leslie10646

Thanks for the Heads-up @Mol_PMB, endless photos of Class VS No.207 courtesy of the late Norman McAdam, who, fine chap that he was, was a real devotee of the Great Northern. We owe Norman a significant debt of gratitude that he was a prolific photographer and left his collection to the Society which he served so well for decades. PS lots of AECs on the mainline for the diesel men!

At the risk of boring you all silly by repeating myself, Ciaran's Flickr pages are enough in themselves to warrant IRRS Membership. However, also repeating an earlier warning - you'll lose hours and hours of your God-given lives pouring over the piccies, which are just wonderful. Thanks, Ciaran!

No, David, but I'd buy three Erne, Lagan and Boyne! If the did BOTH, then they'd get FIVE sales - They could use a lot of the same bits? I think ......

Of course, the Compound will only appear when a certain company does the obvious thing ..... As I said before - I'll buy two, the moment they're announced - the two I've travelled behind

No way! Don't take it too hard. Possibly 1964? Lots of nice A Class, single-ended Yankees ...... AND S Class, a Compound on the Thursday trains, No.207 on the Tourist Train, ........

Give me time! If I'm spared, the idea is to drive you all crazy by showing every train which ran through {Portadown (or the Junction) during a weekday in 1956 or so. With the right loco! I THINK I can do that!

Hi Colin (Rainsbury?) Thanks. I presume that you mean a conflat with furniture and a Milligen? I think that any EDSS I have, I'll want to keep, but let me know if that's on the list!

Right, after much more xxxxing about, re-cutting re-sticking and stuffing, this is what 28 canopy kits (each is just 4 inches, 3D printed) looks like. Ever tried to line up quite so many? - don't look for a straight line! They're in groups of 3,4,4,3 so that each platform (6ft or so) has fourteen! Of course they have to be "planted" with a bit of ballast and a barrow walk at this end. The "aerial" view looks quite nice? Since I took this, I've re-painted the surface in a darker grey (Hobbycraft "Light Grey" seemed quite realistic). Also, I'll swap the sloping ends over - the one at the other end hasn't got that broken bit! If you look at earlier photos on the thread you will see that the station is barely visible and Platform 1 - to the right - can't have a canopy, as the slope of the roof precludes even a tiny bit! The platform is part built. Next job is to build the larger water tanks and place them on either side of the building. Next week .......

Not to be missed! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/297151093415?mkevt=1&mkpid=0&emsid=e11021.m164380.l178264&mkcid=7&ch=osgood&euid=009bbfe0705b47f1ab6f767910dced09&bu=43025934942&ut=RU&exe=0&ext=0&osub=-1~1&crd=20250326044726&segname=11021&recoId=297151093415&recoPos=1 A lovely wagon from a well-known producer! Just twice what I charged for them (17 years ago). I'm looking at a short re-run rather cheaper than this. OR: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285295734748?_skw=irish+railway+models&itmmeta=01JQAEPB7RJ55WD779DJHCHS70&hash=item426cf36fdc:g:An0AAOSwnm5kalQN&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1fapxH5NJxkJMYPMtalU66hoHlA%2F36oxhAYMpc8vK8aTnfN7b%2FbfwxBfIVDLmmzMH3K4XXbL%2FHvTYQpMesp7fPuPh9fkDEb87V3115MRF2xvbXThhKv1FS5pNOt3zg6Zj2YtKrrRl5xfPiRW0vSYZ1vLjsVlnRYDsmF0HxBfg7fz4E3dAoCNyaPi8eUVREUMPXgjeyRFj5wQ4xtOcoBmYImg%2BV49popQX5HBF4b9tW%2FZzHyWURrl5LhoVsAm52jZK0kS9eKcJ1QRgakZjPV5dBhuQrjfbUHSwPIGjqhW2%2BAFA%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR4a02c66ZQ If you want this - forget £40 - I can do you one for £15 plus postage. Or maybe this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275863233638?_skw=irish+railway+models&itmmeta=01JQAEY3Q9CRH9B2CACBNDTQ48&hash=item403abae466:g:eAEAAOSwmfZkalNr&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1eDzAdGUtuqmMCBM1U3xfl8tIylRVInZ2ro%2F08i9VRPI0VC87HlCI2JXj0FV5oSwVycW5rL8Ql3%2FdiL8Y7hejW7GHETBf76tnEaj5exRCj1jqK%2BWl5IHIqnjGEafI7g67pzGo2wmwqbqLdICYBsfKecp%2FjKpugNFhIDHgtlJnV57wk9q9SokB5dWBvnF8LA82Z%2BkgNgeO%2F7hJyPPT%2Boi2GcJOGzjrAWuVA3iRjkJZv6dsREno2SdeXom8aZdoBJ9zxhnfjDp0uiDnqqDiqugbd9%2FUU3W8zPy4suPr8J6pRwcw%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR-y7-M66ZQ Not even a BCDR Freak like Patrick would be mad enough to pay £50 for this?

Time that you employed a local lad as a cleaner! Coming on well, Jonathan.

Very sorry to hear of your setback, John, but pleased to hear that you have come through it with your usual fortitude. Well done the 15 year old! Thoughts and prayers that you all pull out of this with flying colours . Leslie

This, to be precise...... which was turned into: I'll footer about with it and see if I can get away with it. I think that it's too wide to use as Platform 1, which is under the eaves of the house!

To provide some St Patrick's Day Cheer for those of you assiduously off the Good (Distilled) Water for Lent, today was a "Platform Day". Meaning that I am labouring with my Island Platform for Portadown station. I wondered if I had got the length right so that it matched with Platform 4 - being Irish I did No.4 first! Yes, EXACTLY the right length BUT PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL...... I had broken Holman's First Law of Railway Modelling - "Measure Twice - Cut Once"! I ran a train through and it clobbered the thing - too (blank) wide! How do you knock a couple of millimetres off the width of an almost completed platform (6 feet long!) which has a frame of light softwood...... Maybe I'll use the "Saints Day Rule", take a good draught of Bushmills and try again .......

The original for me. Just get the kit made - I'll find a friend who likes building things!

Really excellent advice from Colin. How many years of practise went into @Galteemore, @David Holman @Tullygrainey @Patrick Davey's efforts, to name a few? Patrick especially soldiered on after "not quite right efforts" (I know because I sold him two of one of my kits, after he "practised" on the first one - now look at what he's doing!!!! Not for nothing do we old people say "Practise makes Perfect"!!!!

You won't believe that I'm saying this - it's a diesel after all - , but I have to agree with @Galteemore that really has a Wow Factor. It catches the essential "E Class" perfectly. A great piece of work. They were ubquitous around Dublin in the 1960s when I first visited as an enthusiast. Will you build me one, please?

Yes, that's the brake van which I do. Your name IS on two 10 ton vans! My stock is rather low pre Bangor - I WAS planning retirement - instead I'll fulfil various needs with nnew stock in the late Spring / early Summer. The orders are in. I should explain that the guy who took over Michael's business ("My Modeller") had some issues which slowed up delivery, but things look more hopeful and I may put off the evil day, if I'm spared. I've spent the last couple of days laying out proposals for two new wagons (one a short re-run) but the other quite new; plus a possible new container. Watch this space.

Now, now Ivan! Used to be sort of true. As the late "Mac" Arnold said to me on the platform at Gortalea on the first Two day tour after a three year hiatus in 1972: "Too many Englishmen on this tour - MIND YOU, IF YOU HADN'T BROUGHT THEM OVER, THE TOUR WOULD NOT HAVE RUN . It was the first year that I organised a party from England and the twenty or so of us made the difference. I did it for at least a decade, once FILLING a coach (fifty seats) on the Irish Mail. Then flying became cheaper and people did what @Mol_PMB is doing, booked it themselves! The "Big Tour" always needed "British" support - my groups had a faithful bunch of Scots and the occasional Welshman.

Ten foot Fox bogie. The diagram has been sent to you by e-mail. "Glad to be of Service" Leslie

Good luck with this, Paddy. At least you can run an 800 with a straight face as they certainly ran here!

Surely to make the thing properly Catholic, they would have been named in LATIN, so we'd have had a loco named for the current Notts Forest Manager? No wonder they're above Spurs - eh Dave B?

Ah yes, Minister, but for Chamberlain's fit of pique (in guaranteeing Poland) over the little Austrian's annexation of the rest of Czechoskavakia (itself an unnatural construct arising out of the disaster of Versailles) - there might have been no Emergency and we might have discovered if the 800s REALLY could run for miles and miles at 80mph on the Cork Mainline. (And I might have an interest in them like my unswerving adoration for all things Bulleid - whose Pacifics did just that sort of running). Unhappily, like my all-time favourites, the GNR(I)'s VS Class, they had a very short working life at the top level. So, I agree with you, if you are going to buy this museum engine, buy it as it was meant to be!

Hi WCR You're partly right, but it's a fact that I only know about half a dozen people who have seen an 800 running, otherwise it was in the museum. Expand that to our fellow (more numerous) enthusiasts on the Big Island, and the number is vanishingly small. One of the RPSI's CLASS representatives would have been even more attractive to those of us modelling Irish railways and they are even better known in the UK and Worldwide. Happily, to help fill MY glass case, Accurscale has produced other attractive locos, including, dare I admit it, their diesels and electrics. I'm off to see if a Class 92 which was on sale at a really bargain price at Basingstoke remains unsold!

Ah, yes. A locomotive which can get to Derry, Portrush, Dublin, Cork, Tralee to name a few - not restricted to the Cork main line. The choice by IRM seemed incomprehensible (I thought it was April the First!) until the penny dropped. It's after the market of rich, older Englishmen who buy locos to put in a glass case ..... I await the real promised second Irish steam loco, but with the timelines stated, I'll probably be helping Drew Donaldson to run his layout in "Another Place" before it appears. Back to building Portadown's Island Platform.

It was a GNR(I) Class V. We always referred to them as "Glover Compounds" as the Loco engineer of the GN at that time was a man called George Glover.