David Holman

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. Mr Gravett concurs too and that is where I am leaning. Tried a but of T-cut on the cab roof this afternoon and the paint cleaned up nicely, so that may be the way to go. As Gordon said on the phone earlier this week, it could be an idea to build a replacement chassis, but with Shannon's also including the footplate and smokebox, that is a non-starter! The Gravett are staying with us for the Chatham exhibition in four weeks time, so we'll combine forces to see if anything can be done about the wobbly wheel. I could also invest in a complete new/alternative set of wheels/motor/gears, just for exhibition use, preserving the existing set for posterity at the same time, but that is probably another £120 and if it ain't broke, why fix it? As Eoin says, a gentle clean and a better coal load for the tender is really all she needs.

That is one seriously neat bit of work. Lovely job.

Shannon - modelling archeology! Got Shannon on the workbench this morning, to give her a bit of a once over. Fascinating - to paraphrase Star Trek, 'It's modelling Jim, but not as we know it' and any slight doubts I might have had that this was not the original [but a later rebuild], we instantly dispelled. The wheels for a start. Slaters they ain't & I suspect they might be Wallsall cast iron jobbies. The fixing nuts are like large versions on the Romford 4mm ones, while the centre drivers are flangeless. Just as well in the case of the latter, as one side has a horrible wobble on it [2-3mm at the rim] because the wheel centre no longer fits snugly on the axle. Happily, this does not seem to affect the running, as the loco goes through all Arigna's pointwork without any problems. Hopefully, the photos give some idea of how dusty Shannon had become - probably in no small amount to being unused since June last year. There are a fair few chips and scuffs on the paintwork, so will eventually have to decide whether or not to treat that, though I suspect it might be Floquill paint - much favoured in the 70s, it brushed on superbly, but not easily available now. All I've done thus far is give it a good dust with paint brushes and a gentle clean with moistened cotton buds. I wanted to have a closer look at the mechanism, but separating body from chassis was a surprise. Normally it is one or two bolts screwed into captive nuts, but Richard seems to have made the footplate, chassis and smokebox as one unit, with the boiler and cab as another. The front of the boiler plugs into the back of the smokebox, along with various handrails and piping, while a tiny 12BA screw is all that holds the cab end to the footplate. Different, but it works! The mechanism itself seems to be a Portescap RG4, doctored to fit on a 3/16" axle, by using an additional set of gears. The final drive is a very thin gear wheel, probably only 20thou thick and there is a fair degree of lateral slack, but again, it works. Coupling rods look to be a single piece of machined steel [nicely profiled] and at around 3mm thick, were clearly designed for hard work. Indeed, when you think Castle Rackrent grew to over 200' long and was operated pretty intensively, then Richard's locos were obviously built to cope with that and Shannon has survived the hard work very well. The gears do make her a bit noisy though and it is a good job I have a Gaugemaster W hand held controller, as my usual HH has feedback, which the motor clearly doesn't like. Speaking of noises, the tender holds a Pacific Fast Mail sound system, but there is no easy way to get to it as the tender seems to have been made as a complete unit. There seems no way to get the wheels out either, but [as you might expect], these are all wired for current collection. The tender body is a nice piece of modelling, complete with the coal chute, lifting rings and so on, so it was a bit surprising to find a very crude load of coal, stuck on a bit of plastic sheet and simply lying on top of the tender. The loco bodywork is also very nicely done, with lots of detail, though the boiler bands are perhaps a bit crude by today's standards. The smoke box and smokebox door is especially nicely made and really captures the look of the Kitson original, while there is some lovely detail in the cab too. So, very much something to treasure - but whether or not I leave it as it is, or try to restore some of it, I'm not sure. It won't get intensive use on Arigna, but it will be good to run Shannon at shows, so whether I need to do anything about the wheels remains to be seen. What do others think? Any comments welcome, especially re those wheels.

Indeed, Stephen - and while not cheap, not exorbitant either. I guess the small niche in which I model helped. Going back to Mayner's comments about Dave Walker's Killaney, turns out I actually had dinner with him a few years ago! I was talking to Gordon Gravett on the phone this afternoon and mentioned the layout & he reminded me that, at the St Alban's show, we'd had dinner one night at the hotel, with Dave, Andrew Burnham [editor of Continental Modeller] and Tony Wright and his wife. As you might assume, this was a very entertaining and convivial evening - one of the plus sides of exhibiting when you meet such knowledgable [and lovely] people. Given I was at St Albans with Arigna Town, am surprised Dave didn't mention his layout, though the conversation ranged far and wide, by no means limited to modelling either. More stuff on Shannon will be appearing in the Workbench section, though have included a picture of a likely train for exhibitions - Richard's wagons, plus my own SLNCR cattle wagon. This was actually second hand from the WL&W, so seems appropriate to include it in the consist.

I must have just missed Killaney, as I joined the Chatham and District Model Railway club in 1986, taking part in the first Dockyard exhibition in 87 and only missing two shows since then. Certainly have no recollection of seeing the layout and clearly missed the chance to meet our Mayner before he headed off to the other side of the world! Shame on both counts. For my sins, I am now club chairman and very much involved in organising this year's exhibition on 2nd and 3rd of June. Having spent much of the morning going over Shannon and test running on Arigna Town, fingers crossed, she will be appearing at the show and hopefully also next weekend, 12/13 at Derby Roundhouse. More about Shannon soon, but she is certainly a tour de force - built in a very different way to how we tackle things today.

Royalty takes up residence at Arigna Following Richard Chown's death last year, his vast collection of models and layouts were made available for purchase. For those of you who don't know about Richard, he built Castle Rackrent in his bedsit in the early 1970s. It is 16' long and eventually was developed into a vast system around 200' long. Various stations have been sold off, including one which will be at Cultra this year and, I believe, then take up residence in the former barber's shop in Enniskillen. Given that I have often said in these pages that, apart from Richard, I seemed to be the only person around doing proper [36.75mm] broad gauge in 7mm scale, it was only right to put in a few bids for locos and stock. It was tempting to go for his model of Lissadell, which ran on Arigna Town at Manchester in December 2016 [when I was privileged to meet the great man], but already having two SLNCR 'Small Tanks', I didn't really need a third - even if it did come in early Sligo livery with a polished brass dome. Instead, I cast my lot for one of the original Castle Rackrent locos: Waterford, Limerick & Western 0-6-0, Shannon - and much to my delight my bid secured this historic model locomotive. Shannon is quite an old lady, appearing in Richard's article in the March 1975 Railway Modeller & have included one of Cyril Freezer's photos from this. She is therefore well over 40 years old and, according to the short article, was Richard's first ever scratch built engine. Given her age, she is in pretty good condition and seems to run well. Indeed, she was part of the regular Castle Rackrent running sessions up to June last year. The photos show her in 'as received' condition - more than a bit dusty and with paintwork a bit scuffed, but not bad for her age! It is going to be interesting to examine how the loco was built. First impressions are there seems to be a high quality motor [maybe and RG7?], plus what appears to be a speaker in the tender. Not sure if the loco is DCC though, it may be something like a Pacific Fast Mail analogue unit. If anyone out there knows, please tell me. Am hoping to include Shannon on the Arigna Town operating sequence. She fits on the turntable [just!] and came with three brake vans. All have Alex Jackson couplings, so it will be interesting to see if I can work these with the magnets I have for my Dingham auto couplings. Any info on the brake vans will also be welcome too, please. Will aim to report on my findings over the next few weeks, but what I would also be interested in is what folk think about possibly updating Shannon? I don't intend anything major to the bodywork, just a general clean up and maybe touch up the paintwork here & there, but there is a gaping space between the frames that is begging for working inside valve gear, as per my Sir Henry 0-6-4T. Is that something I should be doing, or should I respect this historic model's heritage and keep it as it is?

Never seen buildings made with drawers before, but hugely effective. Am now going through all the things one might keep in there!

Great stuff, JB. Always exciting starting a new project - may the force be with you.

Don't know if anyone out there is interested, but am taking Arigna Town to the Gauge 0 Guild Convention at Telford this year on 1st-2nd September. My usual operator is not available, so if you think you might like to help, send me a personal message. The Guild is not exactly generous with expenses, so you'll need to be fairly local [or intending to go anyway]. However you'll certainly get in free and lunch is also included. One or two people for each day. The layout is simple to operate [wire in tube points and signals], analogue control, but does use three link couplings. As I really only need spelling for lunch, plus a chance to look round, there will be every opportunity to enjoy the show. Here's hoping!

Interesting! The monochrome pictures certainly appear to show that the corner plates, side and top ironworks are something much darker, with the anglework on each end the same colour as the body. One would assume the ironwork would rust fairly consistently, so is it indeed dark rust, or black paint? The covered vans show darker colouring on the door hinges, but not so the convertible cattle vans. Vic Welch's painting on the cover of the original Patterson history shows dark grey underframes on the coaches, but the paintings on the later version suggest coaches were the same all over, as per much of the rest of Ireland. Artistic licence? As there appears to be no colour photos anywhere of the CVR, it seems we are reduced to conjecture. Maybe it is the dark rust that Martyn Welch describes? Gunmetal 53, Bauxite 133 and oily black (2000 series)? Either way, that nearest corner plate in the photo shows clear signs of texture, but is it peeling paint or rust? If it was a 16mm scale wagon, I might be more concerned, but as the model is only 10cm long and normal viewing distance is at least 60cm, perhaps I shouldn't worry. It would be nice to know though!

Back to the wagon works The next stage for Fintonagh will be to make sure everything runs as it should, so before that, there is a need to complete sufficient wagon stock. I've probably got enough vans for now, but the Clogher had a fair few open wagons, so these have become the focus of my attention. If I'm honest, it has not been much fun either - a trial of endurance, rather than a labour of love... At first thought, there's not much to making an open wagon - two ends, two sides and a floor - plus an etched chassis kit from Branchlines. Quick and easy, right? Wrong. Norman Johnston's revised version of E M Patterson's history of the CVR has some lovely photos of rolling stock, including a three quarter view of an open wagon which shows all manner of fine detail. Not just things like the strapping, but all sorts of rivet and bolt head detail, plus cleats for tarpaulin ropes, strapping along the tops of the sides and brackets to hold these in place. I considered doing a master for one side and end, to cast copies as per the vans. However, as I want several empty or lightly loaded opens, this meant interior detailing was required and I've yet to master that technique. I guess I could have cast sides and ends, then added an inner layer from plastic sheet, but that would have required an absolutely flat rear, plus the planks and bolt detail would have needed embossing on too. So, instead, I decided to apply the rivets and bolts individually and there are over 200 of the damned things on each wagon! No doubt anyone reading this is starting to question my sanity and I'm not sure I will disagree. I could have floated on squares of plastic strip, I could have riveted inner and our sides, then laminated them together, but in the end, I drilled a hole for each rivet and pushed a piece of 30 thou plastic rod into the hole, before trimming to size. I think it took about two hours to drill nearly 1000 0.75mm holes, then each wagon took an hour and a half to fit and trim the rivets. All in all, each wagon is made up of over 300 individual parts. Was it worth it? I'll tell you when they are finished. At the moment, the bodies have been sprayed with grey primer & the interiors painted as per Martyn Welch's book with a mixture of Humbrol 110 [natural wood], 64 [grey] and matt black. Ironwork looks to have been black on the prototype, with white lettering. The chassis is fairly regulation etched brass, though I've used Slater's 7mm scale wagon bearings instead of the 4mm versions suggested. I drill a 1mm hole in the bottom of each top hat bearing & the 'pinpoint' end of the axles goes in here. Because I'm using Kadee couplings and permanent magnet uncouplers, I've replaced the steel axles with ones made from 2mm brass rod. I cut it to approximate length, then put a pinpoint on each end by simply twirling it between my finger and thumb whilst pressing against a slitting disk in a Dremel. Crude, but effective. So, next time you pick up a simple wooden bodied open wagon, examine the fine detail that has been moulded in place and marvel at how cheap all that work is to buy.

Splendid! Love the way the railway sits firmly in the urban landscape. Such scenes are rare in British models and rarer still in the Irish scene, I'm guessing. Raised tracks, large, complex buildings are not easy, while the artistic skills involved in pulling them all together are considerable. Deserves a wider audience, so very much hope we will eventually see articles in one or more of the major magazines. Definitely one to watch.

Not my scene, but always good to see quality like this. Very classy.

Sounds good to me. Another key factor is to paint with the same sort of lighting you intend displaying under. Flourescent tubes are terrible at leaching out colour if you painted under incandescent bulbs. I have both in my workshop and with just the overhead flourescent on, colours are flat and lifeless. These days, I exhibit with LED lighting, but again, there are various tones. I use a combination of warm and cool white, which seems to work well as a bright cloudy day.

Can only agree with JB, Tony - less is more sometimes, so don't add track at the expense of scenery or the layout will end up looking crowded.

Only just found this and its very useful indeed. However, before anyone gets hung up on colours, remember, not only is everything very much in the eyes of the beholder, males of the species need to be aware that our perception of 'green' changes as we grow older. Unlike females, whose colour perception remains strong throughout like - which enables them to delight in telling us the faults in our dress sense! So, if you want to know if colours look right - ask a lady, especially if the colour is green.

Hiding a hole in the sky A tricky one this, one which I have pondered long and hard over. Fintonagh has two exits to the fiddle yard - the main line, which exits behind the warehouse [so easy to hide] and the track which exits at the front edge of the layout, to the goods yard and exchange sidings. The latter poses problems because it is right on the front edge and though there is 10cm of fascia to provide a bit of screening, the hole in the backscene was all too visible the further to the right any observer will be standing. The solution I've used is in two parts: firstly a large advertising hoarding, and behind that a half relief tree, I'm saying hawthorn. Will now wait for someone to say that the Guinness poster isn't correct - though my defence is that it was cut & pasted from a Google search of 1930s adverts. No worries - it is easily changed, just point me in the right direction - getting such details right is all part of the fun.And, by and large, the two items do a fair job of hiding the hole in the sky. The 'Unit' is bringing a short rake of vans from the exchange sidings, which will then be added to the next departing train.

I have a GW Models rivetting tool that is similar and that certainly works well on plastics up to 20 thou (0.5mm) thick. The MDF table takes it to a new level though. Must remember to make one before I start my next brass kit. So much to enjoy and learn on this thread. Thanks Eoin!

Madder Valley is definitely going to be operated one day this year. Check out the Pendon website for details. Well worth seeing static anyway. As one of the granddaddies of scenic modelling, there as many artistic tricks that still have value today.

Gorgeous!

That may be so, but sinuous curves are naturally very attractive to the eye(!) and straight lines are often best avoided on layouts. Likewise anything parallel to the baseboard edge. On the real thing, track tended to follow contours and natural features, so flowing curves are actually more common than you might think. Hence anything that softens edges, draws the eye into the scene, makes you peer around some feature in the front and so on, all help to make a layout look bigger and more interesting. On a narrow baseboard, it can be difficult to avoid tracks that are parallel to the edge, so going slightly diagonally is an option. Alternatively, small, non structural additions to the baseboard front can do the same thing.

Alternatively, take one Chinchilla, put in a freezer for two days and then put through the coffee grinder - preferably twice. Needless to say, Broithe is correct. Comes in one kilo bags. Fine sand works just as well.

Indeed, JB - I can easily start salivating at the thought! Not enough space to do it justice though.

A couple of pictures for you showing how the scenery has been progressing this week. See the Workbench section for details of how it was done.

Trees and scenics It seemed to take a long time to complete the buildings and back scene, so it is pleasant to report that the basic scenics on board two have been much quicker. I want to produce a 'signature' tree, to hide the liberties I've taken with the back scene's perspective, so out came Gordon Gravett's book on the subject. His take on the twisted wire method for trees is interesting, because instead of unravelling a large hank of cable or wire, he starts with single strands & therefore builds up the model in reverse. It works well too. Using florists wire, you twist two or three strands together for an inch or two below the end of the branch, leaving the rest of the strands straight. You make enough of these to complete the thickness of trunk you want and bind them together with more wire from the base upwards, [creating the branches as you go] leaving a projecting section to go in the ground. On mine, I glued this in a length of brass tube, which then sits in a slightly larger piece of tube set in the baseboard. That is as far as I've got, because, while this only took an evening, the next stage - coating the wire with a PVA/artex mix takes ages, not least because a couple of coats or more are required. I don't have enough foliage material at the moment either! A second, half relief, tree has been made to help hide the front exit to the fiddle yard, past the warehouse. This has a more basic framework, again as described by Gordon in his book. A large advertising hoarding, shown by a sheet of foam board in the photo, will also hide the exit and hopefully suggest there is a road running in front of the layout [but off scene]. Am actually contemplating a front extension that might show this and create more depth - but not yet! So, could then turn my attention to the scenics. My preferred method is to first 'block in' the main areas [a bit like doing a painting], to get a feel for the work, then gradually work up the details. A static grass machine and puffer bottles make short work of tasks that would take many hours not that many years ago. Going a la Gravett again, the first stage is to prepare the ground surface. For me, this included improving the baseboard joint [bit of an earthquake crack up to now], then soften the track and ballast colours with weathering powders. Chinchilla dust was used for the yard surfaces [sprinkled on to gloss paint] and once all was dry, I could start the greenery. Hard to believe that this has only taken about three hours. I put down a layer of ground foam first [so the grassed areas don't look like a lawn], then after wetting with dilute PVA, got to work with the static grass machine. There are 3-4 different shades and two different lengths of fibres to give variety. I hoover up the excess fairly quickly, as it encourages the fibres to stand up better. Then, after this layer has dried, there is further fun to be had adding weeds and flowers. I dip a finger in PVA and wipe it lightly across the tops of the grass. Fine ground foam is then sprinkled on top. I've used Greenscene 'crumb' [light green and slightly larger], Woodlands fine medium green, plus their dark green with some white flower crumb mixed in. This is what really brings the scene to life and provides the all important variety of colour and texture you find in the real thing. So, coming on well, I think, though I want to do a lot more detailing, including a few larger shrubs and [lots of] nettles.