leslie10646

This market is run by the Irish Railway Record Society, London Area annually to assist funding our London Meetings. I attend with my "Syndicate" hat on and as a member of the Area committee. I sell bargain transport books, new and out of print Irish transport books and new books from Lightmoor Press at 15% off. Normally, I don't sell my wagon kits there, but if you have an order and can come and collect them (it'll cost you three quid to get in), but I save on postage and YOU will benefit. See - Richard McLachlan will have a stand selling his drawings from the Archive and there are many other good things on view - several guys sell photographs including Irish subjects. You can grab a coffee, or sit and watch videos. Something for everyone. Hope to see some of you exiles there! AND the Brits, Scots etc!!!! IF you do come, call by the Syndicate stand (usually on the stage - I use about four tables and a lot of space) and say "Hi". Leslie (Provincial Wagons)

Andy Cundick uses a simple slide "On / off" switch to move his points of Castlederg et al. I've forgotten how he tensions it - but there is a nut / bolt associated somewhere at the control end of the wire.

Kieran That's the best advert I've ever seen for Provincial Wagons - an entire train of my wagons behind your little UG! Seventeen and a van is longer than most layouts could manage. I have tested it with 24 and a van and it went fine. I must try it with thirty! Fine little loco. Leslie

The clever ones among you will know that Des does transfers for the double beets - this old age pensioner had slept through that and I had no intention of providing transfers. However, the Man from the West and I are in debate and transfers will be included - the price may have to go up a little - there is a limit to my generosity to my fellow man (woman?) - it isn't a Great Northern wagon after all! Thanks for the comments, folks. Leslie

Oh, it's at the planning stage - wait and see - maybe you'll hear by my birthday? Leslie

Thanks, John. I should add that I will do FIVE kits at a slightly reduced price of £110 OR €130 Like my earlier Spoil Wagon you need a few to look like a proper train. Leslie

As I said in another thread, my postman was busy this morning, staggering up the path in the rain (but still wearing shorts!) carrying a steam loco and two dozen wagons - a strong man? So, boxes two and three had these in them - The kit looks like this and you've seen photos of the finished job already - the kit label shows you anyway. I'm tempted to send one to Kieran, so that someone can time him building it. Half an hour, K? Not painted, off course - another ten minutes? On sale now at £25 each , post paid Or €30 to Euroland (the cost of postage has gone up again!). For those of you coming to Bangor, I'll be selling them there for a little less, as exhibition costs are a bit less than postage - if I sell enough. By the way, if you order more than one, the cost will come down, as I save on postage. Watch this space for two more wagons before Bangor! Leslie

My postman was busy this morning, bringing me not one but three parcels. See another thread re the contents of the second and third parcels, but this was the first I opened - which was reverently taken upstairs, the layout switched to DC operation with my trusty Gaugemaster - And later posing with her big Sister - The well-educated among you will spot the glaring error on the loco, but it doesn't concern me too much. Needless to say, she ran straight out of the box and ran faultlessly at slow speed round my loft, traversing about half a dozen points without faltering - so this loco may not need a Stay-Alive? Then, being a hard task-master, I hung a dozen wagons from a certain modelling concern behind her and repeated the performance with equally good results. I kept hanging them on until she was moving 25 without too much strain - my 2 foot curves did cause a bit of slipping, but once she was happily under way, she just romped along. If someone will give me tuition in uploading video, you can have a (very bad) bit of her on twenty wagons at slow speed. Great piece of work and worth waiting for.

Tony Not just the container but the two vans next to it are the subjects of my kits as well. There's no excuse for not having a full GNR(I) 1950s goods train. However, as for coaches for your passenger trains …….. Now, reference to the NCC vans asks the obvious question - do any of you want a few of those - I'm reticent to produce a kit that may not sell - not from the financial point of view but because my modeller's time is limited! Tony, your layout is growing at Warp Factor Ten - great stuff! Leslie

Richard - a couple of us at least asked for one in plain black - in effect the GN livery, but my first one will be Good 'ol No.49 in UTA lined black, which as Patrick says, looks good. Like him, I hate to admit that ANYTHING the UTA did was good! As for you guys who didn't order, as Stevie says, they're sold out - BUT, I know from talking to Roderick himself the other day, he would do another batch if he gets about ten orders, so hopefully when you steam men get reports on the loco you'll get your name down. The UG was arguably a more useful loco than the U itself - just about capable of mile a minute on a passenger, but good for a decent length goods train - I've just brought a few dozen of my wagons out of store to see how many it can move!!! Reports next week, but by the sound of it, the first photos will be from Patrick!

I understand that it'll arrive on Wednesday - sleepless nights until then? I'll post a pic when it arrives, although I bet I'm not the only one waiting? Leslie

Peter You're getting good advice from these gents. I'm track laying at the moment and run more or less every combination of loco type, coaches, WAGONS through new points and track, fast and slowly - easier to fix things before ballasting (whatever that is!) etc. I don't think you need buy longer locos, except they're in your game plan - merely what you plan to use. So, in my case, BoBo diesels (dead easy!) 0-6-0s, 4-4-0s and 2-6-4 and 4-4-2 tanks. It is the latter which is giving me problems as it mysteriously loses traction after one of my points - almost certainly my terrible lack of track laying skills. Good luck. Leslie

The postman brought a very welcome letter this morning - a demand for payment for my Class UG from 00 Works. I knew it was close, as a friend had received his letter the other day. Well, I've paid by bank transfer, so I hope to post piccies within a few days. Watch this space! Leslie

Sorry, Patrick - on 15 February you did e-mail me to say they'd arrived! You've been busy - some guys build my kits months after getting them (even YEARS!!!!). Leslie

Patrick First, I now know that you received that parcel OK! You've been busy - they were only sent to the US of A on 2 February! Also, thanks for resolving a stock control issue - I wondered WHY I had so few corrugateds in stock! I've still got some, the rest of you who fancy copying Patrick! Leslie (Provincial Wagons!) PS Lovely job, by the way!

Come on, John! They're NOT coffee stirrers - THEY'RE MODELLING STICKS! Every modeller knows that and I grab a few every time I succumb to an expensive coffee. Dozens of potential uses - Patrick's is a new one!

Certainly an impressive setup. NOT the same trains each time, so there was some deft changing going on off-scene. It suggests a large fiddle yard - which is understandable when you see the SIZE of the layout. Noel - it's busier than Clapham Junction!!!!

Despite Richard McLachlan, the IRRS's drawings man, being in Munich, he has replied! "I carry around copies of all of my electronically published books (a few of the early ones are very much printed only but will be updated in time). The same disk has a set of Journals except for the last 2 or 3 years, and other useful stuff. Start with Journal No. 2 - side corridor 3rd coaches were not used on the first (Enterprise) train. There is no evidence of any diagram of it with any form of kitchen. Both Stephen Rafferty (the blue book published by The Syndicate) and a similar exercise conducted by Gerry Beesley from official documents in 1975 simply show that the one example appeared in 1946 as side-corridor, went to CIE, stayed as a 'steam' (or diesel loco) coach and was scrapped in 1972. Both Steve and Gerry agree on the scrapping year. No mention of any catering use, such as Tea Car. In Journal 24, there is a long article on catering vehicles by L H Liddle. No mention of coach 220 - the only K24 ever built. I have to conclude that Desmond may not have been right or somewhere along the way to the printers K23 got changes to K24. The second use of K23 was for light-ish capacity catering vehicles created by rebuilding some of the the original K23 workmen coaches. Don't know if this helps but my drawing books and Gerry's work are straight from company info. Liddle also probably had a lot of direct live information from the GNR. I suspect a misprint."

Mike Richard, who produces the IRRS drawing books is abroad at the moment. I'll get him to answer this on his return. My memory is that he has full details of what got converted to railcar trailers. Leslie

This business of resurfacing roads has its railway equivalent. Network Rail (and probably good old IE and NIR) "improve" the ballasting on lines, effectively raising the trackbed. No problem for the usual boxes going under bridges, but steam locos with higher chimneys? I remember one of the preserved King Class locos arriving in Paddington without either its chimney top, or was it the safety valve? Progress, don't you love it?

That's precisely what Network Rail has done at Pangbourne on the GW main line - and probably elsewhere. There's s beam across the road about 3/4 yards in front of the bridge carrying the four track main line - so any lorries would be given a haircut! And the trains keep running! Leslie

I must set up a photo of twenty behind a 0-6-0 (and van). My Man (aka Michael) used Halfords grey primer, if my memory serves. Kieran's cattle dock scene makes the whole aggro of producing kits worthwhile - note the open door! Leslie

The Peco above baseboard point motors are a result of the initial decision to operate the points using 'wire in tube' but unfortunately I couldn't get it to work. My incompetence ! Actually, I was relieved to see how well they blended in, as I've got a dozen of things, as yet un-used, upstairs. As you say, digging holes in the baseboard is no fun, but worse is getting the wiring done. I did manage it once, courtesy of Oliver, my younger son - he's a lot more pliable (and patient) than I. Leslie

My pleasure, Tony. You'll need a SLNCR one, too - plenty of those in stock!!!!! Glad Andy could help out re the pointwork- like many "exhibitionists" he's very quick to share all manner of little "tricks" and methods which he uses. Note to Exhibition managers in Ireland - Andy has four (?) Irish layouts and it's not fair that it's only we "weeping exiles" in England who see them!! Leslie

Mike A quick answer re The Enterprise. A couple of photos in Tom Ferris's GN pictorial Book show a brake at each end, in one case of a SIX coach train and, yes, the guard would have based himself in the rear van. As for "normal" trains - many photos in that book show a single brake on a train. Remember that in former times, sundries traffic was a big earner for the railway and those vans were needed (not on the Enterprise, mind you) to carry parcels and other commodities. My GNR Working Appendix isn't where I am, so I can't read up the "rules" or suggested practice - but when the train had a single brake van and it was at the front of the train, that's where the guard would have been. JHB will give you a better answer than I, but you will get a pretty good idea of the make-up of trains by viewing the literature. As an aside, I was at York Road depot one night when Foreman Billie Steenson was supervising the make-up of the 5.55pm express to Derry - a set of MPD railcars in those days. He listened to the make-up of the train suggested by the yard shunter and broke in to say, "No, put No.xx at the rear of the train, for it has a toilet, otherwise the toilets will all be at the front of the train". Happy days when the "men" knew their job through and through and DID consider the passenger? Leslie