believe that the barytes were used as spoils in those days on weeekend possessions around the network so I'm wondering why they might timetable them to run to Inchicore specifically, if indeed they did at all. Liner question: In 1992 There were a number of Cork-Dublin Liners a day. Could anyone be specific about what sort of wagons made those liners up? Were there any containers that would be particularly dominant? (Waterford had Bells, for example) I'm aware these trains ran mostly in the dead of night, hence a likely dearth of photographs but maybe someone knows. Thanks all.

On google street view you can still see a tall metal framed water tower adjacent to the track to the north of the overbridge.

Looks really great Robert. I'll take at least one (definitely), possibly 2 or 3 depending on how configurable they are in the end if you go ahead. Fair play.

Thanks a lot Mogul. I may have to invoke rule number one for reefers from an Irish company then!

https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/crime/owner-feared-historic-sheffield-family-business-would-be-destroyed-huge-fire-3129811 Hopefully the elderly gentleman living upstairs makes it. Seems a lot of stock needs cleaning.

The article was written in the immediate aftermath though. The author ordered items before the end of the transition period and was charged UK VAT as was the law at the time. He then got stung again as the items were shipped in the new year. Hattons should have handled orders at that time better. I asked them how they'd handle orders (my 121s were pre-orders with them) that were billed in late December. I never got a satisfactory reply. I was just lucky they arrived in stock in time. Now I would expect it to work fine as they are shipping it Irish vat and duty paid. Brexit hasn't ruined Hattons EU sales because of one thing: Model railway items are tariff free. They mostly only have to worry about vat. Otherwise the rules of origin would cripple them like it's crippling online clothing retailers for example because very little of what they sell is made in the UK.

Fantastic bit of film. Would love to see the rest!

Did these reefers ever go by rail in Ireland?

Personally I prefer it if sellers just deduct the vat at home and export the item ex vat so I have a sporting chance of the item flying under the radar. Smaller, lighter items, even if the declared value exceeds the €22 threshold seem to often get through German customs without interference. My latest such delivery was some containers from c=rail. Declared value £52. Green German customs sticker "exempt from customs inspection" and just delivered to my door as usual. The weight plays a big role in whether or not a parcel gets properly checked in my experience. If stuff is sent through the regular post to Germany then it's going to be Deutsche Post/DHL that pays the customs on my behalf and they only charge a €6 handling fee. I like to take my chances but in other countries this fee can be much higher and customs may be much more thorough so those guys are probably more likely to want a supplier to register for vat locally. I think both An Post and Royal Mail charge more than €6 so I wouldn't want to speak for anyone living in Ireland or the UK.

Hattons are vat registered in half a dozen EU countries now because their turnover in each country exceeds the threshold. I have yet to order anything from them since the first of January though. Hoping that when I do it goes as smoothly. The German post office should be well used to this as a lot of Swiss firms sell into Germany and must also register for German vat. Fingers crossed. Unfortunately it's really the small traders, selling absolutely unique items that are hardest hit by the new regulations. Edit: the regulations aren't new. They are just being applied to the UK as a third country for the first time.

Chadwick model railway YouTube channel released a video recently about managing inclines. Might be worth a look. Also remember that an incline on a curve appears steeper to the loco than one on a straight.

Thanks for doing the poll Noel. I find the baby GM rerun demand particularly interesting. I voted for those too but didn't think many would but there's something about them that people just love. 121s are great but to prototypically run them in most liveries on an end to end layout you need to either turn them or run in consist. Babies don't have this problem. As for the steam question....I also voted for a diesel there because there was no preserved steam option. I would have voted for that if available and readily convertible to 21mm (I'm sure inside cylinder models can't be that much more difficult than diesels to regauge). I voted for "more freight stock" because in my era of the mid nineties UK prototype stock is widely available to modify and respray. The freight stock is more or less unique to Ireland, hence my desire to see more of that first, however if I had to choose passenger stock I'd pick Park Royals as they were still running in my era and are not available as resprayed GB stock.

A Guinness keg lorry would be a nice addition someday.

The Ford based ambulance from Tiny looks close enough to me but I'll admit I'm not an ambulance expert lol.

Definitely. Estates were even rarer. It's one of the things that struck me when I first moved to Germany: almost the default version of a car was the estate or hatchback model with very few saloons in comparison. The saloon car was king in comparison in Ireland back then I would say. My father had Granadas before "graduating" to an Audi 100. A 5 cylinder beast of a thing which I loved going anywhere in. All used and several years old when bought mind! Neighbour had a series of Jettas after graduating from a Ritmo. Actually Fiats were far more common back then full stop.

There's a HK based company called "Tiny" that also do the odd 1/76 item. Must be the British heritage or something. They make mostly HK specific vehicles but they do make a UK St. John Ambulance that would also work fine on an Irish layout. Not as cheap as Oxford mind.

I'd second and third a Bus Scoile and a KC in Bus Éireann livery. Hinos are a "must have" for an Irish layout of a certain era. Ireland wasn't as wealthy as the UK so the vehicles reflected this. Hinos were cheaper. Cars on an Irish layout would look fairly different to a GB one. Invariably the lower spec (no alloys, no spoilers, 1.4 CL as opposed to 2.0 GTI). Far fewer transits and far more Hiaces.

It looks really lovely John. Well done.

Done Really only takes a minute.