David Holman

Nice one. At the other end of the scale have just been reading the excellent Rails Through Tipperary, which has made me wonder how much space you'd need to model Limerick Junction? A Google search suggests the platform is 260 metres, about 800 feet in old money, but that is only 13x 60' coaches, so feel sure it must have been longer at some point? Add in the siding and the Limerick - Waterford line and you'd need a very large shed to do it in 4mm scale!

Cassettes have a lot going for them, especially in terms of saving space as shown here. My ones use aluminium angle instead of actual track, which improves rigidity. Accurate alignment and good electrical connection (you can't solder aluminium) are the two main issues. Solved mine by screwing the angle to thin plywood, with the screws projecting underneath. The cassettes rest on two strips of brass, which are connected to the track feed, so the current passes through the screws. Alignment is simply a strip of wood that the cassette is pushed against. Minor adjustment can by made via shims of plasticard, though haven't found this necessary. Long cassettes can be unwieldy and you certainly wouldn't want to rotate a whole train! However have a separate loco cassette means only the engine needs moving and turning, using simple handles as per Northroader's picture.

Thank you kind sir! Blakey Rigg has great atmosphere and really captures the top of the Moors. What an amazing place it must have been. If I was starting again (and knew what I know now), then it would definitely be S for me - big enough for detail, small enough to fit in a reasonable space. Plus a track gauge of 63/64ths of an inch as added idiosyncrasy! Good to know that all the stock you made for Kilbrandon will be seen again too.

All couplings are a compromise, but Kadee are as close to buckeye type as you could want. They do require careful setting up to work properly on a shunting layout though and while the couplings themselves are really neat, the uncoupling magnets can be intrusive visually. I use pairs of rare earth magnets on Fintonagh, set vertically 5mm apart in the track. This works well in terms of uncoupling, but being only 3mm diameter means a very small area in which they work. Tension locks work, but are horrible to look at - especially on the stunning rtr models we have now. Worst of all though is the sight of those enormous N gauge couplings on the smaller locos - almost half the length of a Terrier or 03 diesel. Thank goodness the 2mm FS folk have decided better alternatives.

Looking really smart and going at pace too.

Fintonagh was meant to be going out this weekend too, for the Nailsea Show. However have had to cancel because of Covid. Not me, but the friends we were staying with. Next outing therefore will be Expo Narrow Gauge South at Eastleigh on 23rd April.

Nice one. Plenty of ideas to play with there, John.

Sorry we couldn't oblige, Leslie!

Privileged to meet Richard once, at the Manchester Show, the Christmas before he died. We ran his SLNCR Lissadel on my Arigna Town layout (there are photos in the layouts section here if you scroll down far enough) and I am now the proud owner of his WL&W 0-6-0 Shannon as well as a Terry McDermott kit of a 101 class that he never got round to building. Prolific modeller and lovely man. His layout designs very much focussed on the 'less is more' concept, but were also very much about prototype working practice. An internet search of Castle Rackrent will give lots of pictures.

Starting to recover from Allypally - it was a great weekend, but shows at large venues are really hard work! AP is a fine venue, with lots of space and height, so it is not as stuffy as many shows, where you often have no idea what the weather is like outside. However, Cultra is very much the best in my experience, not least because of the surroundings... The best part of the weekend was catching up with so many folk we'd not seen over the last couple of years and it was lovely to see a fair few from this forum, plus Mick from Ballyconnel Road too, with pictures of his latest 3mm scale loco. Special mention to Galteemore and his son Tim for all their help on Sunday. Operating a terminus-fiddle yard railway all day demands a lot of care and concentration, especially with just the three of us. There wasn't a great deal of time off compared to Saturday, when there were five operators. Their help was invaluable at the end too. Fintonagh can be dismantled in 5 minutes, but AllyPally, while vast, is a nightmare to get way from, especially as some of the stewards are more than a bit 'jobs worth'. It took me nearly half an hour just to get my car from the car park, then it was a case of carrying the layout and equipment down three flights of stairs. Yes there are two goods lifts, but that would have taken even longer, with all the other stands trying to get out of just three exits. My shopping was limited to just some A1 sheets of plasticard from Eileen's. Like all oil related products though, this stuff is getting ever more expensive. However also got two new books and am already enjoying Rails Through Tipperary. The other is a new one by Giles Flavell on Radio Controlled Models. Giles is well known for his 7mm scale working cranes and lorries, but there is a section on locos too. Whether I'll understand it all, let alone replicate anything is another matter, but you never know...

Here are the track plans from the back two pages of the Freezer Booklet '60 Plans for Small Railways'. As you can see, most are 1.8 x 0.3m [6'x1' in old money], though one is about the same length as your proposal. Fairly sure they use Peco 60cm radius points. The short plan uses Y points though - something well worth considering as they are great space savers. Where possible though, it helps running quality to arrange points as a ladder, avoiding that reverse curve which is causing the problems. One thought is to have the turntable accessed from the middle siding, via a diamond over the track to the front siding. However, might be worth considering moving the turntable to form part of the run round loop, as below: There were several examples of this in Ireland, Foynes for one and each end of the Waterford & Tramore another. Harcourt St too, I think. My sketch is one of many attempts to redraw Castle Rackrent, Richard Chown's legendary 7mm broad gauge layout from the 1970s. Putting the turntable here saves a lot of space, because two points and the headhunt will occupy over 60cm of space in 4mm scale, whereas the turntable will only need 30cm at the most. Mine is drawn for 7mm scale, but am sure you can play around with it to suit your own ideas. The two middle points are both Y format. Hope that helps!

Splendid! Have relations in Vancouver and on the Island & their houses very much echo what you describe. If only...

Love the American walk around concept, but all too often there isn't the space this side of the pond. That said, the Rev Edward Beal once wrote that he didn't think 20x20 feet was particularly large as a layout room - his house had several that size! Something to do with living in a rambling Edwardian or Victorian vicarage no doubt. He had some interesting ideas for the time though - must dig out a few.

Certainly is. Super work, Ken.

Tasty!

Very much agree, especially as I now have stock to cover two eras, 1900s & 1950s, on my projects. Seems that on both sides of the water, infrastructure didn't change much over the years until more recent modernisation. Over here though a repaint was often the precursor to closure on many branch line stations.

Certainly is! Been wondering how things were going, so great to hear some news.

I do like a good fitted freight!

Fascinating, thanks John. I guess the same sort of thing applies to the peninsula on the east side of Strangford Lough, down to Portaferry, or even to Strangford from Downpatrick on the other side. But then this was Belfast and County Down territory, not the wealthiest, one thinks. Likewise Kilkeel, an obvious extension from Rostrevor. Would make a nice Dundalk, Greenore and Newry model, stocked with LNWR locos and coaches, of course.

Fictitious sources of traffic for model railways have included treacle mines and even a factory that produced the holes for toothbrush handles, but seems there is also a large ketchup refinery in Ireland that I didn't know about!

I'm afraid not. Was comparing my Irish road atlas with my railway one (the Hajducki version) and wondering about towns like Belmullet and Louisburgh. Like as not, their populations would have been well below 5000 in 1900, though but for the famine and subsequent migration, it might have been a different picture. Comparing maps, it also throws up the question of why certain lines stopped where they did (money and/or geography no doubt). Ardara in particular, for having gone to the trouble of building the line to Glenties, why stop there instead of continuing on the the coast, just a few miles further on? Have long thought it would make a fine Donegal 'might have been'. There are also several isolated mineral railways that, in my world at least, offer the opportunity to outside connections, like the one between Bundoran and Sligo in the West and at Annalong in the east. That said, there are plenty of real places to play with too, of course.

Good stuff folks, this is just the sort of thing I was hoping might develop. There are clearly many might have been and adaptations to be explored, but here's an interesting one: What is the largest town in Ireland never to have a railway? And should that be in terms of present day or, say, 1900 population?

Could well be this one, from Cyril Freezer's book of small track plans, first published in 1960. My copy dates to 1971 and cost me 17p! It's actually a nice plan, offering plenty of operational potential, though the curves are very tight at just 18" radius. As Cyril said on several occasions, many of his plans would benefit if the was a foot of extra space all round. These days, we'd probably want at least two feet and even then the radius would only be 30".

Thought it was - the small hole in the side to access the sandbox filler is the give away - or, like a Midland Jinty, is it really where the key to the clockwork motor goes? Nice bit of scratchbuilding too!

Fantastic - thanks for sharing this, Ken. Have been pondering RC on and off for a while, even if only doing a few locos, so that there would always be something to run in a crisis. Has happened to me twice, albeit in over 100 shows - once when a dead short caused a total shutdown for almost and hour and recently when I took Belmullet out and a dodgy controller plug ruined most of the morning on the first day. Getting all the stuff into a 7mm loco ought to be easier than with a small 4mm loco, though am wondering if some of the items need to be bigger, to cope with the larger size/weight? That said,a Mashima 1833 motor gearbox only draws about 0.25 of an amp and my one amp Gaugemaster handheld controller is adequate for all my locos. Definitely something to consider, after all and average exhibition day is about 7 hours, so a mix of conventional and battery power could easily cover that, plus allowing a second/third loco to run without extra wiring. Yes, DCC, does that but have found I just don't get on with it. Fine looking J26 too!