Horsetan

You'll still get the tell-tale "chirrup" in the rails as the train approaches.

"Ted, I think he's a bit cold now that his towel's fallen off...." What I liked about Donegal Town "Diamond" most is that it only has three sides.....which makes it a triangle.

You could have a newsagent selling the "Portadown News"

I see axles for 21mm gauge on those bogies!

Forgot to conclude: the above leaves you with twelve surplus "A" wheels, which make ideal practice pieces if you're learning how to use a lathe. Turn them to P4 profile so you have spares. Also, six spare P4 axles with Deltic gears on them... ....and an invalidated IRM warranty.

I'd been thinking about the "A" regauge to 21mm (P4 profile) for a while. IRM's wheel diameter comes out at 12.7mm (3'2") and I had thought there was no directly suitable wheel on the market. It turns out that the answer was staring me in the face all the time, because Accurascale's P4 wheel pack for their recent Deltic/Class 55 is practically the same diameter, registering 12.66mm on the calipers. This is undersized for a Deltic (they actually ran on 3'7" wheels - 14.66mm) but Accurascale's compromise actually helps us here. Although the Deltic wheel has two small holes at 180⁰ to each other and a slightly different dish to the front face, it's still eminently usable for this quick 'n dirty job. Since both types of wheel are fully insulated only at the hub, that means there won't be much of a problem with pickup, since the collectors only need to extend to touch the backs of the new wheels. Off with the "A" bogie sideframes: ...exposing the extended axle ends, and then unclip the baseplate: Fish out the leading axle - on A39r, this is the one with nearside speedo drive, so that has a tiny end instead of a rotating cover. Compare with the Deltic wheelset: There's not a lot in it between the "A" and the Deltic: To remove the wheels from their axles, all that's needed is to grip and gently twist each wheel anticlockwise, as if unscrewing a fine-pitch bolt. As long as the wheel is kept straight, no damage to the insulating bush should occur and you should not end up with wobbly wheels. DO NOT remove the brass bearings from the axle. This is what we end up with: As the Haynes Book Of Lies says, "refitting is the reverse of removal" - the Deltic wheels are mounted on the "A" axles, again going carefully, twisting clockwise as you press the wheel along. A decent indication of when to stop is when you see just the merest glint of silver appear in front of the wheel hub. We need to have an Irish back-to-back gauge handy, giving a back-to-back measurement of 19.67mm. These are available from the Scalefour Society Stores and are not terribly priced: Incidentally, you could adjust to 19.87mm back-to-back if working in "dead scale", in the same way that I use 17.87mm for dead scale British standard gauge. The measurement over the outside face of the Deltic rim should come out at around 23.9mm. Now see the difference in gauge: That should provide a suitable spur to finish the others: Now is the time to bend the pickups outwards to match the wider gauge. They must be able to touch the backs of the new wheels: Insert the regauged wheelsets, with the brass bearings clicking into their original places: Clip the bogie baseplate back on, push the outside frames back in, and the job is done: Now repeat all the above for the other bogie: This can be achieved in about 40 minutes, plus up to thirty quid for the Accurascale Deltic P4 pack (cheaper on eBay if you play your cards right). End result just looks right:

Slavery never really went away. Even the skin colours of exploiters and exploited remain much the same. It was ever thus. *shrugs*

Looking at the likes of Amazon, etc., I'm not entirely sure things have changed.

The headcode box areas look handy enough to fit revolving blinds in.....

To be fair, Wild Swan's mighty tome on the Talyllyn Railway, published many years ago, was getting on for around £60/70 back then. ....and no, I didn't buy a copy either.

Any facepalms?

The Heljan Hymek bogie has the correct overall wheelbase for the Sulzer B101. The catch is that you have to drill holes to turn it into the Sulzer's A1A arrangement....and that extra axlehole runs perilously close to the Heljan geartrain...

No complaints there, no?

Not anymore.....let's cut into his profit margin a touch....

It's a very nice kit, but should be labelled 3.5mm scale / HO !

Tom Mallard reputedly charges in the region of thousands for his builds....

The driving wheels supplied in the Class 5 kit appeared to be 16mm Romford / Jackson on extended plain-ended axles, nowadays Markits. I found them a bit too coarse for my liking, and replaced them with some plain 4' diameter Sharmans. The pony and carrying wheels were plastic-centred (or at least the ones in my kit were) and I thought they looked like Kean Maygib. Being spoked, they're wrong anyway, as the real things had disc wheels with holes drilled around the perimeter. Modern equivalents could probably be Markits, but they wouldn't be cheap nowadays. The other alternative might be wheels supplied by the 3mm Society or maybe 3SMR, as they work to 12mm gauge anyway. 3mm Society list - see pages 18 and 19 for wheels 3SMR wheels price list

The Industrial Garratt probably won't be seen again, except on eBay if you're lucky. Likewise the Doxford Crane Tank kit, which was produced in 1:87 due to a mistake, instead of 1:76.

Mine was purchased from the Backwoods stand at Warley 2000. Was only 80 quid all-in back then. I even took it to Donegal to photograph it in the cab of Drumboe

The range was taken over by N-Drive about five years ago, possibly longer than that. Based on rate of progress, it will be another 5-10 years at least before we see anything like the full line of kits available again. That's not forgetting the OO9 (non-Irish) range - extensive in itself- is supposedly to be resurrected as well. Long wait.

The model would started life like this. Note the separate instruction sheet for the Porter's Cap 80:1 gearbox.

No, no, not Portescap, but "Porter's Cap" - a play on a name for what was a much cheaper, multi-stage worm and spur gearbox, as opposed to the RG4 with its bevel-and-spur reversible drive.

The underside photo suggests it's been fitted with the "Porter's Cap" gearbox which was supplied as part of the kit and which is broadly similar to today's "High Level" gearbox kits. (I did wonder if "Porter's Cap" and "High Level" were related to each other.....)

This is a OOn3 (not actually TT gauge, even though it uses 12mm gauge track) model of the CDR's Nasmyth-Wilson Class 5 2-6-4T no: 6 Columbkille. The real thing still exists inside the Foyle Museum in Derry. Built from the long unavailable Backwoods kit, there's a bit of damage /distortion to the central buffer at the front - should be level, not pointing upwards. Rivetted smokebox is correct for no.6. Does it run?

Note also the miniature semaphore used as a shunt signal. There was another one beyond the north end of the platforms, governing exit from the transhipment sheds. Strabane seems to have been the only place where mini semaphores were used at ground level. The condition of the perimeter of the mixed gauge wagon turntable suggests the GNRI used it rather less than the CDRJC!