David Holman

Neat. VERY neat! As another member of the 'Smokeboxes are a real bummer Club' can only concur with the challenges involved, so hopefully a couple of glasses of falling down water have been awarded. Plus it is nearly Christmas after all.

Swillybegs out of Fintonagh Guess it is about time I started a new thread for the conversion of Fintonagh to Swillybegs. The work isn’t too drastic [& certainly far less so than Arigna Town to Belmullet], but an explanation as to my rationale may be useful first. The idea is that the Famine wasn’t quite as severe in this part of Ireland, which then didn’t suffer the same population decline as other parts of the country. Hence there was scope for the sort of railway development seen in Brittany, France, where in addition to the main lines and metre gauge systems like the Reseau Breton, various other feeder lines were built, including some roadside tramways. Hence, when the Londonderry & Lough Swilly Railway arrived in Letterkenny in 1883, the County Donegal Railway came soon after [rather than in 1909]. The two companies then joined forces to construct a branch to the port of Swillybegs on the shore of Lough Swilly, somewhere near present day Rathmelton. Meanwhile, an independent roadside tramway, the North Donegal, was building a line from Downies [on the Atlantic coast], via Carrickart and Millport to Swillybegs. Downies was an important herring fishery in the 19th century [true], so there was a decent amount of traffic at first. However, this soon declined in the 20th century, so it is likely that the section beyond Millport gradually fell out of use. Indeed, both railways would have struggled from the 1930s onwards, but my assumption is that The Emergency [aka 2nd World War] kept them going. Redundant locos and stock from the Clogher Valley Railway found work on both lines during the fuel crisis, right up until the early 1950s, when both sections finally closed at the same time as the L&LS railway. The reasons for all this nonsense go back to the last Cultra Exhibition, when I took Fintonagh there and got several new books from the Donegal Society stand. From these, I learned about how Clogher Valley stock went to both the Donegal and the Swilly and with a long held admiration for both railways, the die was cast! However, both lines tended towards quite long trains and big locomotives, which made me think that the only way to do it would be a brand new layout. Equally, the smaller Donegal railcars and latter day trains on the Swilly – which could be as short as a couple of wagons and a bogie brake coach – gave food for thought that maybe Fintonagh could be adapted. Both the Barclay 4-6-0T and Kerr Stuart 4-6-2T would fit on the turntable, while from the CVR, Railcar No1 [Donegal No 10] and Phoenix diesel tractor were easily converted – little more than a repaint. CVR wagons went to both companies, but I still needed to find a role for my two 0-4-2T – hence the additional fiction of the North Donegal Tramway. Still with me? Well done! So what of the layout? The map below shows the geography, while the track plan shows how the two lines meet up at Swillybegs. If you haven’t clocked the name yet, it is of course a play on Killybegs, the actual Donegal terminus. There are no changes to the track plan of Fintonagh. All I’m doing is adapting the front edge of the layout to look like a quayside. The Donegal/Swilly line comes in, at the rear, behind the rebranded warehouse, while the Tramway enters at the front, squeezing between that warehouse and a new ‘flat’, complete with a bridge joining the two, which will also hide the exit to the fiddle yard. The Tramway is deemed to be where the goods yard is, so there is some transfer traffic, which will largely be in the hands of Phoenix. Swilly trains will most likely be short mixed ones, with a coach and a couple of vans, while Donegal ones will be railcars, one with a passenger trailer, the other with a couple of vans. There’s a temptation to enhance the layout wiring to enable two trains on the layout at once, but this will probably make the scene very crowded and also cause sight line problems for operators. So things will probably remain one train at a time, though [as on Fintonagh], a train loco can go to the turntable while Phoenix does the shunting. So, there we are – an introduction to my latest piece of nonsense. Most of the layout stays the same and the backscene is not entirely unlike the Rathmelton townscape anyway. The new and revised stock will partly set the scene, but presenting a convincing quayside will be the main challenge, especially with so little room to work with. The photos below show where I’ve got to and with this new thread to chart progress, more will follow in due course. Anyone invested in Fintonagh can find the whole story in the Layouts thread under Clogher Valley Project, while locos and stock are within David's Workbench in that section.

Been working on the front edge of Fintonagh/Swillybegs, stripping off the foliage & beginning the change to a quayside. Much of the work involves the application of DAS modelling clay. A bit like doing a building, you first put down a layer of PVA, then press on pea sized balls of the clay, smoothing them out so there is an overall depth of about one millimetre. Once dry, this is then sanded level, after which comes the laborious process of scribing in all the setts and stonework. Sanding creates a lot of fine dust & this is not something you want to use your domestic vacuum clean on. For years, I've used cordless car vac, but the motor bearings were sounding extremely knackered, so was pleased to find a replacement in a basic Goblin hand held model. Mains powered, at just £25 from Asda it is less than half the price of rechargeable models and a lot more powerful. Even if it only lasts a couple of years, it will be worth it. Have also finally got round to finishing the first Schull & Skibbereen coach, which is shown below sitting by the mock up of the new tramway platform.

Heard on the news this morning about disruption caused by recent storm damage to Holyhead port. Closed till at least mid January, so something else to add to the litany of problems?

Amazing how a relatively simple looking loco can turn out so complex. So many different (and difficult) curves. Quite dainty too and coming on really well.

Several weeks with much ado about very little! Far too much faffing around with NPQ after Tolworth, but most of it has been fettled & I suspect I will just have to live with the foibles of the track work - that or put in an order to Marcway for two new Y points, but I really want to get on with something new. Testing NPQ threw up a fresh issue with the Deutz G class shunter which suddenly lost traction. Traced the problem to the Delrin gear train, where both spur gears had worked loose on the axles - probably a result of too much oil. Fixing it was a pain, requiring the chassis to be completely stripped down and cleaned before reassembly. Fingers crossed, it seems ok now. This morning, wasted a couple of hours trying to get the signal mechanism repaired, but looks like it will required a complete rebuild, for which I need to send off for some more piano wire for the wire in tube linkage. Still, need some more for my narrow gauge couplings, so all is not lost. After all that, NPQ is back on the top shelf with Fintonagh's baseboards on the main beams so I can get back to new stuff. Sod's Law struck again though when I discovered the turntable wasn't working. Similar problem to the Deutz, but this time the motor had worked loose from its housing. Turned out it was only glued in place, so with a bit of Evostick, it didn't take long to fix. Having considered Ramelton and several other options for the Donegalisation of Fintonagh, the name 'Swillybegs' is currently favourite, being a direct crib of Killybegs, but sited on Lough Swilly, somewhere in the Rathmelton area. Rather than mess around with the back scene, have decided to work on the front edge of the layout. By adding some more 6mm ply to the front framework, I can create a short section of quayside [similar to NPQ], while the front siding will be cut short and a tramway platform installed in its place. This will represent a line from Downies and Carrigart using my two CVR tank engines and coaches based on the Schull and Skibbereen.

Lovely stuff!

Hopefully, the shed is still healthy and as others have said, a quick set up to just run trains may prove to be just the tonic.

Makes sense to me. My 7mm scale G2 has a sprung front axle, which works ok, but occasionally needs tweaking as these wheels sometimes stop turning because of lack of downward pressure.

See that Tara Junction has just reached another milestone with 900 000 views. Didn't seem that long ago it was 800k and all this in 12 years!

All power to your elbows good sir!

Such a lovely scale. S is actually 1:64, so 5'3 works out as a rather splendid 63/64ths of an inch, which in metric is 25.003mm. I won't tell if you dont!

Brave man! Looks like a complete basket case to me, but if anyone has the skills, it's you.

Fab.

Try enlarging the photo. It is very much black and the only dirt appears to be water marks down the tank side. The A class is typically work stained. Am sure have seen other colour photos of locos with black buffer beams too.