leslie10646

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

And Martin Bott Books has a copy for £25 - look it up on ABEBOOKS - the (almost unfailing) way to get rare books. But, of course, there will be a copy in the IRRS library at Heuston - the Library has pretty well everything published on Irish Railways - a good reason to join the IRRS. You can, by the way, at the MRSI exhibiiton this weekend, or at the London Area stand (E33) at Warley)!

The GNR repaired five NCC locos at Dundalk, one even being returned in full lined crimson lake (I can't find the reference in the books, so can't tell you which one - still looking). The GSR and the GNR built 75 wagons each on salvaged ironwork. The GNR also did some carriage maintenance after The Blitz. Finally, three DNGR tank locos were loaned by the GNR to the NCC. Apart from shunting, their main base appears to have been Coleraine where they were occasionally used on Portrush branch trains!! Of course, it was after the Blitz that the two Jinties were sent over by the parent LMS.

Maybe looking at things like rugby/football/GAA/pilgrimage specials might be an idea? Good point, Mr MInister, but for the rugger, it was the GN from GV Street who ran the specials; likewlse when Down ("Up Down"!) were having their purple patch and taking trainloads down to Croke Park, that, too was GN. Did Antrim or Derry ever go South for big matches, that might have produced NCC coaches, but probably hauled by GN loco. As for the footie, that was Belfast-centric, so specials ran up the NCC to York Road (four ten coach specials when Derry City were in the Irish Cup Final in 1965); or into GV St. Back in the Bad Old Days, the two countries seldom played each other at footie and even if there was a special, that would have been GN. David, you'll just have to fall back on your old line - "it's my line"! (Pun intended of course!).

This plain grey reminds me of the "Chip as Chips" livery used on steam goods locos in GSR days - the battleship grey became a nice even black with time.

Hah, White, that sounds exactly how you would answer a query, even on your goods days! That said, IT IS YOUR RAILWAY and you should run whatever you want. I am unaware of any regular NCC workings to the GN. Obviously, individual wagons would have worked through and would have been seen all over the Island. Yer Man in Waterford is right that there would have been the odd van of pigeons from time to time. I don't need to tell YOU that the Enterprise was GNR stock, balanced by a train of CIE stock. The UTA loaned locos to the GNR from time to time in the 1950s -a Class U2 "Carrickfergus Castle" ran in the Clones area for quite q while and I believe a Class WT or two were on loan in the early 1950s.

Folks I have now seen at least fifteen of my kits built - unpainted, painted pristine and mucky - and while all these clever chaps have "mucked" the wagons up, no-one has yet tried to really "age" them. What I'm getting at is that after a fairly short time in service, the lips of the hopper got well and truly bashed! Can't wait to see someone's stake on that! I assume, by the way, that you youngsters know that the trains were referred to as the "Muck Trains" - so these are Muck wagon kits! People THINK that the M in the wagon number was for "Magheramorne" (Quarry where the Muck (sorry, "Spoil") came from), but the enthusiasts knew that it really stood for Muck! Without these trains, there'd be no No.4 today!

Yes, Des Coakham's book on Broad Gauge Carriages is a valuable reference work AND it's been remaindered, so you should be able to get it for not more than £10. I agree with Seamus that the earliest editions of the Locos and Rolling Stock book is a useful source of freight photos. ALSO, as mentioned on another string - Tom Ferris's two volumes on Irish Railways in Colour have lots of rolling stock photos (in the background, etc) and again should not put you back more than a tenner each. Leslie

This quip is aimed at Noel, who is taking anti-diesel bigotry too far - mind you Noel, when I was timing steam trains in the 1960s, I hated the xxxxing railcars. However, while I thought I was safely hidden from view in Hong Kong, a "friend" "outed" me by handing round photos of my GN AEC set! 33Lima's work, by the way. His BUT set was just as good. Getting back to the subject - steam age trains were much longer, in terms of NUMBER of coaches - the Dublin semi-fasts from Belfast were anything from four coaches to eight, or even nine. I am building my "Portadown" platforms to take eight coaches and a 4-4-0. On the branches, you can get away with a coach and a van, whether in steam or diesel days, North or South. Cork mainline trains were often great caravans of trains with TPOs, vans, restaurant cars etc etc. No shortage of evidence in the books. For a cheap and cheerful guide buy the two volumes of Tom Ferris's "Irish Railways in Colour" which is available second hand for under a tenner each, usually. I probably take Tom's books down, from the shelves above my head as I sit here typing, more regularly than any others to check photographic "facts". Long trains look great and most locos can pull ten coaches with relative ease.

Hi Nelson Thanks for the sales pitch for the Spoil kit. I'll slip you a fiver when I next see you! It must be reasonably easy to put together, as rakes of them seem to be popping up everywhere! I have good stocks of the kit, if any other UTA period enthusiasts fancy a rake, or a few to use as pw wagons in NIR '70s. Leslie

Hi Nelson Thanks for the sales pitch for the Spoil kit. I'll slip you a fiver when I next see you! It must be reasonably easy to put together, as rakes of them seem to be popping up everywhere! I have good stocks of the kit, if any other UTA period enthusiasts fancy a rake, or a few to use as pw wagons in NIR '70s. Leslie

Noel Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but ....... NIR Blue is great - it's like GNR Blue - the World's greatest ever livery (mind you the Milwaukee's Hiawathas had a pretty amazing colour scheme); Supertrain orange and black was simple but very effective - it did look good on an A Class with a rake of uniform Mark 2s BUT, have to agree with you, the Black and Tan livery had a certain je ne sais quoi and really looked good on certain locos and stock. For me, a silver A Class, please (although i've got one of John Silverfox's) and a grey / yellow single-ended Yankee. A final point, the 201s are a bit characterless, but they really do look good in the two tone grey / green livery. Thanks Mr Graham, who supplied mine. Leslie

Careful, Seamus, you might need her for baby-sitting one day! Then you'll be glad she doesn't run out of fuel! I speak with passion, having helped supervise my grandson's birthday party today!

Sorry, Noel, but you're ignoring the little matter of the numbers. The phone in your pocket - the manufacturer makes them BY THE MILLION. The sound chip guy is probably turning out hundreds? I haven't heard a Hornby "chuff" or "gurgle and roar", so can't judge whether their £25 version is up to the quality of the £50 - £100 version, often specifically "made to (Irish) measure". Sorry to repeat myself - we're in a minority sport and you pay for your pleasures in such a situation!

Re: my Spoil Wagon kits on Kieran's workbench. I like the "a while ago" - it was TWO WEEKS ago, I should know when I send things to people! Terrific stuff to have all five nearly complete in that time. Very well done, young man. Look forward to seeing them painted - looks like there REALLY will be twenty of them with a tank at each end running on Bleach Green in three week's time - maybe I should fly over to see it? Leslie

I'm glad Noel isn't looking at my bank account, as my sound-fitted Class WT cost me £500 - mind you it IS semi-handmade, but the chipping etc was £150 of that. Is it worth it? Personally I think it's great - I put sound in it to amuse my grandson, but honestly, it amuses me more! My NIR 112 was a lot cheaper (somewhere round £200 from Gareth at the Model Shop in Belfast) and it's brilliant (for a diesel). An insane, but useful side-benefit is that when you're wiring droppers for DCC (hundreds of 'em, in my case), if you have 112 sitting on the piece of track being electrified and you're connecting the droppers to the "bus", she leaps into life (ie, you can hear her) when you've got the connection right - I'm using those little gadgets nicknamed "suitcase connectors" to connect the droppers to the "bus" and it takes a lot of squeezing with pliers to get the connection just right!

Folks Almost time for Warley again. Same Hall as last year, opening times are - Saturday 0945 to 1800hrs Sunday 0945 to 1700hrs Advance ticket holders get in half an hour earlier. I don't see an Irish layout among the exhibits, but the Irish Railway Record Society (London Area) WILL be there on Stand B33. We will have a modest exhibit of Irish models from our private collections and will be selling Irish Railway books, IRRS publications (including back number Journals) and books of GNR loco and carriage drawings from the IRRS archive. I won't be selling wagons at this event, but I am happy to deliver orders to customers, who will then save some postage - please discuss your needs with me via the Provincial Wagons' website. I notice Mark will also be in attendance. Whatever you do, if you are there, be sure and drop by and say "Hallo". Leslie

Richard McLachlan is reproducing the GNR carriage books from originals held by the IRRS, but I don't know if he plans to do GSR types. Several volumes of GNR at about £35 a volume, if memory serves. You can see them for yourselves at Warley (Stand B33).