David Holman

Yes, absolutely! On this side of the water, there are specific wagon books for almost any railway you could choose. Not sure there is a single book of any sort simply devoted to Irish wagons. For me, there are two possible threads - modern wagons, that are increasingly well served by rtr models and the mostly four wheel types that go back to the birth of the railways. For any modeller of the 1950s or earlier, the latter would be really valuable, especially if there were portrait type photos, rather than trying to peer into the background of the usual three quarters view of trains going by. Side and end view drawings would be the icing on the cake, while adding numbering and livery details would be the cherry on top. As for what to include, much as unusual types can be interesting, the standard types from each of the main companies would be the most useful and valuable. I would definitely buy such a book.

Fine looking train in a fine looking setting!

The crest is from a Fox Transfer sheet of South Eastern and Chatham coach insignia.

A friend of mine at the Chatham Club does his own kits and is steadily broadening his portfolio. Recently asked him about the cost of producing a kit and have copied his comments below: " If I was to do a run of 20 kits to sell to whoever and was sure I could sell 20, the price per kit would be around £275 - £300. If it was more like a dozen would sell, the price would have to go up to nearer £400 and if only five, more like £700. This would be a complete kit with all but couplings included. The etchers and casters are all running way behind at the moment and quoting times like 3 to 6 months for a new etch to be processed and samples produced. It helps if there was another loco that used similar parts, or shared the tender, this is often a good way to make something viable as 2 kits can be produced with only 1 1/2 times the work. " So, the moral of the story seems to be the more you sell, the cheaper it becomes, while to risk to small volume producers can be considerable unless they are sure they can sell what they produce. Quote

A fine compliment to that well laid track!

Nearly there The last week has been spent addressing a list of 30 odd items, that to begin with actually got longer, despite ticking things off. Many were fairly short and simple, like touching up paint work, or scraping paint off handrails. Some were an hour or so, like fitting the couplings, or adding lead sheet to the insides of the ash pan, while the rest of the lining took the best part of three days. Then there was coal for the tender and wiring the tender to the loco, adding the handrails, lettering and so on and so on. The MGWR crest on the leading splasher is actually SE&CR from a Fox Transfer sheet and is passable enough from normal viewing distances. At last it was time to reassemble the loco and do some test running. At first, all was well, but when I hooked on the tender, the loco was at first unable to pull it. Wolf Dog will need to haul at least three six wheel coaches, so this was a little worrying! A bit of investigation showed that the draw bar was fouling the bottom of the frames on the loco and the fall plate was also conspiring to lift the rear drivers off the track. After some fettling, things have improved enough for the model to find its way around Belmullet, safely negotiating the points and single slip. However, I fancy it will yet need some more lead sheet over and around the drivers to increase its haulage capacity further. One of the last jobs was to make up the jack which sits on the footplate - a simple enough task now I have my little lathe. Just awaiting the name and number plates now, plus there are the three six wheelers to build of course. Such are the joys of railway modelling: always something else to do!

There's a lot to be said for smaller projects that can be completed in a fairly short space of time. You learn, gain experience, enjoy seeing something finished and have fun.

Just like Mullingar, all very believable, and very attractive.

Yup. Atmosphere - that certain something that somehow creates the believable.

Wow - love the internal detail. You're going to tell us it is 4mm scale too, I suppose? Fantastic work.

The Slater's tank wagon continues to provide a bit of light [ish] relief from the D16. With the chassis largely complete, attention turns to the tank body. This is a finely moulded affair, but far from being user friendly as the tank is split three ways longitudinally, plus the two circular ends. As a result, a lot of care is needed, both when joining the pieces together and filing the surfaces smooth - because there is a lot of rivet detail that you don't want to damage. Work still needed here. There is also a lot of exterior strapping, but that will have to wait, as the next step is to paint and letter the tank - 'Irish Shell' - which is going to be easier before it is fitted in place. If anyone knows of suitable 7mm scale transfers, please let me know, as otherwise it is going to be done by hand.

Getting there With the addition of the chimney, dome and cab roof [the latter albeit not fixed and unpainted], the little 4-4-0 is finally taking shape. The list of things still to do is still quite lengthy, but Wolf Dog is certainly starting to look the part. Thus far, it has occupied exactly 100 days, so though I haven't worked on it every one of these, it must be pushing 200 hours of my time. Indeed, the dome and chimney have taken the best part of a week to turn on my little lathe, along with what seems endless filing to get them to sit on the boiler. The whistle is piece of 2mm brass rod, turned up in the drill, with some .8mm wire for the pipe. Nevertheless, it is really nice to get these fittings in place, because they certainly bring the loco to life. Speaking of which, it is now a runner too, with the motor gearbox fitted, together with the pick ups. This has also enabled me to add the brake blocks and secure the rigging. Today, have added the boiler band lining - a challenging process, considering I'd thought it would be pretty simple. Painted the smokebox black too, but it looked far too dense, so added some ivory white to soften it a little, while a bit of light weathering will eventually go on too. Smokeboxes were rarely clean on any loco. Stuff still to do includes the handrails, plus all the lining on the other side. Then there's the cab roof, glazing, lettering, coal in the tender rear coupling, vacuum pipe, etc, etc. No sooner do I tick something off the list, than I notice something else to do, but that's scratch building for you.

Not sure about the fast clock idea, though guess it adds an extra level of reality. However, a well known cause of late trains is other trains running late - just like the phrase 'knock on effect' in road traffic reports. For me, a sequence is the better option. You take the working timetable (real or imagined) and just run the trains in order. If shunting takes a bit longer, so be it, but you give yourself time to complete each move. Derailments, loco failures and late running can still be accommodated, while lighting controls can simulated the time of day too. However, am guessing with a computer controlled clock, you can always press the 'pause' button - something that would be handy in real life occasionally too!

Pure class.

I know a couple of people who do this stuff and seem to remember that the cost of starting a 3D print is around £800 - £1200, though I guess it very much depends on how much you want to charge per hour. What I know about CAD can be written on the back of a postage stamp with room to spare, but would think that once a file has been created, then rescaling is a simple matter. As to the cost of actually producing either an etched kit or a 3D, the former is down to the cost of the metal and the etching process and I believe is not that high, probably under £100 per unit. As to 3D printing, much will depend on the equipment used, though time is also a factor. It would certainly be interesting to know what it would cost Murphy's to turn out say a B class in 7mm scale, or N gauge for that matter. However, suspect that while an injection moulded/3D printed model would cost very little, a working chassis is another matter entirely. For example, a 7mm scale rtr wagon costs about £40. Scratch build it and wheels cost £10, couplings a fiver, buffers the same or double that, depending on type and brake gear another five to ten as well. Hence the big bit, then body is worth three fifths of five eighths of not very much! On another front, was doing a buildings demo at a show and a gent asked me if I did commissions. I told him no, but when I mentioned the locoshed on my display had taken me somewhere in the region of 80 to 100 hours, it didn't take him long to work out how much it would cost - even at minimum wage. Ten quids worth of materials, but who knows how much in terms of paid time. Quite how Dapol can churn out 7mm rtr locos at under £200 is beyond me, but guess a J26 or similar will remain the stuff of dreams for a while yet.

Fantastic pictures, thank you both! First met Kilbrandon at Allypally, towards the end of its exhibition life and only wish I'd seen it earlier and more often. Drew's engines really are something. A D19 is certainly on my wishlist, but so is Sprite and its pay coach, along with one of the early SLNCR 0-6-2Ts, a C class diesel and the Castlederg 2-6-2 on the CVR. Don't suppose anyone is likely to do a kit, let alone rtr of one of these soon!

Yes, need to do a small repaint on my three Sligo locos! The photos of the railcar and railbus were stunning too - was amazed how smart the paintwork was. Equally, one of my favourite pictures was of the cattle fair, with all those folk in long brown overcoats. For me it is stuff like this which can help us bring our modelling scenes to life. As another aside, I must put in an early vote for these meetings to continue on Zoom, once things get back to normal. For me, it would be a three hour round trip to get to the London venue and the others would require an overnight stay! The quality of the presentations has been excellent and If love to see them continue.

Well done Leslie, a wonderful presentation of inspirational photographs! Thoroughly enjoyable, so thank you.

Roxey Mouldings do a fair amount of Markits stuff.

Well here's food for thought. Love the application of engineering principles to scenic modelling. Have a feeling it is going to work rather well.

Two beauties! The 7mm model sounds like a nice refurbishment project, not least because it compares so well with its smaller sister. Both of course deserving of layouts to run on...!

Thanks Paul, can't argue with the new purchases - am sure you will enjoy them. Dare I ask what the 7mm loco is? Sounds like I'm not a million miles from what Trevor does with boiler fittings. Have never used a peg in a hole with castings, as prefer to simply wrap sandpaper round the boiler and scrub away. After, fix with 5min epoxy, which allows me to tinker while it is going off. No doubt that 7mm scale is very addictive, but equally, if I could start again, then S would be very tempting!

Great work John and as ever, not just fine models, but historical detail too. Never knew the coach partitions were cream, while that looks to be a classic train for the J26.

Apart from the Mail train project, work has been proceeding on other fronts, notably another Christmas present in the form of a Slater's Tank Wagon. Thanks to Galteemore and others, turns out that this is a rare beast, being a mainland Britain wagon that is also appropriate for Ireland. Indeed, the only real difference seems to be the buffer spacings needing moving out to a scale 6'4. The Slater's kit is really rather splendid. Not exactly easy, but really well thought out. It is a true mixed media model too, involving etched brass, plastic mouldings, lost wax castings and both brass and plastic rod and strip. Unlike say, an open wagon or box van, these tank wagons are completely open, so Slater's have enabled us to model all the under frame detail - hence all the various materials in use. If you want to lean about how wagons are constructed, this is the one to try! The instructions are a bit ambiguous in places, but if you take your time, a really rewarding model is the result. I've built several of these in the past, including a couple of six wheel milk tankers too, so compared to recent scratchbuilding projects, this has been like meeting an old friend. Pictures show the [almost] completed chassis. The buffers were easy to move out, as there are plastic bases to add to the headstocks, while moving the wheels to the right gauge is a simple case of moving them out on their axles to 33.98mm back to back - ish, anyway!

Slowly, slowly... Progress boosted by the arrival of some brass rod and the long awaited ABC motor gearbox. The latter is a very fine piece of engineering, with the motor being a Maxxon 16/26. Small, but powerful, while the gearbox actually 'drives back', meaning you can turn the driving wheels even when fixed in place. It fits nicely too, with plenty of space all round beneath the cab floor and in the firebox to add lead sheet eventually. Not cheap though at £135, but it is quality. I've completed one side of the loco's lining now. A decidedly fiddly job, especially that inner panel on the cab side! One aspect that still needs attention though is that some of the lining is just one black and one white line, but hopefully that won't be too hard to remedy as this mainly occurs where it meets things like the edges of both the cab and footplate. And so to the dome. Ideally, a slightly smaller diameter piece of brass would have helped, but I could only get 25mm, while the dome itself is only 22mm where it meets the boiler, reducing to 18.5mm, which of course means lots of material to turn off on the lathe. Initial setting up was a bit of a trial and many rude words were expended on the ether while I tried to get my head round how to reverse the three cast jaws that make up the chuck. The instructions require you to open these up until they drop out, whereupon you put them back the other way round. Easy enough you'd think, but if you do that, the jaws don't centre and I spent a frustrating time trying to get it sorted until I finally found a tiny note on the diagram which showed that jaw 'B' stayed the same, but A and C needed to be reversed. Oh well... Anyway, once done, things progressed reasonably well, but taking it slowly is essential. On top of this, a lot of finishing and polishing is still required, plus the base of the dome also needs to be filed to the profile of the boiler. Geoff Holt's book suggests using a fly cutter on the lathe, but this is beyond my ability at the moment, so instead have laboriously done it by hand. It still needs a bit more work, but that can wait until another piece of brass rod [18mm this time] arrives so I can do the chimney.