Horsetan

You might be right on that one. Engines did slip the net on changes of ownership - I'm thinking of Great Western 58xx no.s 5802, 5813 and 5814 which, after nationalisation in 1948, somehow kept their original livery and "GWR" lettering on the side tanks for years after the GW had ceased to exist - so long in fact that the livery was still extant when the engines were withdrawn! The County Donegal did this to a limited extent with the 5A class 2-6-4Ts - originally numbered 1A, 2A and 3A because they were duplicate numbers for earlier engines, the "A" was chiselled off when the engines were renumbered.

Possibly because CIE took over?

Sure ye wouldn't want to be trying that now

OT, but does the SSM J15 kit also cater for the superheated boiler plus Belpaire firebox version (186)?

The next bit is the smokebox wrapper. In the pre-"Weshty" days, and certainly in my sample, the wrapper was supplied partly-rolled - or rather, it was curved into a wide arc, and that's yer lot. The rest was up to the builder. To roll it even further to match the curvature of the smokebox shell is not easy, but you can use either one of two methods: 1. Get a 1/2 inch brass or steel bar / tube, put the wrapper strip under it, and roll it like a rolling pin on your thigh, or possibly even the carpet; or 2. If you have a proper rolling mill, you can form the right curves very quickly. Rolling mills, though expensive to buy, mean you can roll all sorts of smokeboxes and boilers (parallel or tapered). I bought mine years ago from GW Models, and it has been incredibly convenient. That said, the "S" smokebox wrapper was first rolled from a bare arc to a tight cylinder, matching the radius of the smokebox shell front and rear. You then have to mark out points at which the smokebox wrapper has to be reverse-rolled to represent the vertical sides. The fixed point is at the top dead centre, where the lamp bracket has a half-etched mark on both the smokebox shell front overlay, and the wrapper itself. Using a scriber point, I more-or-less worked out that the reverse curve would have to be around the fourth or fifth rivet position from the base. This photo shows the scriber pointing to the relevant (front) line of rivets, and you should be able to see a mark I made about four rivets above that - that's where the reverse curve will be: I also scribed a straight line at this point from the rear of the wrapper to the front. This line MUST be parallel with the base. It needs to be done for the other side of the wrapper as well: Self-explanatory is the whole point. Feel free to use the photos to develop your instruction sheets, or possibly put them on an explanatory photo CD for buyers of the kit.

It all helps. Thanks. As it happens, I have another 4-4-0 kit with inside motion - the ex-Great Central/LNE D11. This is an old Perseverance kit, and the inside motion frets for it were designed by Peter K Dawson. Some of the smaller links appear broadly similar to the "S", so some duplication might be possible.....

Link didn't work for me on I-Pad, but I'll try that again....

These are very useful shots of Claremorris - especially the zoom-in towards the parting of the Westport Line and the Burma Road. Does anyone know where track plans and drawings of Claremorris could be obtained from? I think I might just have had an idea......

Manulla Junction?

There's so much mainline stock at Moyasta, I'm surprised the West Clare hasn't yet gone dual gauge...

Delayed reaction? Who knows? Enjoy the photos, anyway. More to come.

Not many models of CC1 in existence. ...and even fewer of 356.

She's on what? I've never heard it called that before

I have no idea what's going on with the images. They are uploaded into the normal albums, all of which are publicly viewable. I posted them up using the standard forum image links and they are visible to me in IE, Firefox and Google Chrome. Not being any sort of IT expert (feck, I only use the thing), is there some sort of coding error that makes the images visible to only a few people?

That's weird. I uploaded them and they all show up grand here....

Someone should get them interested in that oul MGWR six-wheeler at Clifden - the poor thing's been rotting away there since the late 1980s!

Has anyone tried making a model of 356, the "mental Turf Burning Locomotive"? I can imagine stuffing as many smoke generators as possible into that one to simulate all the steam leaks!

171 was only ever going to be blue.....

I know this is getting slightly ahead of ourselves, but I couldn't resist just fitting the sub-assemblies together just to have a look..... I think it's starting to look more like the "S".....

The next bit of the work was - on the face of it - simple: seating four tiny caps into the half-etched marks shown for them on the footplate. The etch provides five, just in case you lose one of them: I tinned the backs of four of them with the usual 188 solder and Carr's Green Label flux: However, separating each individual cap, filing off any excess tags, and positioning them is the very work of the Devil himself: Eventually you get there: ...though if you use too much solder, you end up having to scrape all the excess off (as here).......which may take you longer than it did to position the caps in the first place. With all four caps soldered in their correct positions, I could then add the front mounting 10BA nut. This is simply screwed tight in position using the matching 10BA bolt, brushed all around with flux, and soldered. The reason why it's screwed tight is to prevent solder leaking in towards the bolt and soldering that solid! I test-fitted the smokebox shell, just to see where we were: ...and you can also see the curvature at the base of the smokebox front overlay. This is why you solder the front overlay at the top and upper sides, BUT NOT THE BOTTOM! As stated earlier, I used the handle of a needle file to form the curve, but you could also use a 3mm dia. drill bit. A useful point to note when forming the curve is to ensure that, when finished, the base of the overlay should sit perfectly on the footplate. If you can see a gap, your curve is too tight. Conversely, if the smokebox shell won't sit neatly on the footplate, it means your curve is too shallow. This can be a difficult area to get right, and photographs of 171 and her sisters don't always show the curvature clearly. I moved on to solder the preformed firebox and boiler barrel together: ....and since all the soldering is on the inside, with luck you should end up with a flush joint on the outside: