leslie10646

Well done with the van - looks the part and as Kieran says, nice details. Leslie

Well done Mark and Co. Sorry I hadn't heard of this reward on Sunday, or I'd have congratulated you in person when we were chatting at Warley. One up on the Brits! (oops, I AM one of those!!!). Leslie

AND they sell, for Mark had cleared out of the NIR 071s he took with him to Warley

To all intents and purposes, this van is the same size as the ex-GN Bagged Cement van which I have sold about 450 of! Same wheelbase and body size. There the similarity ends - the chassis and brake gear are different, the roof flatter and it has "plain" corner strapping - the cement van had a slopping corner strapping on the sides. The corrugated iron ends aren't necessarily wrong, if you simply repainted one of the RTR vans, as I believe Inchicore often used whatever they had to hand and if they were out of sheet steel but had corrugated ....... There's a good pic of one on page 71 of Locomotives and Rolling Stick 2nd Edition. All that said, this van is on my radar, with proper chassis, if you can wait a year. Leslie

I just want to record my sadness that "The Model Shop" has disappeared from the Belfast streets. The original shop was a matter of a hundred yards from the front door of "Inst", where I received my secondary education and their front window was compulsory viewing. In those days, it was the place to choose that special kit to ask for for Christmas (the Revell "Missouri" one year) or another tank kit - yes Panzers then too Glenderg!. Once Hornby went two rail, the shop was one source of some of my railway bits. A department store nearby had a good model section and they got a some of my (meagre) trade too. But, the very existence of the Model Shop kept my modelling interest alive, so it's sad to see it "disappear". Getting my Provincial Wagons into the shop some years ago completed a circle begun fifty years previously. I hope Gareth and Co find their feet in the new guise and that we soon see a flow of the good things we know they can produce.

Ah, no, Blaine, that's the beauty of the Kickstarter idea - you have to pay UP FRONT - no pay, no get Not do sure I want the A Class - two of John Hazelton's ones already - but ....... It might offer Paddy a way to get a single-ended yankie out sooner? Paddy, you can have the Euros from me tomorrow (for a grey one!), if you launch one of these schemes. Can't say fairer than that and I'm a steam man. Mind you - what about a J15 / 101 Class? Leslie

Well spotted, Minister. A very nice shot - probably on the Ring? You'll find lots of shots of early charabancs in "Transport In Ireland 1880 - 1910" (Patrick Flanagan). Many were associated with the railway hotels, both to deliver clients to the hotel from the railhead, or take them on tours, like the Antrim Coast Road, Connemara or The Ring. There's a particularly nice shot of one (really a bus) in Ernie Shepherd's MGWR book page 74. Very much part of the early railway scene.

Yep, Ivor, and Steve was driving it around himself. I've just supplied him with your "AEC Owner's Manual" (which you did for my "proper" AEC set), so he can work out how to remove the Triang motor bogie and replace it with a Black Beetle! Maybe you'll appear at Bangor?

Right, I've got the photographic evidence of an NCC loco and coaches working through to Dublin in GNR days. I'll try and get permission for the photo to be displayed. On 26 June 1949, No.93 (Class W Mogul) ran a special for The Pioneers from Magherafelt to Dublin. Charlie Friel has in his possession two photos of her at Dundalk! Quite an exploit, for she would have had to run round the Antrim branch tender first before reversal at Lisburn. In fact she may have been worked tender first the whole way from Magherafelt to there! One of you guys, who is a member of the IRRS in Dublin, can take yourself into the Library, go to the "Holy of Holies" in the reference section where you'll find the working notices for the GNR for 1949 - there's sure to be a full timetable for the train there! Funny none of we oldies thought of Pioneer specials - there were still lots of them in the 1960s.

Ivor I'm sorry you missed it too, as I've been looking forward to meeting my premier coaching engineer for a long time! Some of your coaches are roaring round my loft in fine style twelve years on! Leslie

Nelson Thanks for putting the video up, as I can now aim Michael at it to see his wagons "in action" - better than any photo! Thanks, too, to Patrick Davey, for the super jigs to go with the film! Blaine, I think a lot of Bleach Green's problems were a single Class WT which was very sick for some reason. Personally, I found the layout (first time I'd seen it in the flesh) very evocative. Well worth the £200 odd it cost to come over to see it! Congrats all round. Leslie

Just in case any of you can afford it - you can probably save a few Euros by bringing your own Saffron kilt (of course, our esteemed member, The former Commisioner of the Garda will have one from his days running The Force). For the Scottish trips, Belmond tell you where to hire a kilt! Presumably you can hire 'em in Dublin as well? Enough cynicism for one night, I'm off to bed!

Ah, now there you've got it - another loco hauled train to photograph!

See Belmond's website for a little more info. http://www.belmond.com/grand-hibernian-train/ which is where Broithe found the picture. Bad news for Jim Deegan and others offering train trips in Ireland? Maybe not - at £4,000 plus for FOUR nights (their Scottish train) I don't think so! Certainly NOT for anoraks! I saw the Scottish train "loading" at Edinburgh - at most a dozen passengers that I saw being led out by a piper - to fill a train of at least a dozen coaches! As Dave said, another new livery - so good news for Paddy M?

The red board instead of a tail lamp comes as a bit of a surprise to me. Didn't know they used boards other than on ng gauge lines. Actually, the GN used a WHITE board to mark the back of their push pull trains - in daylight, of course. It may also have only been when the loco was at the back of the train! Vide "Giolden Years of the GNR Vol 1" p 18. Leslie

Guys When I'm at Cultra on Saturday, I'll put out a list of "What next" projects for my next kit. If you want brown vans, then you know what to vote for? Come and see me at Bleach Green! By the way, an interesting photo in the latest IRRS Journal showing a brown van being shunted at Great Victoria Street in 1969 by no less than Diesel No.28! Proof that they did find their way onto the GN! Leslie PS Amazed to see that the UTA deemed it to be only a ten ton van - it looks big enough to be twelve or more tons load?

You never know, I may get a gang of us to travel over on the 8th!! Fondest regards, David J. White. Well, he's coming, as am I, so if you want to pick up any Provincial Wagons stuff, you'll find me around Bleach Green, where I'll be gloating over the sight of twenty of my spoil wagons between two 2-6-4 tanks, as seen in 1966! I can't overtly sell, but I will have small supplies of my wagons, both RTR and kits available to pick up / purchase. Please let me know in advance and I'll reserve wagons / kits for you. If you can't resist the spoil wagons, I'll have some kits available for you to take away on the day! Do call and say hallo! Leslie (and young White!).

Rich Looking at your scenery - what are you doing building a layout in MY loft? Actually, yours looks a lot less cluttered with wood than mine! But I've got sloping sky as well. Thanks for the ideas, which work! Leslie

Yes, John, I did an hour or so photographing departures at Heuston a few years ago and stopped when I realised that every photo looked the same! The CAFs, Rotems etc are great trains for the Irish people to travel in, but they don't stir the blood of the enthusiast! I only have CAF in the collection so that I can send Mal McGreavy a photo of it at Richhill, when the model station is recognisable! Subtle (or not?) hint to him about where to go next! Floreat Vapor!

Come on, Defender of the Alamo, these are handmade rarities, not your "build them by the tens of thousands" box cars! Like Noel, I think they're very nice - mine is in green (obviously - for the World ended about 1970) - and I've two more on order.

Right, John's psychologist can get to work on this lot - My grandparental home overlooked the GN Armagh line at Richhill and as a babe in arms I was held up to see the trains (over the lane hedge) - can I sue my grandfather for mental cruelty? So, the station is now at one end of the loft! But it was a long journey there. The first layout was Trix Twin (ghastly three rail stuff with 0-4-0 tender engines!). The moment Hornby brought out their two rail stuff, the Trix stuff was disposed of and the Southern Railway R2 tank goods set was bought. That was followed by various other locos, including a BR Standard tank, which was repainted as a Class WT. The WR coaches got a blue stripe to Great Northernise them, a Triang 3F was made into No.19 - then shunting York Road (which was a mile from the house) - all this on a 8ft by 4ft layout - I even persuaded my parents to replace my double bed with bunks to make room for it! I moved to England and even had a 6ft by 4ft layout in the hostel in lived in. After discovering just how wonderful Bulleid Pacifics were, the next layout was Southern. BUT, with the end of steam in England, Germany beckoned and in 1970 a German friend took me into a model shop in Hamburg, where I bought a Fleischmann Class 55 0-8-0. It was like going to a model heaven - this loco ran completely silently - out went the Hornby / Traing stuff and over the next few years a collection of German stock was bought to run on my now 12ft by 6ft layout. Marriage and houses followed and it was only when I moved into this house 25 years ago that I partly floored the loft and set about recreating a built of the Mosel Valley line to run those lovely German locos round. I had double track round 21ft by 17ft; but it was never even partly completed. Work and family got seriously in the way and ther, as the books say, things remained. Until I went to Hong Kong to work, after my first retirement, and while there was intorduced to a brilliant Chinese modeller, Daniel Wu. He built me one of the original SSM Class SG kits (and very impressed with it, he was, having built about 25 kits from other British kit makers). THREE Class S 4-4-0s followed; 33Lima built my ASEC and BUT railcar sets and so on and so on. Three years ago, a Life Insurance coughed up when I was 65 and the money went into insulating and flooring the loft properly; plus getting my builder, who is a master carpenter, to built the baseboards. Now, back to my youth - the layout will have Portadown Jct and goods yard at one end, complete with the roundhouse (gotta use that expensive electrically operated Flesichmann turntable!); round the corner to Portadown Passenger, round the corner (and therefore opposite the "Junction") to Richhill and finally on the fourth side a couple of loops (which will take a 4-4-0 and ten coaches) off the double track line to act as "The Rest of the Known Universe". I am taking photos as I go and when there's REALLY something to see, I'll start a thread. Still battling with basics like soldering terminals (oh, yes, it's DCC) and laying track which won't derail the wagons produced by a certain wagon builder, which shares the address. It's getting there slowly. Tonight's little success was getting the (second) SG to run right round with fourteen wagons. Enough. As you can see, having been indoctrinated at a VERY early age, I think that engines should be blue and pull mahogany coaches and that's where this railway is going (DV).

Castle Rackrent must serve as the epitome of what a modeller can achieve. It was a good half century ahead of its time in this regard. Anyone know if it is still operational, in any form? John, it most certainly is, I think it's at Richard's home in Scotland. He turned up at the talk I gave on modelling to the IRRS (London) this year and brought a couple of locos with him. They may be visible in the photos which Horsetan took on the evening. As a layout, it set an impossibly high standard for the rest of us to try to emulate. Richard is a serious good modeller!

It used to look like this LMS toy coach - a lot better (not my photo) The actual body shell seems a prototypical botch job, a sort of mk1 shell with makey up side panels pretending to be old world LMS. Don't think any such coach actually ever existed. Noel Your coach was Hornby's pretty awful repaint of their Caledonian Railway coach - they did two (a compo and a brake third) to run with their Caley 123 loco. The original version was in a reasonable attempt at the Caledonian's coach livery. I had considered repainting them in mahogany as a cheap and cheerful GNR panelled coach - but never did. 33lima built me half a dozen fifteen years ago which are still thundering round the loft behind my Class WT. Like the others - I commend you for your handiwork when you were twelve! Leslie