LNERW1

My fat fingers are even more surprised than me! You hardly used an Apple Pencil or stylus or something, or was it just zooming in and being very careful and patient? As im quite young by this forum’s standards, when I was in primary school in Dublin a classmate’s dad was working on LUAS XC. After it was completed he mentioned to my own dad that their resources were being moved towards the Irishtown route. If both it and Lucan were built it would be simply idiotic not to connect them. It does raise the question of where would Lucan terminate. I think probably best to have it interline through the Docklands as far as Connolly. As westbound trams almost never terminate at Connolly the eastern leg of the triangle there is often forgotten, but would mean very little infrastructure work would be required to allow this. Possibly the best way to do this in terms of frequency would be to have half of Lucan trams terminate in a new, east-facing bay at The Point and the other half continue to Connolly, as happens with Red Line trams now. This would also bring frequencies through the docklands to the same level as the rest of the Red Line, helpful for a potential Spencer Dock station. I would try illustrate this as well as you, but unfortunately am on my phone at the moment, so cannot use my preferred medium, NIMBYrails. Hopefully the way I have explained it makes sense. Edit: sorry, should have clarified that as part of this the entire Irishtown route would be part of the Lucan line.

Good on you, looking forward to it.

@Metrovik top pic looks familiar! What a show, as the first large exhibition I attended as an exhibitor, was absolutely blown away by how lovely every single other exhibitor was. Thanks so much to everyone, I don't want to list anyone as there was so many and I could never remember them all, but thanks especially for @Jack_Dunboyne from the FREMO group and Sven and Anand from MERG for broadening my modelling horizons. Thanks also to all the lovely people who let me disgrace their layout with The Heretic (no I will not elaborate). Thanks also to all the wonderful people who stopped by and showed interest and offered advice, even if most of it had to be then passed on to @Metrovik (the problem with operating somebody else's layout). Hopefully I didn't botch the explanation too much! And may I commend everyone on the consistently incredible standard of work on show. I could sit and watch every single layout at the show for hours. Although of course I realise my praise doesn't mean much as the majority of people I talked to had no clue who I was, which is fair given being the consistently most annoying regular on a niche forum is not particularly noteworthy. Hopefully all this doesnt come across as self indulgent or narcissistic, I just really wanted to say how welcoming everyone was.

Earlyton, currently at the SDMRC show, has an adjoining Lartigue display. I believe it’s made with the Newman products.

A quick reminder for all travelling from afar that the Marathon on Sunday will put huge pressure on the LUAS, centering on Abbey Street and O'Connell-GPO, so if you can travel via bus or on a different day, consider doing so. The DART and InterCity services including the Enterprise will also not be running between Drogheda and Connolly for the entire bank holiday weekend. Safe travel everyone.

That's my job?

Been thinking a lot about potential Luas alignments recently so was digging around and found this thread. I believe a Poolbeg/Irishtown line was in consideration shortly after Cross City was completed, so you’re not far off TII’s plans I think. If this were built I would worry it’d have to be supplemental to a DART Underground tunnel as it could go the way of the Red Line and find itself burdened with more traffic than it has capacity for. This weekend I pity all the poor people on their way to Blackrock who will probably be forced to take the Luas from Heuston eastward during the marathon (me included ) Obviously every new line built is a good thing but it has to be looked at through a city wide lens. I love the diagrams by the way! Apple Maps looks very neat and has a great “transit” layer. What have you used to edit them and add new lines? Maybe im projecting because of my fat fingers but they certainly don’t look like they were done in the crappy built in screenshot editor!

Stunning weathering on 220. Looks completely real, and the Mk2s are lovely looking too. Again so nice to see this layout coming to fruition. Congratulations lad, love it!

The long sightlines really add to the realism. Love it, and great to see it come this far!

I’ll swap these if you want!

FOR SALE: Narrow Gauge World, two bound collections. 3-12: 25-30: Sold at €2 per magazine (RRP is £3 to £3.40 per magazine but these are in bulk and somewhat outdated), so; 3-12 will be €20 on its own, 25-30 will be €12 on its own. If bought together will be €25, so a €7 discount. PM if interested.

Nice, TT looks promising, hope you enjoy!

I mean work takes up a good chunk of time too no?

Ah yeah I’ve some interest in BnM from living near a bog railway and volunteering at Stradbally with loads of BnM stuff. I’ve to get a new railway room sorted but when thats done I’ll probably be starting on a model of Coolnamona main line transfer sidings. I also have a baseboard I’ve wanted to use for a BnM project but that’s very much long term. Anyway thats not particularly relevant to this thread specifically. I’ll be watching this with interest. If you want to have a look at some BnM stuff up close at the SWR, drop me a PM. The running season starts up again in Easter.

Ah yeah from what little I do know that makes sense. Thanks!

Not super familiar with UTA stuff but I think I see a Bangor line DMU? I'd love to see how that was made, no doubt a thread either already exists or will shortly? Edit: I believe the proper name is MED? But I could be wrong, as I say I'm pretty clueless when it comes to the UTA.

It’s actually kind of based on the way theres several switchbacks on your layout, I found that really interesting to play with so I added at least one on this layout. The idea is just that and wanting to have a siding along the front of the quay.

Having reflected on the fun I had operating @Metrovik’s Beagnach End at the recent Dunshaughlin show, I decided it would be worthwhile to add a bit of interest in the form of an additional siding along the quayside. Using a non-isolating point, what is for now the “peat siding” has been laid. I also took the chance to mechanise the point. So without further ado, here I present an updated photo of the layout: Only a small update really, but given how long youve often gone with the mild momentary annoyance of realising that prick hasn’t posted again every time you go on the forum for several months straight, I think I do owe a bit of progress, no? In all seriousness, I do hope to get a bit more consistent as I settle back into routine after summer (I know it’s October, I work slowly!), and hopefully will soon have a dedicated railway room. All the best, LNERW1

That's looking really nice. Quite jealous of your CAD skills!

I appear to have gotten the points done quicker than I expected- out sick today so I decided to have at it and ended up with all 4 points wired up (wire in tube that is) and the second board with track laid. So, how did I bodge the “wire-in-tube” system, possibly one or two people are asking? Well, I did it with garden wire, staples and two pairs of pliers. It’s dodgy and bodgy and needs to be operated carefully otherwise the wire will get caught in the slot I dremelled through the board, or the staple ( connecting the wire and the stud on the outside of the stretcher bar) will bend or snap or come off, but I did it! And once I have the hang of it it all works really nicely, and as far as I can tell carries power. I cannot tell you how proud I am of this! But an update on mechanics is not complete without photos and videos, so here’s a few. First, all the points operating (you can see better here the wire-and-staple mechanism): eca0f00e-1c55-46cb-80aa-779004477db7.mov Some of the over-centre springs have been damaged or gummed up by my careless ballasting so there is some force needed on one or two points! Here’s a view of the wires going back and forth underneath: 8c07d3a9-bbdd-4819-9f9c-d9b2419e13a9.mov (Pretty poor quality but I was using my other hand to operate the levers) And a picture of the underside: If you squint you can see the wires! You’ll notice the point at the station throat is operated with a wire on top of the board; this will be hidden under a large bridge so I went for the easier option of having it on top. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my brief lesson on how not to do point control, and look forward to me learning that the hard way. Happy modelling!

And you know what, a bit more content. Here’s a rough map of the area of Ardree Harbour (in real life Rossaveel). At the location of Derrough I have Ardree Town station. Until 1926 this was the junction for the Ardree Tramway heading round the west side of the bay to the old quay. This went slowly out of use for ferry services until only fish remained, and the branch closed to passengers in 1926. However it remained open for fish traffic until 1942. At the location of Rossaveel harbour is, in my universe, Ardree Quay, port for ferry services to the Aran Islands and Sheehaunmore, and port for many Atlantic trawlers. I think I’ve outlined pretty well the history here, but the area you can see in grey is roughly the area modelled. Edit: forgot to mention the siding at Costelloe is the tramway engine shed, later used as a shop for minor maintenance. The tramway this far remained until 1956.

I’ve done that one or two times but none of them have been very effective, mainly stuff like “full layout by Christmas”. I’ll go for having two fully operational boards (electrics, points, signalling) and a cassette before the SDMRC show, I’m not exhibiting Ardree obviously but it’s a nice deadline- one month or so, not ages but also not too much of a squeeze. Add to that the midterm follows directly after so I have six days to do scenics uninterrupted.

I’d pray for a lost login or something. There are a good few old accounts that went silent and surely some of them arent the worst case scenario.

Ladies and gentlemen we are back! Ardree Quay has finally returned from the shed! In the short time I’ve had it back I’ve initiated possibly my worst decision so far- wire-in-tube point control. As you can see here I’ve twisted staples into shape to act as arms throwing the stretcher bar back and forth. Now, this one is quite rough- which is why it’s already been replaced with a tighter arm that will push and pull. I plan on creating small slots for the vertical arm to go through, connecting with thicker wire below, which will in turn be connected to some sort of switch to push and pull. This should allow for point control not requiring the intervention of the Hand of God. I’ve also been testing how stock runs over a track joint with a little too much solder on the inside of the rail. Between these two videos I filed it down a good bit but it’s still not perfect. IMG_1413.mov IMG_1414.mov So, not huge progress but my activity at the weekend’s Dunshaughlin show has given me a huge motivation boost and I really want to get some stuff done before it dries up. Hopefully one or two people are happy at the return.

What a show. Thanks so much to @Metrovik for bringing me along, @meathdane for being so friendly and helpful, @Signal Post for your friendliness, @dropshort105 for your generosity, and @MikeO and Mike for your helpfulness. Thanks also to anyone involved in the show who might be reading, and to Tristan and his friends (again if you’re reading) who provided plenty of company and encouragement. It was nice to be the other side of the backscene and I look forward to meeting more people in future. As many have said, it’s nice to put a face to a forum handle. Hopefully I’ll see you all (and even more people) next year.