Mol_PMB

There was a priest present in the building!

We shall both have to cross that bridge!

I’m really looking forward to getting mine, still slightly frustrated we haven’t seen any recent photos of them except a closeup of a broken one.

The genesis of the BnT livery… And we’ll come to this later:

I found this lurking in the IRRS archives…

You’re so right! I have just been in there for nearly 7 hours straight, and could have done the same again. I have learnt all sorts of interesting things, some that I had gone looking for, and others that I stumbled across. i thonl I need another visit or three! Anyway, new carriage roofs were indeed green in the early 1950s! And for those interested in wagons there are a LOT of GSWR, GSR and CIE diagrams there. Not sorted, catalogued or anything, but there.

Today I am discovering a great deal more fascinating stuff in here:

48DS for £89, that’s a price that suits me. Especially for an unnumbered one in standard Ruston factory livery which can be lettered and detailed up.

There are lots of good photos of passenger trains in the early 1950s (including 800s) Some of the new-build stock has interesting livery features especially. I’m pretty sure they’re not all black on the roof. And there are plenty to add to my Horseboxes thread.

The spring hanger arrangement proves the presence of a bogie for me.

Another few hundred photos have just been uploaded for our delectation!

Looking at the photo, I think the coach wheels were a bogie on the real thing.

Lovely photo! It seems there were a lot more steam railcars in Ireland than I had realised.

I suppose with two checks you could borrow the number stamps and the tinsnips to make the rest! A similar system is used in aircraft maintenance to avoid leaving tools in the plane when the job is complete. In that case, making extra numbered checks would definitely be frowned upon!

Thanks Mick! Hopefully it will turn out well. The chimney is a GWR 14xx type, a nice lost wax brass casting. MT328: GWR 1400 Chimney – Wizard Models Limited Ideally it would be a mm or so taller, but the styling is a good match. Glad to hear you're still getting to Wales.

Yes, in reducing numbers and probably more heavily weathered.

Many thanks, David. I've also a long background in 7mm scale but now working in 4mm for the Irish models, and I completely agree with your comments on the wheel/axle interface. It also helps that the Slaters 7mm scale wheels have a metal insert, whereas the readily available square-holed 4mm scale wheels are all plastic (there were some with metal hubs or even entirely metal, but not readily available these days). I've also found the wheels need to go in and out multiple times during construction, fettling and painting. I've read of some people who buy twice as many wheels as they need - one set for the building process and another set to fit in the final assembly. It's one reason why I have come to prefer hornblock suspension because the entire wheelset including hornblocks can be removed in one piece. It's not a perfect solution though, it can very fiddly re-fitting them and that's without considering what to do about brake pull rods.

I continue to plough through the Irish Railfans' News, and have found a useful snippet on the Quartertown Mill branch. Number 12.3, August 1966: Special To Quarterstown On May 21 the Munster Area of the IRRS organised a special train from Mallow to Quarterstown siding, better known perhaps, as Webb’s Mills. This was the first passenger train ever to use the 90 chain long line which diverges from the Killarney Junction - Tralee line at MP ¼ and curves northwards to the short loop at the mills, now owned by Ranks Ltd and used as a store. The siding was opened in 1863 and on 8th February 1864 was the scene of an unusual accident when a goods train from Mallow to Tralee was diverted on to the siding and thinking itself on the main line made a spectacular pile-up at the mills. No such fate befell C212 when it propelled standard 1315 and LV 2756 south out of Mallow down platform on May 21 at 16:20. It was necessary to stop on the Kerry line and again on the siding, beyond the gate, for the opening and restoring of the points and at a crawl the train continued to the terminus. At 17:00 it, now hauled, started back, making a photographic stop, a gate stop, the junction stops and a stop at Killarney Junction waiting clearance of the 16:15 Cork to Limerick Junction goods (A30, transformer truck, 12 wagons, a van, 6 wagons and another van). Traffic on the siding is nowadays almost non-existent - the last working was in the 1964/65 grain season but up to about 1962 there were often 35 wagons per week in the season. We've seen some photos of the special compiled by Colm Creedon, but this IRN paragraph gives a little more detail of regular operations on the branch and it's good to know how long the grain traffic lasted. It's also good to confirm the coach used on the special - the IRRS Munster area records list it as 1350 but that doesn't fit with the photos - whereas 1315 does. 1315 was a 57' 8-compartment corridor second (previously third) built in 1925 to GSWR design, and it survived until 1972 though latterly renumbered 4032. Perhaps a future project for me?

Impressive work on the Bulleid, and well done for resolving the frustrating niggles. Turf Burner next? I especially look forward to the pay train developments.

Ah, the other MSC! I have seen that one a few times at Trafford Park container terminal, but it's the wrong era and far too large for my O gauge shunting plank. One of these feels to me like an open goal in O gauge, but we are getting a bit off topic unless Accurajan / Helscale are about to announce one:

Patience, DJ! I'm sure they will come in time. I could be tempted by one of these for my O gauge MSC layout. Believe it or not, this was works shunter at the mighty Metropolitan Vickers in Trafford Park!

Oh no! I was just thinking how good it looked in bare metal, and then that disaster! Looks like a whole new set of cranks is needed - are they still obtainable? I'm sure you can sort it out. Get the body painted to inspire yourself?

I just went onto the AS website to pay for my last order of Park Royals, and I noted that six SKUs are now sold out - including at least one of each livery offered. If you want some, best get your order in soon!

Something has long been puzzling me about the conversion of the green H vans. In 1967, Pender&Richards wrote with reference to the H vans in general: Nos. 18542-18761 were built with vacuum brakes and can run on passenger trains. The group 18762-18861, which were built in 1958, were fitted with vacuum brakes in 1961/62. These wagons were painted green at the same time, though some have since been repainted in the standard grey livery. Fifteen of this group were fitted with sliding doors (for pallet traffic) at the same time. But, there are photos of vans in the 18762-18861 prior to 1960, fitted with vacuum brakes. This one from Ernie dated 12 September 1960 is the clearest - on 18836 we can see the handwheel, clasp brakes, vacuum cylinder, vacuum pipes and linkage. No doubt at all this is vacuum-fitted. But now I have access to the Irish Railfans News, I find that the contemporary description is more detailed, and fits the observations. This is in Volume 7.2, April 1961: 100 of the recently constructed vacuum braked covered vans (18762-18861) are being fitted with screw couplings in Broadstone works and are being painted green in Inchicore works. A number of these wagons have been seen in traffic on night mail trains. This matches the photographic evidence. This batch of 100 were built new with vacuum brakes, and the conversion was to fit screw couplings (which would also have required the extended buffers I have illustrated previously, because screw couplings are longer than 3-link or instanter couplings.) It's also notable that this report says that the coupling conversion was done at Broadstone while the green paint job was done at Inchicore. The latter statement is supported by photos of freshly-painted green vans at Inchicore in 1961. But perhaps not all of them made it to the second (painting) stage, which would help to explain why the green-painted vans were less numerous that the 100 total mentioned in both sources.

I managed to find a couple of hours yesterday to use my friend's lathe to modify the axles for my J26, and to prepare a few more for other projects too. Axles cut in half were set up in a collet and the end turned down in diameter using a homemade go/no-go gauge. There was a bit of slack in the lathe and I didn't have 100% success rate but my process improved through the batch. Back home this morning I prepared the brass tube sleeves and then assembled 6 axles. Four of these use the turned-down axle halves into a 1/8" OD tube to give an axle that's nominally 1/8" all along. The other two use the simpler approach of leaving the axle halves full diameter and fitting a 4mm OD tube over the halves. In both cases I was able to achieve a press fit and used my assembly jig to push the parts together. I drilled small holes in the tubes, and after the axles had been pressed together I fed some Loctite 290 into these holes. This is a very low-viscosity Loctite that seeps into the gaps by capillary action and takes 24 hours or more to set fully. So for now, I'm waiting! I have another busy week this week, including a flying visit to the IRRS archives in Dublin. So not much modelling time but hopefully some more research. This week's eBay success has been the negative of this image, which will hopefully arrive in the next few days. It's good to have a clear photo of this side of the loco I'm modelling, most show the other side.