LNERW1

A late Christmas gift in the form of a new addition to my collection. I didn’t need to post this but I am one point away from an 11/14 rank (which is insane considering I don’t think I’ve contributed anything of use or interest, maybe the ranking system is flawed but I think I’m the problem to be honest. Ah well).

Guess who's back? Sorry about the break there- I know all of ye have better layouts keeping you entertained but I like to think I'm at least almost able to hold interest in something. Long story short a relative died- at a good age and peacefully, but it was still a bit of a shock. I decided to take a break from modelling and while away from the layout I've realised something. I'm not trying to make a fun layout, or an interesting layout, or even one that is visually that attention-grabbing, even though that's what I want. There are so many things I want in a layout and the one I'm building has none of them. With the benefit of hindsight, I think I've spent ten months trying to emulate the work and mentality of other, more experienced, modellers and enthusiasts, and trying to impress everyone with my grand ideas of a realistic layout set in the middle of a beautiful but fairly empty bit of Ireland, in a fascinating but depressing era that I'm nowhere near old enough to remember and don't properly understand. Ardree has a future, but as a scaled-down layout that I can finish, learning something in the process. This is my first layout. I don't need to emulate masterpieces made by modellers five times my age. I am literally legally a child- most of my collection is made up of parts from trainsets that I got not a decade ago. Of the five baseboards built for Ardree, I'll probably be using three- the station, a countryside area, and a fiddle yard. That means station scenics and field scenics- and that's it. That's enough. It's still 12ft long- that's big, but way more manageable. I'm sorry for backpedalling and revising things, but please understand- I'm still working out so much about modelling in real time as I do this. Oh, and I'll see if I can find a use for the other two boards- I have railway interests other than Irish- British, North American, Australian, French, Japanese, I could go on. And perhaps I will, in future. One last thing- stepping away from modelling gave me a fresh perspective on my garden railway, too- shameless thread plug, but I have some plans for it. There are a few kinks to iron out yet, but expect something on there in the next few days. Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive of me and my projects, and my heartfelt apologies to those who I may have disappointed by backpedalling, changing and revising every day of the week. I hope a happy and prosperous 2025 awaits you all. My kindest regards, LNERW1

If the two centre bogies could move laterally it could work, in fairness. Otherwise it doesn’t look awful in comparison to some things I've seen on this thread.

@DJ Dangerous is coming, hide the containers! On a more serious note though, it is really cool to see such an early part of something as normal now as containers. I see completely why you’d be interested in this.

The Arigna shot evokes so much. A picture paints a thousand words etc., but it really is captivating.

Please expect a short break from progress on the layout. Personal reasons- far more serious than lack of concentration or dedication. I'm fine, don't worry, regular service will return around the New Year. I'll probably get a bit done over Christmas too.

IIRC it was with cat hair found lying around the house- plenty of course!

Static grass too expensive? One of the cat people on this forum posted a video (i think on the IRM Catzilla DCC thread) outlining the use of cat hair to make grass. @Broithe or @DJ Dangerous I think. Large “popsicle” sticks work as uncouplers for tension locks- stick them under the loops and push up the hooks.

Two questions- when and where?

Brilliant! Hopefully the first of many trains to come.

Loosely laying out a longer stretch of track so I can have a go at properly running Ardree Quay. A little trouble has been had with power tracks and clips- all a temporary arrangement so no soldering- but otherwise no real problems. I need to have a look at buying some track so I can get cracking with the fiddle yard but I’m quite hopeful I’ll get some proper work done by Christmas. Happy modelling, LNERW1. PS sorry for the shite photo, phone was dead so had to use an iPad with no camera flash, in the room with the worst lighting in the house.

Los Angeles and New York aren’t getting linked by a high-speed railway in the next century, but think of if the Midwest was treated like, say, Ukraine (disregarding the current war and different cities- and note I’ve just used that as a good comparison off the top of my head, and maybe I could be off by a bit or a lot), connectivity would be so much better and the area would grow a more dense population. The thing is most of America likes their cars, and simply don’t want passenger trains. Outside of (and even in) the northeast (Boston, NY, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC) and urban-eastern midwest (Detroit, Chicago), passenger rail is basically never used and so becomes less dense, but a rail line is rarely more than 50km away, and is often a lot closer. At the moment Amtrak operates over less than 10% of the US network, most of that being either long stretches with no stops between large cities, or dense services all east of the Mississippi, that are still very under-utilized and infrequent. Even the North-East Corridor is rubbish compared to even Irish railways. (Let’s face it, we have shite railways on a European scale.) But let’s be honest it’ll never happen- America is ruled by car companies. It’s like the German auto lobby stunting high-speed rail but far worse. Maybe let’s trim back the thread drift as suggested above, I’ll leave it there, thanks.

To be honest I don’t think that’s a great outlook. Out of sight, out of mind is not an effective way of dealing with things. This shouldn’t be a platform for arguments about anything unrelated to railways.

Ah jaysus… ye’re all making me feel inadequate- quantity and quality? Alien to me lol.

I’m not sure if the Invision Community forum software has built-in thread locking, but I know it’s a feature available to RMweb mods. Maybe it would be best to lock this if you can, mods. Anything added beyond this point will be opinions on the above quarrel/argument/spat/exchange of ideas/battle/fight/whatever terminology floats your boat, as Gibbo seems to have shut off the modelling avenue. @Warbonnet @Garfield @BosKonay Best regards, LNERW1.

A little odd maybe to have this before any other DARTs are available RTR- not counting @murrayec as he is still overwhelmed with back orders AFAIK- but as it’s in conjunction with Alstom I have no doubt it’ll all work out. Don’t know why, but surely a big “proper train” manufacturer knows what it’s doing. I’ll probably be able to afford one by the time it comes out, completely out of era and period for me but oh well.

Wow! Maybe I should drop the hobby for a while and then start again- hopefully it will endow me with your skills! Obviously you have prior experience, but I envy your confidence and, again, skill!

I suppose long-haul, flying makes more sense, but I feel like it would be better to try to replace long car journeys with European-style, high(ish) speed, high frequency rail, it would eliminate a large amount of traffic and CO2 emissions. Not that any government will ever manage to push that through without multiple important people being killed by conspiracy theorists who think passenger rail is fascism’s greatest tool and Ford, GM, etc.-hired hitmen.

In fairness they do keep getting voted in so presumably they’re pleasing everyone enough to keep that out of sight and out of mind. The entire island of Ireland outside of Dublin, Belfast and a little bit of Cork has fallen into a rut of car dependence. It’s a little like America in that we seem to have forgotten how useful and important effective passenger rail (or in our case rail altogether) is. It’s unfortunate but unavoidable. Maybe the new developments in Dublin will spur on the rest of the country to demand effective public transport.

I have been known to post layout topics that don’t go anywhere and I thought I’d explain myself and prevent it from happening again, all in the one thread. Some people enjoy planning layouts, some don’t. I count myself among the former and have created enormously detailed plans before of layouts in many scales that I never plan or planned to build. I thought I’d stick up a few here as some people might be interested in reading all of my brain farts and maybe can find some inspiration- anything to feel helpful. My most recent idea that’s been floating around is a large balloon loop in OO/HO, with a large coal-fired power station at the centre of the loop, a Magnorail-powered motorway crossing the board, and some Soviet/British Isles 1960s blocks of flats anywhere they’ll fit. As with all (read: most) of the ideas in this post, I’ll outline this one in a later post, based on interest. Another recent enough idea, which I have posted a little about, is a massive model of Connolly and it’s adjacent junction, several Luas stops, North Wall yard and literally all of East Wall, in T scale. I still have no idea what size this would be, but likely at least 60 or so square metres, so not a likely undertaking. Going back to before I joined this forum is a London terminus called Liverpool Lane. This started out as a large sketch of a modern-image ex-LNER station in north London, based on a drawing by CJ Freezer, consisting of a double track tail chaser with a triangular junction feeding into a terminus. It later evolved into a much more realistic post-steam, pre-TOPS Western Region terminus, somewhere in northwest London. Another idea, more a track plan than anything else, I nicknamed the Bandaid. It has quite an odd story- it’s based on a pattern I once spotted on a mattress. After tracing it with my finger, I realised it was actually one compressed loop and not two overlapping ones. A *very* rough plan is reproduced below: I do have a few more, I think, but these, for me, are the highlights so far. If you would like to see more of this, please tell me. If not, that’s fine. I understand if you have no interest in my layout-planning brain farts. Best wishes, LNERW1.

I would guess a bit narrower too, but then nowhere near as out of scale for Irish outline as a scale 4ft 1 1/2 inch gauge, so probably not a problem for anyone not modelling in 21mm.

I put blocks at the corners to screw all three boards into, as 9mm is indeed to small to screw into without splitting.

Baseboard tops= 4'x18", 9mm Baseboard sides=4ft long, 7cm tall, 9mm thick Baseboard ends= 18" minus the 9mm on both sides The baseboard ends would be what would be duplicated. Sorry if the maths makes no sense- it was made up by me, for me, and it works for me. I didn't realise I'd need to share it so I haven't worked out cohesive measurements.

When you put it like that... Also someone please dissuade me from relaying all the track with code 75. Please.

Actually that’s a lot closer to what I’m going for than the picture I put up tbh, thanks a lot! As much as I did say I wanted it to look good, I wouldn’t be confident making something that good with just DAS clay. Maybe in future. Thanks very much lads, very helpful contributions- and quick!