Kilkenny

I just noticed your location, Kilkenny. Would you be old enough to remember when they mined the dolomite ore in Bennettsbridge for the magnesite factory in Ballinacourty?

Unfortunately not but my father does alright, his brother worked in the quarry. It's sad when you think of how busy freight flow used to be around Ireland compared to now though.

Correct h gricer-your welcome to the site,great to have you here,

072 worked the last Ballina-Waterford DFDS liner on Friday 06/17/12,

079 worked the last Waterford-Ballina DFDS liner on Tuesday 10/07/12-the liner wagons are now being used for the extra IWT liner on Wednesday and Thursday.

Is there any set time or schedule now for the dfds liners heading for Waterford? I'd just like to get some footage of them before they do eventually cease operation. Thanks, looks like all is not lost regarding dfds flow in Ireland.

Looks great? What era or stock are you planning on?

Thanks!

1980's - Present mostly.

I'll mainly focus on the 071 and 201 class with mk2 + 3 coaches and as for freight I'm going to have; dfds containers, beer kegs & iwt containers hopefully.

A shed like yours have would suit me fine as my attic

Project is driving me mad with the heat at the moment

and extreme cold in the winter.Do keep us updated on progress.

I could imagine it being difficult to work in alright, especially if it's a cramped space.

Wait till the cold starts to roll in! Then it gets tricky..

Will do, have the final baseboard update in next few hours and then it's on to the good stuff!

Thanks to all for the positive feedback and humour! I will have more updates soon with pictures as well, thanks again.

Thanks for the positive feedback enniscorthyman, I hope the rest of the project goes as smoothly.

A nice day with the shed door open watching your trains go by listening to a 201 roar by your back garden and a beer in one hand and a ham and cheese on french bread in the other.

Your in heaven.

You hit the nail on the head there hidden agenda! Looks like the sun will never come though

Here's some of my SNCF coaches:

I don't really know much about them, I've just always had them but they've never caught my interest. Nice couchettes by the way!

If you have any leftover baseboard from constructing your layout you could model it into a custom engine shed. Sure it may be a bit time consuming and you'd have to allow for painting but the satisfaction from doing a good job of it is great.

This is a great video too about how to create professional enough looking platforms cheaply:

Good thread idea by the way, hope that helped!

Thanks, what part of Kilkenny are you from?

I'm around the outskirts of Bennettsbridge, not far from the City. It's good to see someone else from Kilkenny into Irish train modeling!

Great individual effort on the cement bubbles gm171kk, they look well when paired with your 171

Very nice:tumbsup:. Wish I had the space for a layout like that.

Haha don't worry gm171kk, one day you'll find space!

First class Kilkenny its really shaping up and a nice set up with the railway close by to your house as well.

Thanks for the positive feedback hidden agenda . The proximity to the railway is a nice bonus when looking for scenery ideas or the like! It should shape up nicely in the next few weeks if things go to plan.

Wow looks like a lot of time, patience and dedication is required to make trees by hand I suppose once you master the skill, you can save yourself a good few quid and make your own size trees specifically designed to your personal layout. Might try it one day but not yet, I wouldn't have skills

What do you mean it ceased? There are no more DFDS liners?

Nope, Ballina to Waterford is now finished for good it's been confirmed. It's a pity because the liner ran almost directly behind my house and I'm so used to seeing it. Timber is pretty safe though, it's the healthiest freight flow in Ireland that I know of. Great videos as well by the way, all in great quality and showcasing the power of the 072 hauling capacity

Hello everyone. I hope to keep updating this thread with progress on my layout. The layout I'm building is currently about 13 feet x 9 feet. I decided to build it in three main stages. For the materials I will be using 3 x 4-ply 15mm 8x4 plywood sheets together with 8 x 18 foot 2x3 planks for the base and support struts. It is being built in an outside shed which used to be a wreck but I've cleared it out, patched the roof, put in appropriate insulation to prevent dampness, plastered the wall and painted it and put in new carpeting, now it's finally layout friendly! When the main baseboards are laid the shape will be like a rectangle but with one slanted side to allow ease of access to the shed

Section 1; This is what I already had completed before I started to take pictures of the progress:

Section 2; Here I'm going to show you building this section from start to finish. First here's the untreated wood that I bought for the section (with the shed in the background):

I then preserved the wood with a strong varnish/preservative, this also helped with the presentation. A loft layout mightn't need such treatment but because this shed can experience sub-zero temperatures together with heat I didn't want the base boards to warp. The more coats the better! :

Screwing and nailing the support struts:

I've cut the baseboard to the right shape but as you see the sides of the two baseboards are drooping over the edge so I have to rectify that and convert it into the one piece (next photo):

Job done for tonight! Altogether what you see there was done over 2 days which isn't bad going I suppose :

As for track layout and scenery I have very little planning done as of yet. I plan on doing some local scenery such as a quarry which I live near that the tracks pass, I think that it will look well and is relatively easy to do once you right stuff. This will definitely take a few months maybe even a year to get up to the standard that I'm happy with. More updates soon!