David Holman

With the WL&WR stock now AJ'd, attention turns to GS&WR vehicles. My F6 2-4-2T recently got the best loco award at the club competition, so this seems a good place to start. Worth mentioning that one reason the AJs are such a protracted process, is that I first need to remove the Dinghams and in most cases refit screw or three link couplings as well... Anyway, have always thought the F6 were pretty little engines; built for the Kerry branches. My reasoning is that they were also tried out on the [fictitious] Belmullet line. The model is built from an Alphagraphix etched brass kit. Mostly conventional, but a bit more complex because of the curved footplate. The lined black livery looks very smart to my eyes - not a million miles from the lined BR black I remember at the end of steam. Number 42 has a short train made up of two six wheel coaches. The first class one is another AlphaG etched brass kit, while the brake third is plastic card and strip on an AlphaG etched chassis. The combination is the ideal train length for Northport Quay. The photos also show how lighting affects colour - look at the final picture. Both coaches are the same colour and in daylight look like the rear one!

One of the many good things about Eileen's was they sold A1 sized sheets of plasticard on their stand at shows, usually for only about twice the price of an A4 sheet. Anyone know of a retailer doing A1 sheets? Mail order probably a waste of time as am guessing they would be rolled up.

Shows how the little details matter and the importance of careful observation too. Lovely!

Thanks John - this may well explain why Richard built the D&M brakes. An all crimson lake consist now beckons too.

Yesterday, I managed to complete fitting AJ couplings to my 1950s stock, so in going through my 1900s stuff, took a few photos to begin this phase of my models. It all started with Shannon, of course though truth be known, I was originally looking at adding a couple of diesels [C and 121] to extend into the 1960s, when news of Richard Chown's demise saw me putting in sealed bids for some of his stuff and Shannon was the main result. Scratchbuilt by Richard in the mid 1970s, it was over 40 years old when I acquired it and looked like it hadn't been cleaned since he built it! The wheels were badly worn too, but nothing could detract from the quality of this scratch built model, which is very much a prized possession. A bit of TLC, mainly with T-cut, soon had Shannon looking better, but I had nothing to run with it and so embarked on a programme of building some Waterford, Limerick and Western stock to make up a 'Mail Goods', a train which was a feature on Castle Rackrent. Apart from Ernie Shepherd's book on the WLW and a few photos in Desmond Coakham's carriages book, there isn't a lot of material available., but I haven't got room for long trains, so it turned out there was just enough for my needs. I began with a six wheel full brake. This has a plasticard body on an Alphagraphix chassis. The tricky bit was drawing and cutting out all the panelling from a sheet of 20thou. I already had a WLW horse box, though it was masquerading as the Sligo Leitrim model in very faded green. Hence a quick repaint was all that was required to return it to original condition. A 4w carriage truck soon joined it, complete with a horse drawn delivery cart [Langley Kit], not unlike one seen in photos of Castle Rackrent. A small passenger coach came next, scratch built in my usual way, to provide basic accommodation for any hardy souls willing to endure the inevitable slow progress of a train stopping to shunt and load goods at most wayside stations. The product of a photo in Ernie's book, I can't claim any great accuracy, other than it seems to look the part. Finally, I needed a brake van & struggled for quite a while to find something. I could have used one of the Dublin & Meath vans from Richard's estate, but though the right colour, the D&M became part of the MGW and I wanted something authentically WLW. A return to Ernie's book finally turned up a photo of a Waterford & Central Ireland Railway train, where behind an 0-4-2T was a panelled brake van. The model below is the result, so is very much a representation rather than anything accurate. As before, it is a plasticard body with white metal fittings for the chassis. A photo of the whole train completes the picture, though on Northport Quay the horse box runs in a different one.

See that Irish Railway Models have a stand here this weekend.

Had to check, because I thought it was one of the Sligo Large Tanks! Then I looked at the cab... Quite a lot more rivets than I first thought too, but then it's Beyer Peacock and easy to see the family resemblance to the Sligo locos. Where does it for in the overall time line?

Looks quite a nice loco for scratchbuilding - straight footplate, no splashers, plenty of room to hide the motor, not even many rivets. Handsome too, so definitely needs building! After the complexities of the BC diesel should be fun!

His historical non fiction is very good!

Got my first (and only) sound chip loco about ten years ago. It was a Bachmann H0 three truck shay with a Tsunami sound chip. Given the chip was £100, I got the loco for a tenner, which was quite a bargain at the time. It was good fun for a while and I even built an androgynous scenic shunting plank so I could run my 7mmNG shay as well. However the novelty soon faded, both for sound and dcc - just found it all too complex: 100 page handbooks didn't help either. Each to his own! What hasn't faded is the price of sound - almost doubling the cost it seems - while nobody has cracked exhaust effects, especially for steam, so anything that brings the cost down has to be worth looking at. Provided it works, of course. In the latest RM, there is a review of a nice three coach set of L&SWR bogie coaches, but it costs £225. With sound fitted 00 locos now well north of £200, add on a ten coach train and you are looking at £1000... Am very glad my interests have always been in minor railways with short trains (Sligo cattle traffic excepted that is).

Much simpler, thankfully! Only one coupler needs to work with the dropper wire to a magnet, so a shorter coupling wire is soldered to any convenient point on the loco chassis. Even just behind the buffer beam should work, though on my J26 there is a front frame spacer which is ideal.

Pretty much what I've used. The only issue I've found is that the silicon goo seems to have a shelf life. After 6-12 months, it increasingly won't set. The two part resin, used for the actual casting, lasts much longer.

Alex Jackson Couplings It's been a while, a couple of months in fact. Not all of this time has been spent on the AJs, but this has been pretty much the sum of my modelling efforts this year, which have at times driven me nuts! For those of you not in the know, the AJ coupling was developed by the man himself, way back in the last century. In many ways, it is very simple - a piece of sprung steel wire has three bends put in it to make a hook. However, setting this up and fitting it to your stock can be a serious pain in the primary orifice. Undoubtedly easier in 7mm scale, would certainly not recommend it in 4mm, unless you have serious masochistic tendencies. The basic elements are shown below. Note, none of this has ever been available ready made, while there are all sort of adaptations possible as well. In 7mm scale 28swg [0.4mm] steel piano wire is recommended [problem number one, straightening it]. Using a simple jig, the first bend is 180 degrees, followed by 30 and 60. The front view, shows the hook tilted at 45 degrees, though this is not a bend, merely how the wire is mounted. The latter requires a small block glued in the centre of a wagon, to which a piece of copper clad sleeper is glued and the wire is soldered to that. Fiddly and not fun, though am getting better at that bit. The lower diagram shows how the coupling is operated - you hook a U shaped piece of iron wire over the coupling wire & an electro magnet can be used to pull the coupling wire downwards as shown below. The great thing about this [and why I'm torturing myself] is that once uncoupled, vehicles can be pushed anywhere you want without coupling up again. Yes, other systems offer this, but AJs are very discreet, almost invisible from some angles and having looked at various options, I've decided that I'm going to make it work. The tools required are pretty basic - mainly various type of pliers, plus the wire. I've used a piece of brass to help with making the bends. The top wire is 1mm brass, which I use to help get my head around this, while the middle wire is the actual hook. The pictures below show the first train that I've equipped with AJs for Northport Quay, along with an electromagnet, almost hidden in the track. Note how discreet the couplings are. Below are three pictures of how the coupling wires are mounted underneath wagons. The brake van has one at each end, but most stock will only have an AJ at one end, and some none at all, as trains will run in fixed rakes. Hopefully, you can see how the coupling wire is soldered to the central block, also the U shaped dropper wire which is attracted to the magnet in the track. The second, brass U shaped wire is a simple limiter to stop the dropper going too low and catching on the magnet. Finally, a picture of my control panel. The three red buttons are push to make switches. The first one on the top line is for locos to uncouple and run round. Top right is the uncoupler for the small fiddle yard acting as the pier. The lower middle button is the most important magnet though, because this is where most of the shunting takes place. In the case of the G class shunter, it arrives in the loop and then pushes its train into the left hand siding, picking up the two wagons there, with the brake van sandwiched in the middle. The G can then pull all five wagons back into the loop, then [using the middle magnet], leaves the brake and two wagons from the siding on the 'mainline', by the controller socket. The incoming wagons can then be pushed into the siding, then the G can move its return train back into the loop, before running round, ready to depart. I'll leave you to work out how a freight to the pier is shunted - though a clue is that you use the right hand siding and the train arrives in the platform, not the loop. I think I'm getting there & have fitted AJs to the two trains which will do the shunting in my 1950s period. Need to do the same for the 1900s period. Only eight AJs for each train, but it has taken an average of an hour per coupling because of all the faffing about, getting things wrong, many rude words etc. Hopefully, things will speed up now, not least because there are eight other trains to fit, though these will only need four couplings each. It all adds up though and then I'll need to test everything on NPQ - thus far testing has been done on Belmullet...

Oozes atmosphere. Even in its part built condition, everything just looks right. Little things like the road surface/colour, line markings and so on. Super buildings and there is something about that bridge which just sets the whole scene. Lovely modelling!

Or even more expensive, the original Tortoise point motor. Very good though...

And there is the A3 Pacific Galtee More! As the old saying goes - you are never alone with a clone...

That could well be Galteemore in the foreground - so now you know what he looks like!

Haven't done any resin casting for a while, but as Alan clearly shows, putting a bit of effort into making just one side and one end soon reaps rewards. Last time I looked (admittedly pre Covid), a kit cost about 30 or 40 quid. This includes the two part resin, plus the silicon goo to make the moulds. Probably enough for 20-50 wagons depending on scale, so ultimately good value and potentially a fair bit faster than 3D printing - ideal for a Luddite like me!

The Hornby Desmond chassis has always been a good runner, as many 7mmNG users will confirm, though scaling it up certainly helps.

Very little to report of late - I'm in the process of converting all my stock to Alex Jackson couplings, in the hope of making operation on Northport Quay easier. To be honest have always thought AJs looked a bit of a nightmare in 4mm scale, but are potentially more straightforward in 7mm. However, first I needed to understand how they work and that means making some first, though Gordon Gravett helped at the recent Tonbridge show. Much easier when you can see actual wagons and in particular how the couplings are fixed to the wagon body. Very much work in progress though. Meanwhile, my GS&WR 2-4-2T, built from the Alphagraphix kit won the loco shield at the annual club competition last night, while the coaster, Acla, won the non-railway and overall shields, which was rather nice, especially as the overall standards were really high this year.

So much better than the Desmond/Pug and am sure the loco feels all the better for it. Sow's ear to silk purse.

Now there's a good thought!

Recent layout posts have shown that track and gauge aren't necessarily important when all the other modelling comes together. As the post above says, you don't notice the compromises when everything else looks right. This is me, by the way 7mm scale, 21mm and 36.75mm gauge on my 4 Irish layouts. Nothing quite sets the scene like correct broad gauge track, but get the viewing angles right and it becomes far less of an issue. Get the scenics, colours and stock looking right and it all blends together. I'll stick with my broad gauge, but a recent conversation with one of our eminent posters here set me thinking - had I done all my stuff in 32mm/0 gauge, I could occasionally run much longer trains round the club's 32x15 test track. Broad gauge prevents that and likewise makes the option of selling stuff much more limited. Not that I want to do that, but food for thought all the same.

They all look very much at home.

Nice one, Angus and welcome back.