Horsetan

Found a couple of reasonably clear views of 553 only just fitting on the turntable at Tramore: http://www.nrm.org.uk/ourcollection/photo?group=Sellick%20collection&objid=1997-7219_RJS_IR_15 http://www.nrm.org.uk/ourcollection/photo?group=Sellick%20collection&objid=1997-7219_RJS_IR_16 Of interest are the "inset" footsteps (catered for in the kit), and the almost Wainwright look of the smokebox door (twin handles, instead of the more common wheel-and-handle) and strapping. Minogues, and An Teach Ol, in Tulla for me. Happy memories of winter lock-ins during the hunting season

'tis out in the West.

They call him "The Menace Of Ennis". Anyhow, everyone knows that the best pints of Guinness are those served in Clare. Sure I've had a fair few of those meself.

I suddenly feel a need for the SSM GNRI 20t brake van....

"...but first, a word from our Sponsor...."

This is where you need to use the closest available P4 profile wheel. Sources: AGW, Branchlines, and - if you have all the time in the world - Ultrascale. You'll probably have seen the CLAG site which has just about everything under the sun for CSBs, seeing as they more or less invented the modern interpretation of the system. It's probably safer to have split chassis AND split axles. If you have a rigid axle, chances are that axle is the one that would make the model lurch. Only one axle driven per bogie - a total of two axles out of how many? It might be a bit underpowered. If you're going to be making your own gearboxes and gears, why not try making bevel-and-spur gears? Lower rolling resistance, higher efficiency.

Inchicore's a bit like a black hole for things like that.

I'm sure there are many different answers. A bit like Catholicism - "it's so vague, and nobody really knows how it works....":ROFL: I think it's to do with the feeling that you're actually making something that moves.

Compare with this view: Strictly speaking, there should be brass-coloured bearing covers over the eccentric rod big-end as well, but I'm not sure those were in the kit.

Until I saw the photos of the fiddle yard, I actually thought this was going to be 21mm gauge. The scenery so far is certainly worthy of it. Almost makes you wish there was going to be enough space to model the oul Ormonde Cinema at Greystones.

Not exactly. More to do with the feeling that there hasn't really been a longstanding and sizeable tradition of Irish railway modelling, unlike elsewhere. If anything, if there is to be a tradition, it is being developed now.

Great advert for Des / SSM's "800" kit. I can think of at least one UK builder, who I've nicknamed "Stella Artois" on account of the fact that everything he does is "reassuringly expensive", who would charge five figures followed by a decimal point, for something like this. I've seen photos of the 21mm gauge build, and I'm convinced that the kit is something to save up for. BTW, it looks like the reversing arms are missing from the motion on your model.

Update: MOSI replied as follows: "Thank you for your enquiry. Digital copies of our archive holdings are now supplied through the Science and Society Picture Library. The engineering drawing you are looking for is available on their site here http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10672266 Please contact the picture library directly to obtain a copy of the drawing by emailing picture.library@ScienceMuseum.ac.uk Best wishes, Jan Hicks Archives & Information Manager Tel: 0161 606 0115 "

I can't see The Irish Times printing something like this......

I did. Once. Terrible overcrowding. Never again.

It must be wonderful to understand how to use CAD. I have AutoCAD 2005 here, but I cannot understand how it is supposed to work or how measurements are reflected.

The W&T "garden shed" cab is not present on the etches I have, which are untouched. It wasn't my intention to build the W&T variant, as it happens. The rivetted smokebox would be very helpful. In respect of the two types of chassis, the brass one does look friendlier towards CSB suspension, but I can only determine this once I have the later n/s version to compare it with. I will be using my usual coreless motor (RG4) to power it; can't stand worm gears. Here is the castings pack, applicable to the original "E": Note the tall chimney that seems to go on forever, and the unusual "Y"-strapping on the original smokebox door. It is said that Martin Atock was as much an artist as he was a locomotive designer, giving not much time to the styling conventions of the day. Had he lived in a later era and worked in the car industry, I like to think he would have fitted in very well at Citroen prior to the PSA takeover.

Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery...

The line drawing in JHB's Achill Line book is also of 110 "Bat"

Can't do lining.

Interesting, because my new thread was started on a PC....

Does anyone know why, when I type out a title for a new thread, only the first letter comes out as a capital, whilst everything else remains stubbornly lower-case?

The nature of loco building these days is that people take on additional projects before finishing the ones they've already got. I'm no exception. Whilst working out various schemes for the "S" class inside motion, which is proving more difficult to render accurately than I had first thought, another Irish kit popped up on eBay. This was the old TMD kit for the MGWR "E" 0-6-0T in original form and, joy of joys, it had a full set of Sharman P4-profile driving wheels (long unavailable after Phoenix Paints bought up and then effectively killed the range) plus trim-it-yourself axles for 21mm gauge, and a full set of spacers for 21mm gauge. Initially offered at £50, nobody wanted it and it promptly reappeared at £42. An entire week went by, and still nobody wanted it. About 10 seconds before it went begging for the second time, I took the bait and it was knocked down to me. This is what turned up: Fortunately it came with a full set of the original instructions, which referred to a (missing) nickel silver chassis - superseding the old etched brass chassis. At this point, Des at SSM (who now produces the kit, pretty much unchanged) stepped in and kindly agreed to supply the missing etch plus some extra boiler fittings from another kit for not a lot of Euros, so payment was made and hopefully these are now in the post and coming this way. For anyone contemplating 21mm gauge Irish steam, you can't get much simpler than a nice 0-6-0T to start you off. You will learn loads about suspension systems and weighting. The question for me is what to do with the thing. Those who know me in P4 will be aware that I only try to model preserved stuff, engines and stock that I can go and see, so doing an engine which hasn't been with us since 1963 is going out of the comfort zone, and Professor Hawking's Brief History of Time isn't a key to travelling in time back to an age when Church and State ruled Ireland and were frequently in each other's pockets. If you build the kit as designed, and remember it was designed as far back as 1981 when CAD was just a glint in Des's eye and only big companies had access to the burgeoning world of design software, you get a very competent model of a Martin Atock engine, at least one of which served on the old Achill Branch for a few years after the line opened. Nameplates and numberplates for two of the class come with the kit. What the kit does not do is fully cater for the later GSR & CIE career of the class, so you don't get any rivetted smokebox and you don't get lowered boiler fittings. Des can fix the latter to a certain extent, but not the former, which you will have to make yourself. Neither do you get the extended cab fitted to those engines which served on the self-contained Waterford & Tramore line. Drawings for the "E" are very thin on the ground, certainly nothing for the inside cylinders and motion, and there don't seem to be a great many photos of the class at work either. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. I've no idea how long this will take to build, given that I've been doing two jobs until relatively recently, and modelling time is very thin on the ground. I do want to use CSB suspension, so will have to buy in a full set of hornblocks, bearings and spring carriers from High Level. There won't be any inside motion in this one, so you're quite safe; I have no drawings. But it will be built as a GSR / CIE engine, and it will take shape somehow.....