Mol_PMB

What a super picture! Does your train have a bar car, or have they paused to take refreshment in the hotel? All the best for 2026!

I've just put this SSM GSWR coach kit on my watch list, although I suspect it will be more economical for someone based in Ireland. The starting price is fair, and these aren't usually available individually so it's a good opportunity to get just the one rather than a whole rake of six: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/236556240524

If you want to stick with the 1990s era, then I think the more interesting options would be: PW yard. Not just ballast hoppers but rails/track panels on bogie flats, spoil wagons, maybe an excavator on a lowmac. Wagon repair facility. I considered a layout based on a small part of the Limerick wagon works. Any type of wagon can turn up. Cement-based industry. In a small scale, probably something that receives cement and produces cement-based products (breeze blocks, lintels, roofing sheets, concrete sleepers?) which can also go out by train. Food-based industry as mentioned above. Molasses tanks and containers. Even a chocolate factory (e.g. Rathmore). See if you can get hold of the February 2019 IRRS journal, which has a detailed illustrated article on Private Sidings on Irish Railways. That's where I found my inspiration for my Quartertown Mill mini-layout.

An excellent write-up of an excellent year. Well done and thank you! I look forward to the forthcoming Irish model deliveries and the new announcements. And I'll get my Palvan order placed . Plenty of exciting hints about new tooling, hopefully some of it Irish. So will it be a D, E or G class, or even a variety of J? All the best for 2026!

By the 1990s a lot of the smaller yards and depots had been closed, with freight handled at fewer, larger facilities. Remaining smaller facilities tended to be dedicated to one traffic. However, there was still a good variety of freight on the network and stations like Ennis would handle several different traffics. Foynes was still active I think. Are there any specific traffics you want to include? I.e. what wagons have you got? Another option would be to model a repair workshop like part of Limerick or Inchicore. Or a PW yard?

Excellent. I think the third has enough support and is happening, and I hope that commonality of parts with the brake third might encourage that too. I’ve got my name down for one of each.

Now for the final installment of the 6-wheel vans - the other gangwayed vans. In addition to the three elliptical-roofed vans, the 1961 carriage register lists the following five 6-wheel vans fitted with gangways: 116 1070, 1077, 1078 116 would originally have been a diagram 88 van dating from 1887, and I have found no photos of this van so I can't comment on whether it was modernised. The other three gangwayed vans were from the last batch of diagram 90 vans built in 1908, numbers 1070-1079. Latterly black and tan, 1077 became a celebrity when it formed part of the 1964 all-Ireland railtour rake, and mush have been photographed hundreds of times! Here are some views from Ernie showing several different angles including the panel detailing and the roof. Apart from the gangways, this was a standard diagram 90 van with rounded beading on the upper part of the side, and a high arc roof: It's actually hard to see the gangways on any of those photos, but you can make out the top of the faceplate and the hangers in this photo of the same train by Roger Joanes: 1078 was identical but remained in light green livery until withdrawal in 1963. Again, we can't see the gangways in this view but their presence is confirmed by the carriage register details. I haven't found a photo of 1070. For now, that's all I've got on the prototype topic - I'd welcome contributions and corrections from others. I'm intending to build a model of a diagram 88 van in late 1950s condition, and will post the results here in due course. But for now I'll stop waffling on about 6-wheel coaches until the Alphagraphix kit for an MGWR third arrives on my workbench, at which point you might expect another similar thread.

Thank you JHB! You're now getting much better at the black art though - and practice makes perfect. When Alphagraphics have activated their shrink ray, I'll have an MGWR third to build for this little train - are you going to get one too?

Yesterday there was more progress on the tank wagon body and chassis, and on the layout scenery, but most of today has seen the battle opened on a new front. Having written a diatribe about GSWR 6-wheel lavatory composites it was time to put words into action, and build the SSM kit I bought secondhand earlier this year. https://irishrailwaymodeller.com/topic/19720-gswr-6-wheel-lavatory-composites/ I have taken a lot of useful advice and guidance on constructing the model from this thread, for which I am very grateful. Thank you @murrayec for such a detailed and well-illustrated build thread, which really helped as the instructions only have a few diagrams. In some places Eoin had a better assembly sequence too. https://irishrailwaymodeller.com/topic/8430-gswrgsrcie-six-wheeled-coaches-ecmbuild-in-gauge-oo/ After a good day of effort, I have completed the 'bogies' and the underframe, with all their details. Generally, it has gone together well with no major challenges, and it's much less fiddly than the tank wagon chassis. Construction so far has been entirely with 145 degree solder, and the result feels surprisingly stiff and strong. I didn't have a problem with clearances between the brakes and the gas tanks, because I didn't fit brakes to the middle axle. Neither did the GSWR! Inchicore obviously wasn't reading the SSM instructions. Hopefully I'll tackle the body tomorrow, and then I'll have a look at the left-over bits which include at least one 7mm scale part that surely doesn't belong!

Super, many thanks for adding that picture to the thread. It shows what they looked like 20 years earlier than any of the photos I had found. Both the diagram 88 vans still have their birdcages and full side panelling. We can see the skylights and gas lights on the roof. Also of interest is the vent in the lower side at the near end of the van (right edge of photo) which is shown on the diagram but not on any of the later photos. I suspect there was a dog box or similar here.

Ah, I know Paul but I didn't know he made those. 19.2mm across faces, I assume? I made one myself out of a block of brass which is good for plain axles but not ideal for powered ones.

Next I'll look at the vans which had high elliptical rooves. I think that a few existing vans were heavily modified in the 1920s, to match the style of the new bogie vans 2540-2547 (built 1920-1927) and bogie TPOs 2950-2951 (built 1919). These vans were also fitted with gangways, to improve their compatibility with the new bogie vans. The CIE 1961 carriage register lists the surviving 30' 6-wheel vans. Nos. 69, 71 and 79 are shown as built in 1924, but these appear to have been heavy rebuilds of older diagram 88/90 vans. They may have been entirely re-bodied. The carriage register shows these three vans as gangwayed. 71 and 79 are also shown as having late fee letterboxes. This photo dated 1939 appears in 'Great Southern Railways' - Murray, credited to SLS, and provides a useful comparison between a diagram 88 van (nearer) and an elliptical-roofed van beyond. Note the elliptical roof van has plainer straight beading which would have matched the 1920s carriage style. This IRRS photo dated 1952 shows an end view of an elliptical-roofed van, clearly showing the gangways: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53507633327 This IRRS photo shows no.79, withdrawn at Mullingar in 1969 in black and tan livery. This clearly has an elliptical roof and gangways: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511737280 No.69 survives at Downpatrick, and is currently being rebuilt as a saloon. It has an elliptical roof and the description on the DCDR website notes that it was rebuilt in 1923, losing its birdcage when the roof was renewed. The website also notes that it was fitted with gangways, which were later removed. https://www.downrail.co.uk/rollingstock/gswr69/ Two of Ernie's photos show van 71 on the Ballaghaderreen branch train in 1961 and the elliptical roof profile can be seen quite clearly. In the second photo you can also see more clearly that the panelling of these vans had plainer straight beading compared to the normal diagram 90 vans. So, vans 69, 71 and 79 all had elliptical rooves and gangways. However, they were not the only 6-wheel vans with gangways, and I'll look at that last group in the next post. But first I'm going to do some modelling!

A brief intermission to show the artwork I've been preparing for a diagram 88 van in 1950s condition. Intended to replace the sides of an SSM third class coach kit. I still need to do the duckets and the roof skylights, but I won't be adding a birdcage.

In the number listing on diagram 90, there were 36 vans listed, of which 27 were built between 1905 and 1911 to the design shown in my previous post. However, the following nine vans had older build dates: nos. 3 (1899), 1004 (1896), 1005 (1896), 1010 (1893), 1011 (1885), 1015 (1894), 1018 (1899), 1019 (1895), 1020 (1895). Most of these older vehicles were withdrawn in the 1940s or early 1950s, but a few remained until 1959: nos. 3, 1005, 1018. My guess is that these older vans were diagram 88 vehicles (or similar) that were updated by the GSWR to be more consistent with diagram 90. This is based on the existence of photos showing vans that seem to be a hybrid of diagrams 88 and 90, which I shall illustrate in this post. My guess may be wrong, but there were certainly a few 'hybrid' vans which were photographed in the 1950s. This 1950s photo appears in 'Great Southern Railways' - Murray and shows such a van. The sides look like a diagram 90, with the panels in triplets either side of the double doors, and the later style beading typical of a diagram 90. But the roof has the flatter arc of a diagram 88, and shows signs of being raised a few inches all round. We've seen this 1956 photo from Ernie before, looking at the diagram 88 van in the foreground. The next vehicle is another of the hybrids, with the sides of a diagram 90 but the roof of a diagram 88 raised a few inches. The side windows are more obvious in this shot: Another photo from Ernie shows one of these vans with a raised roof in a diesel-hauled train, coupled next to the MGWR 'hearse'. Finally, this one from the IRRS dated 1958 isn't quite the same but I think belongs in this group: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53500931838

It was certainly built as fully fitted, as listed in the GNR diagram book. Unfitted vans of this type had only 1 brake shoe each side, whereas fitted vans had two each side. The brake gear arrangement was unusual, based on the simple handbrake version with the vac gear and extra brake shoes grafted on. However, there is a note on the list of numbers accompanying the diagram that 25 of these vans had their vac gear removed and fitted to conflat wagons in 1953. I confess it's hard to read the number on the photo. Plausible numbers 4166, 4169, 4186, 4188 all kept their vac brakes. When I first looked I thought it was 4168 but that doesn't appear in the list at all. So in conclusion I think it is fully fitted. Here's my 4166N: