leslie10646

Hi Dave

You are right about Broadstone. Part of it, roofless, remained into the 1950s, at least. Loads of photos of steam locos in front of the remains at that time.

To it you can add Clones and Portadown which were copies of each other and built in the late 1920s in Ferro-concrete. The one at Clones is still there in industrial use.

As for models - well, the Portadown one has been modelled by William Redpath and was on show at Cultra last November - see the thread under "What's On on this site. He's done a super job. I'm as jealous as can be, for the same set-up, without the actual roundhouse is in my left, for my railway is based around "Portadown Jct". Time to concentrate on the layout before it's too late?

Ps. Yes I know such modern image coaches seem an abomination side by side with my CIE golden era B&T stock but I have a soft spot for them due to my regulare use of the Cork train, especially because it is not a noisy ICR yo-yo roller skate. 

Not at all, Noel - to quote Lord White: "It's my railway and I'll run what I want on it!"

A few years ago, one of the magazines highlighted a layout where the guy had two sets of stock for two different decades - twenty / thirty years apart. I thought it a brilliant idea - all you need is loads of shelves, as one Irish gent has in his railway room.

No room for them in my loft, so the "Modern" (meaning after 1965, but not after 1980 -ish) stuff goes in Really Useful Boxes with foam inserts which take and protect coaches, locos and wagons.

PS The "CAFs" look well and are a credit to Chris / David.

Just a Word to the Wise, emphasising what JHB said - there are folk out there who think people will pay any amount for anything! Where TICKETS are concerned - a few do make impressive prices at auction, but the Co Donegal and the Swilly (particularly) are pretty common - most are what the ticket men call "audits" - i.e. returned as unused. A Euro is probably a good price for a seller to get for them. USED tickets are a different kettle of fish.

As for photos .....  That view of Stranorlar station is not hard to come by so asking thirty quid for it is just having a laugh.

Thanks for sharing this. Quite a variety!

Liked the Swiss picture complete with Dampfschneesclauder (Self-propelled steam snow plough - I've probably spe Deutsch wrong!).

Also the Woodhead line - only the second I can ever remember of this prototype. 

First, may I, like Jonathan, heartily recommend the GSR locos book - a reference book for every Irish Enthusiast.

Now, back to those tenders.....    I suggest that if you take a look through the 101 book, which really has 101 different "101"s pictured in it; you'll be amazed by the variety of tenders behind these little engines. Yep, a hundred and one - it took me six years to find that number and recently, I think I found another one ......

Roderick could have spent the rest of his life doing variations.

Andy, if your diary's filling up, so's mine, as I try to keep up with you. I never get bored with your work.

Now, what's all this Great Western Narrow Gauge? At least you won't be cheating and running Arigna, or Castlederg stuff to Llanfair! I'm trying to work out how many millimetres Two Foot Six is.

What period, by the way - presumably NOT the preservation era?

Get on with it, Phil!

Even a bit of the roadside tramway to Arigna will get you started and allow us to see Alan's Tralee tank!

You've got quite a team there, so no excuses! Alan has sorted out the running of several of my locos.

Good luck.

As promised a couple of pictures of Andy's Court Mac at the weekend. I took these with my digital SLR, but my Mickey Mouse camera took better pics at Warley. However, see if you can spot the difference from last November!

Yes, trees grow quickly in West Cork. When my other half asked Andy about his trees, out came some multicore wire and gave a quick demo of how to make a tree armature (I think that's the word the experts use!), followed by instructions on foliating the thing.

My Warley report did not show the actual station building - it's not St Pancras, but a nice piece of modelling?

You can see how bad my photography is in that the name board is illegible and Andy appears to have a way to model ghostly passengers?

Finally, Andy brought out his little G Class with some familiar looking wagons (actually three of my Corrugateds, two SSM six planks and a SSM GNR van - no, it's not one of mine!). 

That provoked another question from the Lady - "how do you do your hedges"? Andy ducked out of sight and came back with a block of horsehair and explained who he produces his hedgerow - when he started talking about hairspray, he had her full attention ........

If any of you do get to see one of Andy's notable Irish layouts, you will find him a very good teacher on many aspects of modelling and a very approachable guy. 

Exhibition Managers take note - you get a layout (with lots happening) AND a demonstrator for the price of one man!!!!

Great to see you again, Andy. As ever, I learned something new!  Now, where's Herself's hairspray canister?

David

Have a good day on Sunday - Kent's off my radar, I'm afraid. Looking forward to hearing all about the new layout.

Just in case any of you live in the South of England and haven't seen Andy's superb layout, it's at the Southampton MR Exhibition this weekend.

I'll post a piccie or two later (I was there today and Andy was on great form).

Details here -

https://southamptonmodelrailwaysociety.wordpress.com

Some other pretty decent layouts.

The exhibition is very good for its demos of "how to do ....". If you're into DCC the MERG group has a whole room to itself.

Sorry that I only noticed that Andy would be there yesterday, otherwise I'd have given more warning.

He'll be showing Castlederg at Romsey on 2/3  March.

Leslie

Does anyone know if there will be an Irish layout at the 2019 Warley.

My invite has just arrived and if there's Irish company, then I'll ask for a stand near it!

Thanks.

Leslie

PS By the way,  a few negative comments about attending this show, but I think they are not completely fair. Yes, the Saturday is usually frenetic, but the Sunday is invariably quiet and that's the time to come. 

I wonder which one it is?

I hope it wasn't No.10 the one which TWICE gave me 80mph - hence one of my models is her, complete with a model Driver Tommy Crymble in the cab.

Oh to have had about £1,300 in 1970 to buy a second one for the RPSI! 

Then Provincial brought in the GNR one - superb! But this is suitable for GNR, UTA and NIR, as very few of these ended up with CIE, and those that did were replaced very quickly,......

Dead right, Jon, but not before John Dewing took that wonderful photo of 184 in her green livery pulling a transfer freight over Islandbridge Jct, with a GNR van right behind the engine. 

Those GN vans had a working life akin to the BR Standard steam locos - a lot of them didn't survive to celebrate their 21st!

Aargh.... that was fifty one  years ago - GN steam had ended and the World was about to end..........  

yet I'm still here (by the Grace of God) and I've packed an enormous amount of steam running into the time between (in over two dozen countries)

And - 

"Athbhliain faoi shéan is faoi mhaise duit" to you too Magpie!

5 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

Leslie has announced a (long-needed!) CIE standard one this year. If you're listening, Leslie, put me down for ten at least!

This, like the Bullied open, the RTR J15, various laminates and Park Royals by SSM and Silverfox, H vans and CIE / GSR goods brake vans is very welcome and completely essential elements of modelling Irish railways in the 1950s and 60s.

Thanks, Jon, your interest is already noted on my database!

Planned for Blackrock 2019.

The other wagons you mention are all available right now, especially the new GSWR Brake van - see the Provincial Wagons website!

Happy New Year everyone, however you say in it your language!

Leslie

Following on on Noel's suggestion a series of pictorials of lines in the Midlands would be nice, perhaps combining colour and black and white photos with condensed versions of J P O'Dea's John O'Meara's, and N J McAdams IRRS papers would really bring the operation of these lines in the 1950s & 60s to life.

The IRRS London Area did a short series of Irish Railways in Pictures, one of which covered the Midland - I still have few, being the publisher! And of course, I have copyright access to those old articles from the Journal - as you say, priceless stuff to set the scene for the modeller. With a recent mini-landslide of wonderful collections coming our way, what you suggest might be worth a punt. Trouble is, I've got two other ideas which are overdue for publishing ........

Yes, another new book, but maybe not for most of you folk, as it's narrow gauge!

Published by my favourite railway publisher - Black Dwarf Lightmoor, this is a sequel of sorts to the Author's father's volume from the 1960s - Narrow Gauge Album. The difference is that the photographs are crystal clear, not the grainy, flat printing of Ian Allan in those days!

About a quarter is Irish content, as you can tell from the Contents. The late Patrick Whitehouse presented, with Pat Garland, the BBC's programme Railway Roundabout  and while he was making it, he took many very fine colour images of three of Ireland's best loved narrow gauge lines. I don't approve of printing across two pages, but one shot of a steam train in the Barnesmore Gap almost brought tears to my eyes.

A must for the narrow gauge folk, especially if you like the Ffestiniog and IOMR as well.

The Syndicate (profits to Irish preservation) will send it to you IN THE UK ONLY in time for Christmas for the cover price of £25 post free. Stock on hand now.

I very much regret that because of the extreme weight of the book, sending to Euroland is not practical, as the postage is about £10 for a single book. If a bunch of you wanted it, I guess I could send a pile to one place for distribution?

If you're interested in the book, please PM me. 

Thanks to those of you who bought your "Irish Railway Memories" from us - they were posted to you on Monday - the publisher was very slow in replenishing our stock! We've still got that in stock.

Happy Christmas!

Tony

You will be aware that there is a model of the UTA low bridge double decker on the market - probably only second hand now. You'd have to re-letter the destination blind, as the model is a "Ballyclare" bus.

A bit like my Jim Poots' PS1, which is going to Carrickmore ( a former home) - hard to explain that in Portadown, or on the level crossing at Richhill?

Thanks for showing that, David. It looks as if I'm wasting money on a Stay-alive chip - mind you, I'm sure the MRSI's track is fifty-times as well laid as mine!

Sorry to hear about the wonky cab. I believe it is a separate "piece", as I believe Roderick told me he was going back to having a metal boiler - just the thing for an 0-6-0, giving it  bags of torque and pulling power (like the redly thing!).

On 11/18/2018 at 8:00 PM, jhb171achill said:

Believe it or not, I meant to write 15p sterling, or about 17 cents!

So there’s two free extra cents!

In those "happy" days, my annual season for Crusaders FC in the Black North was 10/6 or 52.5p, say 60 cents!

For that, our centre forward (Danny Hale) knocked in fifty goals during one season in the Irish League! Now Danny was a member of the (True?) "Old" religion and the prod supporters of the ultra orange Linfield used to sing at him "Hale, Hale, The Pope's in Jail".

Danny found the perfect answer and put the ball in THEIR net!

Oh, I didn't mention that the East terrace at Seaview was perfect for watching NCC steam trains as well! Trains seemed to go past very slowly on match days!

21 minutes ago, Horsetan said:

Or possibly that, by this point in their careers, there were no two that were absolutely exactly alike?

Exactly right, Ivan! When Irwin Pryce and I were compiling our version of the 101 history, we mused on whether any part of 186 (maybe the wheels?) was original!

Mine arrived at Coastal DCC for the usual  "Works". No use having an analogue loco here - I'm too lazy to switch power systems - mind you, I should as the Kernow Bulleid diesel hasn't been out of its box yet!!!!

Still trying to dream up just WHY a J15 would be at Portadown in 1956!

Now, there's one for you Beaumont - did a J15 get to Portadown before 186 was towed through there in the mid-sixties, en route to immortality?

Folks

Just an update on this, as a lady in the Republic enquired after the cost to "Home".

Of course, the good 'oul Royal Mail fleece you for sending stuff to Euroland. Now that I've come round after finding out just HOW much, can I mention that I'll post this book to Euroland for €15, post paid. Profits to the RPSI.

If you're interested, I'll provide my Euro account details.

Thanks

9 hours ago, ttc0169 said:

I purchased my copy from the IRRS stand at the Warley exhibition last weekend and can highly recommended it.

 

 

Good man, thanks for buying it from us!

We can supply it, £10.95 post free to UK, for anyone who would like one.

I'll check the postage to Euroland!

Yes, it certainly made a very positive impression - we had five with us and sold the lot!

PM me if you're interested, profits to Irish preservation.

Leslie

2 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

He'd be overqualified. I'd like to see one o'those Inchicore types produce finescale kits like he does!

Easy, there, Jonathan. We had a talk from Peter Smith in London ten days ago - among the best five talks I've ever attended over sixty years. From the direction he seeks to take IR engineering, I'd say it could be a very exciting place to be in the future. He struck me as a guy well on top of a very diverse and testing job. If the politicians give him some backing, the Irish people will have a great railway to travel on in the future.