Horsetan

Are you going 21mm gauge as well?

There are photos of 552 in that condition, working the Kilmessan-Athboy branch.

It would certainly cut down the time needed to lay plain track, which means you can concentrate on the pointwork.

Hopefully a move towards 21mm gauge

A little bird tells me there might be something from the GNR(I)...

Other than Worsley Works, there is virtually nothing available in the kit world for the CDRJC now. Previously, you could buy kits from Backwoods and Parkside Dundas (ex-Ninelines) and get something running. The peak of Irish NG kit availability (in 4mm NG terms, anyway) seems to have been early 2000s. If you missed the boat, then you really missed it.

That's a real shame. Just as well I secured one kit to build "Drumboe" long ago. If there aren't to be any more of these kits I might as well scan the etches and do my own if I can get my head around how AutoCAD works.

None of the Backwoods kits are for the faint-hearted, but there is a question mark (allegedly) over whether they are still available.

I don't remember there being one in the kit. If using the smokebox supplied, then rivets would have to be individually pressed into the brass before it's rolled to shape, and I haven't worked out how many rivets the thing's supposed to have. Might be a bit much to send it over here (London), wait, then pray the smokebox survives Royal Mail and An Post.

You clearly haven't seen the bombsite I work in.

'tis but a flesh wound!

Here's a picture from Mike Morant's photo site, showing 801 with the headboards: The shape of the boards exactly matches the run of the extra handrails. There is another one of 802 in CIE markings with exactly the same handrail runs on the smokebox door. It looks as though they were applied and never removed, with the exception of no.800. 802 was apparently withdrawn and cut up by about 1957/58, so she may have gone to her grave still bearing the handrails.

Certainly seems an ingenious idea, and cheap when compared with these 10-coupled engines not catered for, though - bad news for builders of 9Fs and WD 2-10-0s, as well as German classes 44/45/50/52/58/94/95, etc. Only thing I'd be concerned about is the lack of support below - I usually build my frames using a flat surface - e.g. small plate of glass.

...along with vinyl roofs on cars, unfeasibly-wide flares on trousers, etc. And the hair! What were they thinking of!?

I did wonder whether the vertical / slanted handrails were used as mounts to carry headboards for official visits, e.g. the Papal Nuncio. It seems to have been an expedient solution to a temporary problem, and aesthetics never got a look in.

But it was cheap, which suited CIE's pockets down to the ground.

Those extra handrails on the door of Macha were fugly.

I'm getting back to it shortly for the next stage. Very deceptive angles. Currently working on Prototype Deltic (again) and Metropolitan Bo-Bo.

Can yis see the McDonaghs making a film about this? I'd suppose the title would be "In Bredin"

Unfortunately they got rid of burning at the stake...

Arson goes on everywhere, but for a while it did feel as though setting things on fire was something that went on in the North, especially the fixation with bonfires. RPSI also lost a GNRI K15 or two to the arsonists.

The death is announced today of veteran actor/comedian Frank Kelly. He went on the same day as Dermot Morgan. A good man gone.

The two types of frames are not interchangeable, as there are slight differences in wheelbase, most likely because of the etch artwork. You can't use the coupling rods from one on the other unless you modify the openings for the hornblocks.

Doesn't work on my Android phone. Never mind.

There is a story told that he once vented his frustration, saying "Why can I not find the people to make my ideas work?" His style was idiosyncratic (like Citroën before Peugeot took over), and he could certainly seem aloof or remote. The correspondence between him and Ricardo Engineering suggests a man who would listen but always go his own way. I'm not sure that he was as unpopular in Inchicore as some might think - if anything, as a devout Catholic, he had the respect of Inchicore men, if not their loyalty. In that repressed era, I think those who dealt with Bulleid (or the aftermath of his work) had to be equivocal about their views. Thus you will find material saying that R.A. Riddles on British Railways had quite a bit of respect for Bulleid, and other material that suggests Riddles thought Bulleid to be a charlatan!