leslie10646

From little Acorns grow mighty Oaks! Good luck with your next step upwards. Leslie

Good luck with the Launch and, of course, sales. Looking forward to selling it to the exiles over here. Pity it won't be in time for the Warley Exhibition! Leslie

The little Ballast wagon is thanks to Patrick Dillane in Ireland's Other Island - across the Atlantic - who spotted a photo on the Internet of the wagon with an Austin 1800 on it, sitting in a siding somewhere. I sent the photo, and a little suggestion to Michael who sent me a photo of the finished KIT about two weeks later. Happy Days. Leslie

Oh, it's the chassis Michael created for the corrugated wagon and I guess he has reused his Master on the successive wagons. Same logic as the IRM guys will use on their Ballasts and Bubbles, except that this is a resin kit of course.

First take a Bulleid triangulated chassis: Add a corrugated body and you've got one of several thousand of these iconic wagons; Add a steel van body and you get an H van (two above, of different eras) Finally, (for the moment), add a crude wooden platform and you get a Ballast Flat, which as well as its "proper" use got used to carry cars, or farm machinery, to Backwoods Ireland in the 1960s/1970s. 50 of these wagons were built using the chassis from H vans. I'm waiting for the transfers to complete the job. All available at Raheny in a couple of weeks! Leslie

Our H Van as it would have appeared in broken wheel days. The body is a bit on the red side, but you will get the idea? The kit comes with BOTH Snail and Wheel, plus correct numbers - as you can see here. Leslie

Thanks, on Michael's behalf, for the kind comment. No, the idea's not to make YOU bankrupt, or the Great Southern Man for that matter, but to save me from same! You'll find me at Raheny, but it would be useful to know how many, then I'll put your name on them! e-mail me on - lesliemcallister@aol.com Thanks again. Leslie

My tenth kit is the 12 ton van introduced on CIE by Oliver Bulleid in 1953. The van is on his famous triangulated chassis, previously seen on my earlier open wagon. My kit is of the original unfitted van and comes with specially commissioned Flying Snail, or Broken Wheel Railtec Transfers (your choice depending on the era you are modelling, but both are included), plus correct numbers for this type of van. I will post a picture of the van in late 1960s livery shortly. Price £24 or €28 post paid Dare I suggest to my friends in Euroland - buy now while the Euro is strong! Hope you like it, I think Michael (aka "My Man") has done a terrific job. Leslie

Noel You can have both of them NOW, but you'll have to build them from my kits. mind you my beets are pre 1980s single height. See: http://www.provincialwagons.com Leslie

Folks With another of my hats on, I raise funds for the RPSI through an operation called The Syndicate. Amongst our stock are many IRRS Journals and our price is more like Richie's fiver a magazine and certainly not ten plus! e-mail me on lesliemcallister@aol.com stating your wants and we'll try and sort them out for you and profit the RPSI at the same time. BSGVS is right about the usefulness of IRN (I have a bound set), but I refer to The JOURNAL mostly as I have an electronic index to it! So it's easier to do research in it. Leslie

David, Thanks for that lead - with MY track, it sounds like the answer to a Maiden's Prayer? Alas, Noel, I have more than a few superbly hand-built locos but which simply don't run so well. Much surgery on-going! But this Stay-alive thing sounds just the job. Your point about really slow running is well made - with DCC and a slow acceleration / deceleration rate set - you should see how the engine runs at properly slow speeds - if it doesn't hit a bit of dirty track and stall! Hmm, it seems I've got another £500 to find to fit my locos properly! Leslie

Yeah, John, I'm making a habit of it!

Patrick I hope that Roderick & Rebecca will indeed do a "101" (J15) in the near future - I have no idea at what level of sales the cost of mastering a loco makes sense, but I can tell you that when I ordered a second U Class last Saturday it was No.82 - as my first was No.3 - you can all do the maths - and that's a pretty good sales record, in my book. While I personally have no particular interest in a 101 Class, it's an obvious "next" if they decide that the Irish market is worth the bother. I've no idea what the order book for the UG is, but SOME guys may opt for a second - they were used on passenger and goods. Certainly I have two of a couple of goods classes. Leslie PS Come on then Popeye - I am a dyed in the wool steam man but I have a model of every Irish diesel on my layout!!! AND still await another 70th present of one of Paddy's grey single ended yankees.

Right - could be a chassis for a 2-10-0? No, there's no room for a pony truck, so you're not building a DB Class 50 2-10-0. The extended frame at the rear has got me - what 0-10-0 had such an overhang at the rear? Nice bit of miniature engineering! Leslie

Well, I shot a video (VERY badly) but while I can show it on my Mac, I haven't got a clue how I get it onto this site - instructions please? IF you could have seen it, you would have witnessed the little U Class pulling SIX bogie coaches and a six wheel van - without problem. In real life, they would have taken up to eight bogies on excursions to Bangor and I may try that - however the Bangor line didn't have the 2 ft curves of my layout - that enormously adds to the required tractive effort! My layout is about a scale mile round and she can do that in 50 seconds - that's 75mph scale (not flat out either!)- far more than one was ever timed at. A final thought - why does the layout seem to run better in DC mode (the loco isn't chipped of course!) than DCC? Time for bed! Leslie

Well done, Kieran - a very neat and clever conversion. Never mind my wagons - have you got a rake of bone-shaking six wheelers to go with it? My pal Michael at Smallbrook does a LSWR "road van" which I understand is the spitting image of a BCDR brake van. Leslie

Of course you are Patrick - you've only been married a few years!!!! Have you built a new layout yet? Just ran her round mine BACKWARDS for over half an hour - she's loosening up nicely! Leslie

OK, guys, some shots which I hope show this lovely little engine off. So this is where my day has disappeared to - Professional look? Well packed In the Surrey Sun! Front view By Dundalk Signal Cabin (actually at South end of where Portadown Passenger will be!) With a typical length Irish North train - a K15, a K3 and a six wheel van (all Richard Ellis-Hobbs), with three conflats and six bread containers (guess where they came from?) - have I got it right, John M? She WILL pull these, but slips a bit - still needs to be gently run in! I just couldn't resist running her round with a train. By the way with three of Richard's bogie coaches and two Park Royals from IRFM, she ran well - the better wheel sets certainly helped. When I've run her in a bit more, I'll try more coaches!!! Get your orders in - a delight! Leslie PS Video attempt a disaster - out of focus - maybe I shouldn't use a compact still camera with video facility - I'll try the SLR!!!!

The Express usually seems to have loaded to 4 coaches, while most Irish North passenger trains seem to have been made up with two coaches, bogie or 6 wheel van and a long string of bread containers John Thanks for the video link - great stuff. Well, she'll take four oK - I'm off to try two bogies, a six wheel van and bread containers - I think I can replicate that!!! Leslie

Ok, here goes. Straight out of the box, it ran smoothly - did a full circuit of my 21 x 17 layout, minimum radius 2ft, without a falter. Tried pulling five coaches (with very old, poor-running bogies) tender-first, out of the Portadown loop, to place so I could place her at the front, but she slipped quite a bit - especially as she was going straight onto a 2ft curve. NO WORRIES - try her with three coaches. Flew with three - no slips, perfect. Now four - same again - no problems. Back to five coaches, we've been chimney first throughout all of this - she slipped a bit starting, but ran fine on straight, but curves had her slipping coming out of them, with the train all on 2ft! Now - embarrassing to relate- my VS slips furiously on five of these coaches (a Hornby Schools chassis), so she's doing really well for a handmade engine. I'll try and video it for you - at the very least I'll post a sunshine photo to compare with Patrick's indoor shot - yeah - we get sun in Surrey! Also, I'll try her with more modern coaches and report back. She's one of my 70th birthday presents - makes you want to be 70 again!!!! BETTER than any loco I've had handmade for me - end of ...... A truly wonderful piece of work, so well done Roderick, Rebecca and whoever helps you guys - a masterpiece! If you want a proper Irish steam loco - get your order in! Can't say more than that Leslie

Patrick, you're right - no need for me to post photos - the ones on the website are better than I'd take! It looks super. I'll have to wash my hands VERY carefully tomorrow when the Postie arrives!!!! Now, do I need a second one? ..........

Thanks for that photo link - what a wonderful set of photos! By coincidence, I am writing up journeys made in 1965 out of York Road, so the photos of No.19, No.13 etc there really bring back the memories! Message to the other half dozen steam men on this site - take a look - super shots (even a few diesels!) Leslie

No question, a very nice model - so I've succumbed and there's more money in your bank account as of two minutes ago. Now, where to put them? - every siding is full! Congratulations. Leslie

I can't resist saying that the photo shows a very fine brake van! The kit is still available! The UG is apparently "on time" - ie before Christmas, according a reply from Rebecca yesterday. As for a video - two problems - my track is DCC controlled, so I'd have to wait to have it chipped (I might try disconnecting the DCC and plugging in an old controller); Hhmmm - how do you take video? More important load it onto the site!!!! I'll have a look Worst of all, I don't really want you guys to see my non-layout, which would take prizes for VERY poor track work, no scenery and general inertia. But, I'll see what I can do. Roll on Friday! Leslie