Mol_PMB

I probably have a suitable WTT to answer your question, but I’m now away from home for a couple of days. Someone else might get there first. The van is looking excellent.

Looking superb - an inspiring build and some useful tips too.

A bit more progress with the backscene and the building mock-ups. I'm getting close to what I want now. Broadside view: Main mill buildings; I've shortened the nearer one by one bay: The loading bay near the exit to the fiddle yard: And a gricer's eye view: Which can be compared to this view of the real thing:

The trees look very effective. Hopefully I can achieve something similar with mine.

I don't need these, but I will say they are the perfect points for a small O gauge layout and at a good price. The geometry of the Peco Setrack O gauge points is too sharp radius and doesn't make good crossovers, while the normal Peco points are way too long for a small layout. The 48" radius of these Marcway points is fine for most things, unless you want to run express stock. I've used these Marcway 48" points on my MSC 'Inglenook plus' layout.

Superb!

Correct, as is your maths.

Using a couple of your other photos, here's a view looking the other way: The lines diverged after the bridge, as shown in this IRRS photo taken from the bridge: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53813452669/

Yes, that's correct. I did try to find out, but a few minutes googling didn't find a definitive answer. I think most of the main lines are presently in 56E1 but I'm not sure what is being used for renewals and new-build now. In most places, rail lasts between 25 and 50 years so the network changes slowly.

Digressing a bit, there are lots of different rail profiles. Whilst rail sections have tended to get heavier over the years there are still many different sizes made for different applications. There's a good overview table here: https://rails.arcelormittal.com/profiles/transport-rails/ And profile cross-sections for each, like this one: https://rails.arcelormittal.com/profiles/transport-rails/european-standards/rail-56e1/ On the full-size railway, rails are classified by weight per unit length, kg/m or lbs/yard. For many years the standard flat-bottom rail used in GB was 113 lb/yard, which equates to 56 kg/m (the 56E1 profile linked above). In general, heavier rails are taller, but this is not always the case. The 56E1 profile has a nominal height of 159mm, which in model terms would be 2.1mm in OO or 1.8mm in HO. The 60E1 profile (modern Network Rail standard) is 172mm high, which in model terms would be 2.3mm in OO or 2.0mm in HO. The 39E1 profile (also known as BS80A) is used on some light rail systems and probably more akin to the older flatbottom rail sections used in Ireland. It's 149mm high, which in model terms would be 2.0mm in OO or 1.7mm in HO. For bullhead rail, the common 95 lb/yard section is 145mm high, which in model terms would be 1.9mm in OO. https://britishsteel.co.uk/media/savi03us/bs-95rbh.pdf On model railways, rails are classified by height, in thousandths of an inch. Code 100 is 0.100" or 2.5mm high, which is pretty good for representing modern 60E1 rail in OO, but oversize for other applications. Code 75 is 0.075" or 1.9mm high, which is more appropriate for older rail profiles and/or HO scale. But it's all fractions of a millimetre, and not so obvious once the track has been painted. Things like track gauge and sleeper size/spacing are much bigger errors in OO. What makes the Code 100 rail look too big in OO is really that the rest of the track is modelled to HO scale. Anyway. back to Ardree Quay...

A lovely photo from Ernie showing an up railcar set on the West Cork lines, hauling a cattle wagon as tail traffic: Note that this is a vac-braked cattle wagon so could legitimately run at the back of the train without a brake van. One doesn't often see photos of tail lamps on goods wagons, but this is a nice example. The leading railcar is a Bulleid wedgehead, identifiable by its body and roof profile.

Super photos as ever! Thank you. I particularly like the last one with tail traffic on the railcar set. The (distant) leading car is a Bulleid wedgehead.

I have spent all day making the backscene, and it's still not finished. How hard can it be to cut a piece of board!? This backscene is a complex shape though, with a step in it along the length, and a curved corner at one end. I decided I needed to make it at this stage and trial-fit to help confirm the exact dimensions of the buildings and to decide a few other issues. For now, I will probably arrange for it to be screwed in place so that it can be removed in case modifications are needed as the build progresses. I also want to seal the board properly, hopefully to reduce warping problems. Eventually it will be fixed permanently. Here is a back view. Note how one of the fiddle yard tracks is tucked partly under the main part of the backscene - this allows me to make the scenic side an inch wider. Here is a front view. The step in the lower part will be concealed by buildings on this side. The angled section on the right hand side will partly conceal the sector plate. This shows how the buildings sit over the top of the step in the backscene and conceal it. I haven't yet done the mockups for the buildings at the near end - I needed to get the backscene made so I could work out the dimensions in this area. At present, the right-hand end looks a bit unsatisfactory, with a 'letterbox' in the backscene. The building behind the tracks will conceal part of that, as well as the awkward interface in the corner. In front of the tracks at this end I'll put in another small panel to minimise the width of the letterbox. Then I will have a few large trees and some undergrowth in the front corner as a view blocker so that the remaining hole in the backscene isn't so visible. There really was a group of trees in this spot, and I hope their height will balance the height of the mill buildings at this end. I have splashed out on some trees from Primo, but they haven't arrived yet. https://primomodels.co.uk/category/deciduous-autumn I may also have a go at painting some more trees on the angled part of the backscene. I'll need to practice on some scrap first, and work out the best approach. I did this on my Swiss layout and it was quite effective, but Spruce trees are a bit easier to paint than deciduous!

I confess I had my tongue in cheek with the 0-6-4+4-6-0 Garratt suggestion - I was thinking along the lines of using common parts with the conventional Beyer Peacock locos on the SLNCR. I hadn't realised there actually was an SLNCR Garratt design sketched out. A 2-6-0+0-6-2 would make a lot more sense technically, but undoubtedly more powerful than was needed. That's made me wonder whether a wide-firebox Garratt would have have been a better bet than Bulleid's design, for the turf-burner brief. Anyway, better get back to East Anglia. Sorry for the digression.

I am very much looking forward to the Manchester show. I’ll keep an eye out for it.

Many thanks John, that’s very comprehensive and helpful. I shall joint my concrete panels accordingly. Going off at a tangent, do you know what that little tank wagon 254A carried?

Indeed. I can picture a modified traction engine pottering along the SLNCR with a few cattle trucks much more easily that I can visualise an 0-6-4+4-6-0 articulated monster!

I never knew the origin of the name. Fascinating! The advantage of a Garrett locomotive over a Garratt locomotive is the much smaller size of layout required.

An excellent talk, thanks to Leslie for publicising and Roger for the talk itself. Sorry I wasn’t there in person, but rest assured I do attend my local Manchester meetings and I may even have had my arm twisted to give a talk next year.

Sounds like an amazing space! Speaking as someone who has started a lot of overambitious layouts and finished few, I would recommend building a module at a time to start with, whilst keeping a grand plan in mind that they will eventually fit into. Don’t try and build 20 baseboards at the start.

A little postscript to my previous notes on the tar tank wagons built by or for CIE. I was having another look through the GNR wagon diagram book today (available to purchase as a pdf from the IRRS) and I've realised that the GNR had some tar tanks as well, some of which were inherited by CIE (and others by UTA). So for completeness I'll describe them briefly. GNR wagon diagrams 56 and 56A show 'Creosote or Tar Tank Car' and are dated 1940 and 1950 respectively. Both show vehicles that are outwardly similar in appearance though with small dimensional differences. They are converted steam loco tenders, retaining their 6-wheel underframe, but fitted with a wagon-style lever handbrake accessible from the ground. The body appears to comprise part of the original tender body, extended upwards into taller rectangular tank. Their capacity is in the range 3425 to 3725 gallons, so a bit larger than the biggest of the cylindrical tanks described above. The laden weight was up to 33 tons (on 3 axles, of course). A total of 5 are listed, the first three were built as engineers' wagons in 1940 but two were transferred to traffic stock in 1950, at which point two more were built for traffic. 'old plate number' 42, engineers # 8192, remained with the engineers. 'old plate number' 48, engineers # 8193, traffic # 6025, went to CIE 'old plate number' 35, engineers # 8194, traffic # 6026, went to UTA 'old plate number' 39, traffic # 6027, went to UTA 'old plate number' 40, traffic # 6028, went to CIE The diagrams (which I can't reproduce here) are well-dimensioned and also show the livery details. The underframes are of the inside spring type of the 1890s, but I haven't been able to work out exactly which type of tender they were. I've no idea how long they lasted in service, but noting their large capacity and the growing need for tar tank wagons in the 1950s, I suspect they ran for a few years with CIE. I'm now wondering where I might find a spare old GNR tender. Having said that, I don't think any of the GNR loco kits include a sufficiently old tender. So far I have failed to find any photos of them. Has anyone else seen one? This photo from Ernie shows a similar type of tender, unconverted. The diagram indicates that the coal rails and flared top were removed, and the plain rectangular tank extended upwards by a couple of feet.

That looks very nice indeed. I didn't get one in John's recent sales push, on the basis that I had no need for a horsebox and it was a bit of an old prototype. Now my FOMO is making me wish I had! At least I've got a 650 class to build. Which is also something I don't really need and isn't very appropriate for my model location. But never mind!

A quick Flickr search produced these: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53813368993/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/51051528111/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/49458836682/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511735395/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/51370098550/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/50604223122/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/52693318587/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54251552989/ I searched for CIE 532, MGWR 532 and GSR 532. Note that some of them are in the IRRS archive so can only be seen by members.

652 and 658 were withdrawn in 1954, which may rule them out depending on your preferred date. You have a CIE buffet car in the train, built around 1953/4. Your G2 model is the Belpaire version. Boilers were swapped between locos from time to time, but in the mid to late 1950s the following locos had round-top fireboxes and can therefore be excluded: 651 654 655 658 661 662 663 665 657 had a much larger tender of different appearance, probably from another class of loco. Potentially that leaves a shortlist of locos that broadly match the model's appearance: 650 653 656 659 660 664 666 667 668 By this stage of their lives, every loco was different in minor details, although the Belpaire-boilered ones had more in common than the round-top. Some of these differences were the shape of the front of the tender, the cabside details, arrangements of pipes and handrails on the boiler, and the boiler fittings such as chimney, dome and safety valve bonnet. These minor differences may be more easily overlooked than the shape of the firebox. I have put together a list of photo links of the G2 class. Let me know of you would like a copy.

More progress with the mock-up buildings. I'm afraid that even with computer-aided toys, my progress at rough mock-ups is far slower than Darius's construction of complete finished buildings! This is definitely proving a useful exercise. With few absolute dimensions to work with, and photos from a limited range of angles, making the mock-ups helps me to see how the buildings fit together and whether the proportions look anything like the photos of the real thing. I've already identified some dimensional tweaks that are needed, but I feel I'm creating the right atmosphere. The 141 has yet to be re-gauged - it's sitting on the checkrails which are at 17mm gauge.