Flying Snail

Welcome James, Looks like you have a nice space for a railway - and I spy a few pieces of rolling stock already. That being said, I agree with the others that you'll need to think carefully about what will work best in the space you have. I would suggest laying out a track plan using paper and playing around with a bit to get a feel for whats possible in your space. Obviously N would give you more room than OO, but the down side is less RTR rolling stock is available (i.e. none). Also, you don't have stick slavishly to the measurements of the prototype - you can compress bits here and there and still retain the character of the item you're modelling. I'd also recommend going on to youtube and subscribing to a few channels. As you've picked an urban theme you'll be building a lot of buildings - so here's a channel to get you started that you might find helpful for the scenics: https://www.youtube.com/@Chandwell. You can see on this forum how effectively Chandwell's techniques can be transferred to an Irish setting by taking a look at the work of people like @Kevin Sweeney and his Ballywillan and Kent projects. While those guys are modelling in N / 2mm, I think you'll be able to scale the same techniques up to 4mm pretty effectively if you choose to stick with OO. Also, when researching track plans, the Ordnance Survey have an online archive of maps that will prove helpful: https://osi.ie/services/geohive/

Oh, thats very interesting! Nice bit of lateral thinking on the accommodation front too. I was just looking at the Wanderer's pictures of the former Grand Hibernian Mk 3 sleepers now in Scotland, and now there's Caledonian sleeper after making the reverse journey from the UK to Ireland I've the following line from Christy Moore's Lisdoonvarna now stuck in my head ... "Summer comes around each year, We go there and they come here." .... I'll be humming that all morning. Anyone for the last few choc-ices now?

Nice work @owen. Do you have a website or a gallery of your 3d creations somewhere?

I didn't search on the Bachmann site but instead put the model numbers into Google and found them so the model numbers do appear correct. Maybe you can't find them on the Bachmann site because they're no longer available for sale from Bachmann? I don't spend enough time on the Bachmann site to know if they have details of out of production models, but given the strong second-hand market for model railways, it would be a good idea if manufacturers did maintain an archive of past models

Excellent find - I have been browsing the the Poole collection on the NLI hoping to catch something like this, but I completely overlooked the W&L Extension pics.

These are excellent Rob - thanks for sharing. And welcome on board! Coincidently - last night, I found an impression of the Waterford & Kilkenny Railway's* seal in a 1912 article in the Railway Magazine. Note, company seals would have been used to stamp official documents etc. and they are not the same as armourial devices that many railway companies (GSWR, WLWR, etc.) placed on their rolling stock. However, it's reasonable to assume that those devices would have been inspired/developed from the company seals, and so would be similar in design. * Waterford & Kilkenny Railway is the original name of the WCIR

Love the Suir Lee Knot design - very clever!

GSWR did indeed lay the line from Dublin to Carlow as double-track. It was singled south of Athy during WW1 so the track could be reused on local colliery lines built as part of the war effort, and Cherryville to Athy was singled in 1931 by the GSR to save costs.

Yes, not a great colour combo. Reminds me of these:

... and you're sure you don't live in Mali? Maybe you were typing Malahide as your location (well, you do seem spend a lot of time in the museum) and autocorrect changed it to Mali?

hmmm .... something seems not quite right, but I can't put my finger on it Which reminds me: What do you call someone who put their right hand in the mouth of a T-Rex? Lefty

I was luckier, I got a couple of Moguls they evening the popped up online - the green and the matt black one

Ah thats nothing, sure didn't they unearth a heap of Woolwich Moguls and Jintys only a couple of years ago

Marks Models have quite a few different CIE, IR and IE liveried MM 121's listed at the moment: https://www.marksmodels.com/?cid=51

The Loop Line in Dublin - Connolly (Amiens St) to Pearse (Westland Row) There's likely a lot more than you might think - especially when looking back at lines now long gone. The 'Central Ireland Railway' was the rather grand name given in the Act of Parliament that authorised it to the 7 mile branch line from Portlaoise (Maryboro') to Mountmellick

Those bridges (both of them) are really beautiful!

Got a delivery from Hattons this morning to Dublin via DHL Express. Had a few items in my trunk so the total value of goods was over £200 (the most expensive individual item was €125 ex VAT). Irish VAT was applied by Hattons and there were no additional customs charges etc. DHL option is more pricey than Royal Mail but I wanted peace of mind after the issues people have had. I placed the order to ship them on Wednesday evening, so that was a fast turn around too.

Ah, the Fordson Dexta: bomb proof! My grandfather's Dexta was still working away on the family farm in the Slieve Blooms until not too long ago (it's still there, just not sure if its retired yet)

Thats a very thorough response from Johnny B. Good with some great reference photos. I'll only add this for anyone interested in specific regions/localities, and specific elements of Irish life from times past. The National Library has an extensive collection of photographs from around the country dating from the 1840s on: https://www.nli.ie/collections/our-collections/photographs Follow the link above and then click on their online catalogue to see digitised photos. You'll find plenty of carts and cattle in pictures of fair days (most towns had one), and indeed street scenes, buildings etc. There's also railways etc. The archive can be browsed by year, location, subject-matter, photographer etc. It really is an excellent resource for this type of project

Looking at the pictures of the real things in @Westcorkrailway's thread from '21, it would seem to me that Hornby R3896 with its large buffers and small rear windows is probably the closest of the current 4 Hornby variations to a CSE RH 88DS. Would that be correct?

Good to see its being used for something anyhow and not just rotting in a ditch. Not a million miles from me either, I must pop down sometime for a look

Which British 0.6.0 saddle tank are you thinking of @jhb171achill?

Great pics, thanks for sharing - great to see the odd little bit of mischief inserted into some of the displays

Accurascale are making a very big statement with this little loco! The sheer number of variations in the prototype in mind boggling, and this release (more than any of the others I reckon) shows there's nothing they won't take on! Bualadh bos boys!

Welcome Roger, About the 3F - perhaps it reminded your pal of the 101/J15 locomotives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GS%26WR_Class_101. These were the most numerous class of steam locomotives in Ireland. OO Works are currently doing a RTR model of them. By the way, Hatton's Genesis coaches in the dark green CIÉ livery would be a reasonable approximation of the carriages making up the train in the Quiet Man ... and also hauled by the 101s too https://www.hattons.co.uk/stocklist/1484058/1000588/1000636/1000830/hattons_originals_oo_gauge_1_76_scale_coaches_republic_of_ireland/sceneprodlist