David Holman

Looking good Ken. One of the many positive aspects of modelling Irish railways for me is the short stock. Compared to most British 4w wagons, Irish ones are around an inch or more shorter in 7mm scale and overall in the same space that would only fit six British wagons, you can get seven Irish ones.

Couldn't have done it without your help, JB. However, to my eyes, the boiler bands need toning down a bit, so the red stripe is wider and the white either side less prominent. That's how it appears in black and white pictures anyway. Want to do the inner, fine red line on cab and tender too. Buffer beam number, a bit of light weathering - this is depicting an almost new loco - then a spray of satin varnish and that should be it. Hopefully!

Lovely stuff! Have always liked the 'semi' vans, so now have an excuse to build some more!

Superb - and such delicate work too!

That certainly deserves to be finished!

Thanks for all the comments, folks. Would love to visit the area eventually. In the past, have managed to get to Burtonport, Clifden, Achill, Westport and Sligo, so really need to make the effort to go back to the far north west. Have often wondered if the intention of a railway to Blacksod Bay would have gone down the peninsula to Blacksod itself - from the pictures on Google, it looks stunning. Am going to stick with the Belmullet concept, because it works with the way the layout is orientated, but could yet include Belmullet for Blacksod Bay as the station sign - though in bilingual form it would need a pretty large space! In the last few days have managed to do most of the destructive work on the layout, culminating with the one bit of track lifting required - removing the point to the goods siding, so it can eventually be replaced by the single slip. The point came up really well, a tribute to its robust construction by Marcway, but it immediately set me thinking that I could actually still use it. So, it has been moved a couple of feet up the goods siding and now forms the turnout to an end loading dock beside what has become the bay platform. The very end of the bay now has a platform both sides, which will work as a dock for a horse box, giving an extra bit of shunting, if required. Meanwhile, the 'Railway Bar' fits very nicely in the front right corner, opposite the station building. The end back scene, behind this will need to be re-done in order to capture that aspect of Bellmullet town leading to the short canal between Broadhaven and Blacksod Bay. As far as I can tell, the land from the station parallel to the Bay consisted of narrow fields. Have also included a couple of pictures of my new 101, in the the bay platform with a GSWR brake van made by Richard Chown and a SLNCR horse box [ex WLW], which is the limit of my1900s livery stock at the moment! The 101 is still not completely finished, but is starting to look the part.

I think a lot of layouts actually end up scrapped, Stephen, though a few get sold and some, like Arigna, get refurbished. Of the exhibition layouts I've built myself, the first two were scrapped, the next two got sold [not for very much] before the next was scrapped and two after that got sold as well. With most layouts you can usually move them on without the stock, because they are to a known scale/gauge. The problem with Arigna Town was that if I was going to move it on, it would mean a fair amount of stock would need to go with it because so few people work in 7mm scale, 36.75mm gauge. That then becomes very expensive with scratch and kit built locos involved. Hence the refurb. Corrections However, even at this early stage, a couple of corrections are necessary. Firstly, my fictitious history and a bit of geography. The link from the Burma Road to the Ballina branch should read Swinford to Foxford, not Longford as I first mentioned. However, looking at both map and history, a potentially more realistic bit of imagineering would be that the Athenry & Tuam Railway was extended much earlier to Claremorris instead of waiting until 1894. It was actually the Great Northern & Western that built the lines to Westport & Ballina - the Midland & Great Western not taking over until later, though they did work the lines. The WLW got in on the Burma Road from Claremorris to Sligo largely because the MGW weren't interested and indeed, weren't exactly over enthusiastic about taking on the Ballina line either. So, my revised bit of history supposes that, with the GNW, the WLW built the line to Ballina - on a slightly different route - starting out on what became the Burma Road and following the river valley from Kiltimagh to Ballina, reaching there in 1873, as per actual history. When the Burma Road was opened in 1895, it included a link from Swinford to Foxford [and therefore on the Sligo, Enniskillen etc] as part of the WLW/SLNCR line to Belmullet. Stung into action by this invasion of their territory, the MGW built a line from Mallarany to Belmullet, thereby satisfying my needs for a model railway with WLW, GSW, MGW and SLNCR trains appearing alongside each other. Works for me anyway... The other change is that I am now going to call the project 'Belmullet' instead of Blacksod Bay. Much as the latter is a rather evocative title for a model railway, a couple of fellow modellers have suggested it might not be entirely pc in these enlightened times and they may be right. That said, there is a layout doing the rounds called 'Fawkham Hall' [say it carefully] based on a village of that name while locally, we also have villages called Pratts Bottom, Thong and Wormshill - the latter often annotated by the local wags with a cross bar to the double L. In addition, looking at the sketch plan in Rails to Achill, the orientation of the proposed terminus at Belmullet fits nicely in with the old Arigna track plan, with the new harbour branch able to curve away around the back of the town to the actual quayside on Broadhaven. In viewing the layout from the opposite side, the back scene can include inner Blacksod Bay with the low hills of the peninsula behind and the sky on a separate sheet/board beyond that. Google Belmullet and you will soon see what i mean. Yesterday, I ordered the single slip I need from Marcway of Sheffield. Sharp intake of breath at the price, which was £180 [I know!]. However, remember this is a somewhat specialist commission being 36.75mm gauge and code 100 flat bottom rail. Peco it ain't. Given a single slip is actually two over lapping points points and a bit more - and my original points came in at £60 each seven years ago, then maybe £180 isn't so bad after all. That is certainly what I keep telling myself anyway! Payback arrived unexpectedly quickly, when at a local antique fair today, I found a nice boxed 10 piece set of drawing pens, compasses, dividers and so on on sale for £28 and actually bought them for 20.They look good quality and seem in good condition and I reckon there is potentially about £100 worth, so that balances out the cost of the single slip nicely, while I know I could not build a single slip myself to that quality.

Like the look of that fish van and often wondered how the traffic was catered for in Ireland. Did fish vans have a specific livery, like the white used in England? Don't recall seeing any pictures of specific fish trains either - presumably it was more a case of a wagon or two tacked on to an ordinary service train? Needless to say, a concept that would suit my new project very nicely!

Ariana Town re-imagined Seven years after construction began, with four and a half years on the road and 39 shows, Arigna Town is now being reconfigured as a new project. What is being done is that the layout is being reversed, so the side that was the back scene will become the front and vice versa. Over the weekend have removed all the buildings, apart from the signal box and station at what was the rear of the layout, then got the jigsaw out and reduced the back scene pretty much to track level. Drastic, but once I removed the first building [the trees will all go as well], my feelings have been largely neutral. Yes it has been a good layout to operate and likewise nice to look at, but I can now look forward to developing it as a new project. The plan is basically as follows, though liable to change as things progress: The baseboards are still solid, being 6mm birch ply The track plan largely stays the same, although the turnout that lead to the goods siding will be replaced by a single slip. The extra track from this will go in front of the signal box, exiting to the fiddle yard as a branch to the harbour. In addition, two new tracks will lead off the turntable to a loco shed, which will now be at the back of the layout Turning the layout round, now means the wire in tube controls are at the front. Useful at home, but when the layout goes out again, it will be front operated, but with point motors and/or servos for remote control. A new turntable will be fitted & this will also be electrically powered. The new track layout means the will need to be a two doll starter signal at the platform end. Where the cattle dock has been until now, will be the site for the goods shed [a 'drive through' type], with the Leitrim Co-op building moving there too. The corrugated roofed barn and the signalman's cottage will be moved to the rear edge of the layout The new back scene will be profiled to the outline of distant hills, with either a separate, hard sky scene behind or a one piece, roller blind sky scene instead. There will be a new, single road, loco shed, with the second track in front for also storing locos. The water tower will be moved past the turntable. Where the white, Georgian house would have hidden the hole in the sky to the fiddle yard, this will be replaced with something like a warehouse or maybe something which suggests a distillery. In addition of course, I have already hinted that I am backdating my modelling to include locos and stock of the very early 1900s, so at least a couple of new locos [I already have Shannon & the 101], plus several new coaches and wagons to suit. The fiddle yard remains the same, but I am planning on making a second, seven track, train table, so I can continue exhibiting my SLNCR/CIE 1950s stock too. So, plenty to do! Blacksod Bay? Blame Jonathan Beaumont, of this parish, for his splendid book 'Rails to Achill', which sowed the seeds in my mind of an interesting 'might have been'. Have brooded long and hard on this, so the scenario is as follows: There were several proposals to build a railway to Bellmullet in Co Mayo. From the south a line was to run up from Mallarany on the Achill branch. From the west, there were essentially two separate proposals, one which hugged the coast from Killalla, the other a direct route from Ballina, through Crossmollina. All of these would have been in MGW territory had they been built. Bellmullet is a small town at the head of Blacksod Bay, a large, deepwater harbour, protected by the Blacksod peninsula from the ravages of the Atlantic. For a while, it was seen as a transatlantic port for Canadian Pacific steamers, in the days when mails and passengers could complete the journey quicker, by rail and ferry, than staying on the ship. Thus far, I have yet to see where on Blacksod Bay this port would have been, but that is fine by me, because it gives me a bit of a blank canvas to 'imagineer' my new project. The idea is as follows. The first line was built along the direct route from near Ballina to Bellmullet, not by the MGW, but by the Waterford, Limerick & Western, in conjunction with the SLNCR. A connecting line from Foxford to Longford enables direct running to Collooney, Sligo, Enniskillen, etc. This line terminates at Blacksod Bay in a setting not entirely unlike that at Burtonport [another favourite]. The MGW then gets in on the act by building its own line to Blacksod Bay from Mallarany on the Achill line. Implausible? Absolutely! However, given the way my collection of Irish locos and stock has developed during the Arigna Town project, the scenario above enables my SLNCR, MGW, WLW & GSWR stock to all rub shoulders, as indeed actually happened in Sligo. So, there you are. Arigna into Blacksod Bay. The station becomes an island platform, so there will be room to park the mails, while it will also be the headhunt for the harbour branch, worked [depending on period] by either 0-4-2T Lark or the G class diesel. An opportunity for all sorts of additional traffic which can't be accommodated in the station itself. The SLNCR is expected to work livestock and maybe turf traffic, along with a mixed train. The MGW [in the early 1900s anyway] will be responsible for the mails, for which I hope to built Achill Bogie 'Wolf Dog'. The WLW will do general freight using Shannon and the GSWR train will be a mixed, using the 101. That's the current plan anyway, but things could change, not least because I'm probably looking at around two years to complete the project, then hopefully, it will be exhibited again. In the meantime, watch this space & to either whet your appetite, or maybe make you shed a tear, below a few pictures of what has been done to Arigna. The buildings and trees that don't get reused are promised to the Chatham club's 0 gauge layout, by the way.

Check out any of Iain Rice's books on the subject.: Finescale in small spaces Urban Layouts Cameo Layouts As well as fun with shunting, you can make the layout look good too.

Tasty!

Getting there, at last Much of the last week has been spent on fettling the lining. In the end, I went back to enamels and persevered until I got a suitable 'double cream' thickness, as recommended in Ian Rathbone's book. My cheap [£12] bowpen can do reasonably fine lines with practice, but the key to success is the tidying up technique in the book. Essentially, one waits a couple of hours, then use a fine brush, dipped in thinners to ease away any imperfections in the drawn lines. Tedious, but effective & surprisingly therapeutic once you get into it. The trouble is that, every time you stop for a few minutes, when you look again, you see ever more imperfections. However, the lining is now looking better than it was and is probably at the limit of my current pen. I put in the white line first, then after letting it harden for 24 hours, did the red line inside it. There should be a further red line a millimetre or so inside the first one, but have chickened out of that for now. Corners were done freehand with a fine brush and tidied up as before. Other work has included: Painting the buffer beams red - though I now fear the tender one should be black Adding the vacuum and steam heating hoses [Slaters] Brush painting the smokebox/chimney a very dark grey Tidying up the cab. Things like scraping paint off the copper pipework and brass gauges, then adding the cab roof Fixing the outside brake rodding Fitting the tender springs above the footplate Making & fitting the two number plates Adding balance weights to the wheels lining the boiler bands The last mentioned was a bit of a faff - as first I had to draw a thin red line down the centre of some white lining transfer strips, then [with much cussing and swearing], persuade the strip to go round the boiler & inside all the pipework, splashers etc. There are still a few things to do, not least fix the crew and put some coal in the tender. Made a fall plate this afternoon, which still needs painting & fitting, while the loco number needs to go on the buffer beam. My best guess is that this should be in shaded gold or yellow. Having never thrown away a transfer sheet, you'd think I'd have something suitable. But no. Some Midland Railway coach lettering is about right, but there are only 1s and 3s, which is a bit of a bummer. Given the cost of a lettering sheet will exceed £10, I may well do the letters by hand. So, there we are - getting there, but even as I tick one more thing off the list, I notice something else: like this afternoon that there is no link between the tender brake standard and the operating rods below the footplate. In practice, a short piece of 1mm wire, but it will still need blackening & painting, so there's another half required. Life is complicated, which is why it's fun, as they say.

Looks the business, Ken, especially that Sligo wagon!

That is one very fine viewpoint. Good to see this layout again.

Paintshop I'm starting to think that painting the 101 could take as long as building it. First comes the 'witness coat', in this case red primer, which [mostly] shows where all the holes and excess solder are that you thought you'd cleaned up beforehand. Once these have been filled and scraped/filed/sanded down, on goes another spray of primer, and then, like as not, you find some more and have to go through the process again. It's a real test of patience... When that is done, there is a wait of 24 hours before the top coat can be sprayed on - in this case matt black, then another overnight wait for that to harden too. Having built over 60 locos, all the above is second nature, but not the next bit! All my locos have been in 1950/60s livery in the past - black, with varying degrees of weathering, which can cover a multitude of sins. The 101 is going to be in almost 'as new' condition, which means lining, for which, as far as I can tell, no transfers exist, so from now on it is a very steep learning curve. Thanks first to Eoin, for reminding me of my copy of Ian Rathbone's book on painting and lining. Have used it a lot, but had never read the lining chapters, until now, but they are very helpful, even if the results Mr Rathbone achieves are more than a bit intimidating. Just look at those cover photos - hand lined, with a bow pen and fine brush! So treated myself to a bow pen, bought some new fine marker pens, enamel and acrylic paints to go with my R L Moore lining pen and set about doing a bit of practicing. I also bought some plain white lining from Fox Transfers, to form the basis of the boiler bands. Having earlier sprayed a piece of plasticard black, I tried various ways of lining. Jonathan Beaumont kindly provided me help in the form of photos of one of Fry's locos, however I have to admit I've chickened out of trying to replicate it, because [for now at least], it is well beyond my skills and tools. Check out the boiler bands - white/black/red/black/red/black/white! Ok, so the white lines are outside the boiler band itself, but there is now way I can get a black line thin enough to go in the middle of the red one. So, what I'm attempting is a simplified white line, with a thinner red one down the middle. Hence the white transfers. Using red acrylic, I've managed to draw a red line down the centre, which hopefully will look ok once I've made the lining thinner. The next picture shows my first attempt at doing a white line on the tender. Not good! However, using white acrylic means that it can be tidied up by using a combination of scraping paint away with a cocktail stick and touching up with a fine, 3/0, brush. The corners were brushed in by hand and tidied as before, then once the paint had hardened, I then drew a thin red line down the middle of the white one. The loco body has had the same treatment, but all those curves are proving really challenging. The splashers and valances aren't too bad, because there is beading to follow, for the white line at least, but it is far from perfect. I've stuck with the bow pen, as the Moore one is designed for neat Humbrol. For me, a big issue is that the red is not drying dark enough. The actual colours, according to 'Steaming Through Three Centuries' should be vermillion, bordered with white. However, white looks far too bright against the dark black, so am using ivory instead. Vermillion is bright red, but on top of the ivory has a rather pinkish tone, so am looking to darken it somewhat. I think the real problem is I haven't been able to do the lines at scale width [they are very fine on the prototype], so probably need to invest in a better quality bow pen to achieve that. On the other hand, the lining is as fine, if not a little bit finer, compared to what Richard Chown achieved on Shannon, so at the moment, this is what I'm aiming for. It remains very much 'work in progress' though and until I've got all the lining on, plus numbers etc, I'm not sure whether it will overall look good enough. PS, as I feared, the phots have uploaded is the wrong order, but hopefully you can work out the correct one.

You've made your own R L Moore lining pen, Eoin! Will post a picture of mine, later. Have been experimenting with acrylics in the bow pen, to reasonable effect. Ian Rathbone's book contains a wealth of dodges, not least how to correct mistakes. With acrylics, a cocktail stick and a fine brush can work wonders!

Splendid.

Thanks Eoin. Had forgotten about that. I have a copy and very good it is too.

Bought a couple of new toys at the Tonbridge show this weekend. The first is a silicon soldering mat that I got from the Squires stand. Works up to 500c and contains all manner of small compartments to stop stuff disappearing, plus a couple of magnetic areas as well. Already wondering how I ever got on without it, having soldered etched brass numbers to my 101's plates without any singing or nasty smells that emanate from the bit of 12mm ply I usually use. Also treated myself to a basic 'bow pen'. Having heard all sorts of stories about them [few good] over the years, I found time to have a chat with Chris Heacham, proprietor of Golden Arrow Models and very helpful he was too. First experiences decidedly poor, as you can see from my much abused industrial loco body. One of these days, I ought to make a new chassis for it, as it is a fair lookalike for several Irish industrials. Will need to soak off about 1mm of paint first though, as it has been a test bed for spray painting for a while now. Anyway, though neat Humbrol is the usual go to for lining with a bow pen, recently I've found myself less happy with what is in their tinlets. Used a brand new red and ivory to try the pen, but the paint is just took thick and despite various attempts to thin it, including lighter fuel, things have not gone well, as you can see. Enamel paint takes ages to dry, and would then need sanding back and respraying to deal with any mistakes - something I don't want to be doing once I start on the 101. Hence have been trying acrylic and my Model Colour 'Vallejo' squeezy bottles seem much better, with the advantage of mistakes able to be wiped off with a damp cloth too. The nozzle means you can put paint directly into the jaws of the pen, rather than having to dip & then wipe. The improvement in the second photo is considerable, methinks! Would welcome any comments/advice on the use of bow pens - I really am a complete beginner.

And Mary, Joseph, the donkey and all the angels.

Cassettes might be an answer. Arrange a single spur that leads to a space long and wide enough. Your cassettes could be just plain track on a narrow length of 12mm ply. How long depends on how confident you are, but you could have as many as you like and store them on a sliding shelf under the layout.

Fascinating. Thanks Warb. The latest edition of the Gauge 0 Gazette contains an article on laser cutting, which backs up what has been said already. However, a few things not mentioned include: The author uses a 35 watt CO2 laser, which is water cooled so in addition needs a tank of water and a pump to circulate it. You can buy one for about £2000, plus VAT, but derivatives can be found on Ebay for about £400, apparently The laser tube lasts about 1000 hours and costs £250 to replace Materials that work well with a laser cutter include cardboard, Perspex [acrylic sheet], but NOT styrene/plasticard. Mylar [polyester sheet] cuts well, but can be difficult to glue. MDF and plywood both work well, which is why there are a fair few commercial laser cut kits available now. However, as Warb says and very much along the same lines as 3D printing, first you need to know CAD, which takes time and effort to perfect. Clearly worth it, when you need the amount he is using! The alternatives include contacting the likes of York Model Rail, who produce a wide range of laser cut windows, doors etc and who will do custom jobs too. Schools and colleges may have laser cutting equipment that you might be able to access, while the author of the Guild article, Bob Gledhill has written a book on the subject. Laser Cutting and 3D Printing for Railway Modeller; published by Conwood Press ISBN 978 78500 226 7

With Arigna Town now retired from the exhibition circuit, it seemed appropriate to put some of the stock on display at home, rather than have it hidden away in boxes. Makes a nice reminder of what I've made over the last few years. Left to right, we have two SLNCR Small Tanks [both North Star, now Studio Scale kits], Timoleague & Courtmacsherry 0-4-2T Lark [Tyrconnel kit], SLNCR Large Tank, Sir Henry [scratchbuilt]. The second shelf has E/J26 0-6-0T [Tyrconnel], Richard Chown's Shannon, and MGW G2 2-4-0 [Tyrconnel] The third shelf has Deutz G class diesel [Worsley etches] and SLNCR Railcar B, with Railbus 2a [both scratchbuilt].

Laser cut? Be interesting to read more about how you do this, given that (whatever the method), windows are very time consuming and hard to get consistent. These look the business!

Thanks both of you, though even enlarged, things are still not clear. Hopefully JHB can enlighten me when he gets back!