Kevin Sweeney

Almost there with Gilligan's pub. Just the chimney pots, flashing, sills and downpipes, left to do. The good weather is causing serious delays in my modelling, I need some bad weather to drive me out of the garden and back indoors.

I love that cab ride video, it's cool. You can nearly smell the diesel fumes.

MGWR cottages. The Ballywillan cottages have been modernised so these are based on the railway cottages at Crossdoney. This is version two, the first build went into the bin. When I had them finished I realised the windows were too small. Act in haste, repent at leisure. I have one station building left to do, the L shaped shed next to the station house. I am going to come back to this, the next build is Gilligan's pub.

To take that story of the importance of the railways back even further, I often think about how they revolutionised the world. My home town of Kilnaleck, Co Cavan, is the place in Ireland probably farthest from a navigable waterway. Before railways, water was the cost effective means of freight transport, road transport was prohibitively expensive. In the USA in the age of carting it cost as much to transport goods 20 miles inland as it did to ship them from Liverpool to the USA. In the 1821 census there were a lot of artisan trades in the town. Kilnaleck was a hive of small scale manufacturing. Lots of people in the linen and apparel making trades. They were even two nailers, making nails. Once Ballywillan opened and slashed the cost of transport, that would have been the end of these artisan producers, who would no longer have been able compete with factory produced goods. We modern people like to think we live in a time of unprecedented change. But I think no people ever experienced such rapid change as those who lived through the coming of the railways. The railway literally made the modern world. GENUKI: Kilnaleck 1821 census, Cavan

BINGO. I got the planning drawings online at L.C.C. website. I have front and rear elevations, and the ground and first floor plan. No conjecture needed. If only I had such detailed plans for every model. The farm buildings are perfectly preserved. I looked up Ballywillan in the 1901 census returns. There were three people whose occupation was Victular. Their business was supplying goods to the military.

Do you have any images of the pub or the model of the pub. There is a big extension added to the south gable, if I can't get any images of original southern end, I may have to do some conjecture.

The sun was against me, my positioning was wrong and I had no idea what I was at. If I go back for another try on a better day I should do better but this image gives some idea of the landscape I have to play with for the back scene.

All that is missing is the track, signals, water tank and cattle pens. Everything else is still there and very well preserved.

You were right, it took 25 meters of altitude to bring Lough Sheelin into the picture, so the drone plan is dead. I did how ever get some good aerial shots of the station. Looking south towards Inny Junction. Looking north towards Cavan

I love this layout, not just because it is a great layout, but because I lived in Bantry for several years when I was a young man and have great memories of those times. So anything to do with with Bantry evokes serious nostalgia.

A screen grab from Google earth of the Derryard gravel pit and railhead, the old track bed is clearly visible.

There was a small building where the Derryard branch joined the main line, presumably a small signal cabin, and a fork in the line at the gravel pit.

That's right its the sheer scale of Ballywillan that is so striking, compared to other rural stations. It must have been a bustling place in it's heyday. Competition between the MGWR and the GNR would explain the carters working between Ballywillan and Ballyjamesduff. As the saying goes competition is the life of trade. The branch line was still there in 1901 it's on the OS map and is still disenable from the satellite view. The gravel pit can be clearly seen on the satellite view. When I get a chance I will fly the drone over there and get a closer view.

Thanks Noel. I love the MGW crossing keepers cottages, to my eyes there are just perfect architectural gems.

The crossing keepers cottage at Kinalagh, 1.2 km south of Ballywillan. The real building is uninhabited but intact and in good shape. It has a very ugly modern, flat roofed extension, which I decided not to model. I'm thinking of using modellers license and including it at the southern end of the Ballywillan layout. Or I may use it on the future Bellmont layout.

I've wasted most of the afternoon, when I should have been making models, looking at other rural stations in this part of the country on the 1901 OS map. None of them are anything like the scale and size of Ballywillan. It had two goods sheds, there were two pubs in the townland and the complex of buildings behind Gilligan's pub. According to the the local history project carters were operating between Granard and Kilnaleck in Co Cavan, that makes sense it was the nearest station. But there were also carters working between Ballywillan, Ballyjamesduff, and Castlepollard. This is odd, Float station was 7.4 miles from Castlepollard, but it's 10.4 miles to Ballywillan. Even stranger Oldcastle is 7 miles from Ballyjamesduff, but it's 13.5 miles from BJD to Ballywillan. The OS map does not show any cattle pens in Float or Multyfarnham to the south; or Drumhownagh or Crossdoney to the north. And Ballywillan has an impressively long platform for loading cattle. So this maybe part of the answer. The only other major industry mentioned in the history project using Ballywillan was the stone quarry at Ross. I'm afraid the people who could have answered this question are gone, but as a local historian it intrigues me. I'm developing a terrible obsession with Ballywillan.

How Ballywillan has changed over the years, from the OS maps On the left is from Griffiths Valuation 1850s, shortly after opening. No signal cabin, no second good shed, no railway cottages, no pub or related outbuildings. In the middle is 1901 (to the left of the Goods shed is the original signal cabin that was burned by the black and tans), and on the right the modern map. This map below is a bigger view of Gilligan's pub and the related outbuildings. I'm intrigued by the three parallel buildings on the right of the map, which are no longer there. This is not a classic arrangement for farm buildings in this area. The one at the bottom appears to have a porch. I wonder if they might be related to the railway, accommodation or stores perhaps. I'm gonna spend some time looking on the 1901 OS map to see if I can find a similar array of building near another rural railway station. I will enquire from locals if anyone can shed any light on what they were. Is anyone here aware of a similar collection of buildings near any other rural railway station.

Thanks for the advise David. Scenery does not sound too challenging. My idea about the drone is all theory and may not work in practice. I guess the only way to find out for sure is to put the bird in the air and try it out. It would not take a lot of elevation to get the broad expanse of Lough Sheelin into the backscene, as the land between Ballywillan and Sheelin is low lying and there is a chain of hills in the distance beyond Sheelin, to the east. The image below of Ballywillan is from google street view, the green marker on the map shows the position the street view is from, the black line is the position of the station. The dark areas on the east end of the map are the hills in the background. The location of the street view screengrab is 17 feet above the elevation of the station Hopefully I can get over to Ballywillan in the next few days and try it out. I need to go over soon anyway as I need to photograph the pub, barn, and farmyard next to the station.

Thanks Patrick. my prolific output at the moment is mainly caused by the bad weather, which is keeping confined indoors. It will slow down when the weather improves and I get busy in the garden.

I am a complete novice at scenery so progress might be a lot slower than with the buildings. My plan for the backscene is to take the photos with a drone, as I think this will be a better perspective, than taking photos from the ground.

I came in with a copy of a history project about the station, done by some local school kids back in 1992. The current signal cabin was built right after the War of Independence. The original cabin was about 50 yards to the north and was burned by the Black and Tans during the war. Michael Collins often used the station when visiting his girlfriend Kitty Kiernan in Granard. Her father Larry Kiernan was a carter who drew goods between Ballywillan and Granard. The stone for the spire of the church in Maynooth College was quarried at Ross, Co Meath, carted to Ballywillan and onwards to Maynooth by train. The station has strong associations with the great All Ireland winning Cavan Football teams of the 1930s and 1940s, being only about half a km from the Cavan border. When the conquering heroes arrived by train at Ballywillan, hordes of Cavan people came to Ballywillan to welcome the team and see the Sam Maguire Cup. The well known Percy French song Come Back Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff was written in a pub in Granard. The line "turn to the left at the Bridge of Finea and stop when half way to Cootehill", are directions on how to get from Ballywillan to Ballyjamesduff. The most famous passenger to pass through the station was Queen Mary, wife of George the fifth, during the royal visit to Ireland in 1911.

I'm well on with the railway cottages, so I tried laying out the buildings at the correct spacings to see how they look together. It's really starting to take shape now.

In spite of saying my photos of the second goods shed where not good enough, I decided to try making it based on the photos I have and I'm happy enough with the result.

Didn't manage to get back to Ballywillan yet to take more photos but I did find a photo online of the railway cottages there. The photo has a big copywrite notice on it so I won't publish it here. But the cottages have been extensively modernised and turned into a single house, with an extension added. I'm not going to model the modern house at Ballywillan but will base my model on the MGW cottages at Crossdoney, Co Cavan. And an oblique image of the rear of the cottages from the O'Dea collection. I finally got round to checking out Grahame Hedges work. Very nice indeed.

Wow, that is amazing. That is the kind of layout I'm aiming for. I'm happy with how my modelling skills are developing, I have a good handle on modelling buildings, but I'm a complete novice on modelling terrain and landscapes. Ballywillan will hopefully help me develop those skills on a small project before I try a much bigger project.