Mol_PMB

Thanks Alan! It's a long time ago now, I'll try to remember: The CVR wagons had etched brass underframes, I think they were by Branchlines? The bodies were scratchbuilt from plasticard and microstrip. The CVR railcar was also an etched brass kit, which I never quite finished. The CVR loco was indeed scratchbuilt from brass, lots of careful work with a piercing saw! Again, unfinished because interests changed when I went off to university!

I think we all know about the UTA/NIR spoil contract, trains of side discharge hoppers operated by the NCC WT 2-6-4Ts from 1966 to 1970. 70 wagons were built by Cravens, numbered M1 to M70, and during the course of the spoil contract they were actually owned by the Northern Ireland Ministry of Development, rather than by the UTA or NIR. The wagons took a beating in the late 1960s, with many of them suffering derailments and others being damaged when large boulders were dropped into them. While the spoil contract continued, they were patched up and this led to a host of detail differences between individual wagons. When the spoil trains finished in May 1970, they were put up for sale, but there were few organisations interested apart from NIR. NIR probably got the cheap, but they weren't really much use for anything other than their intended purpose. 70 was far too many for NIR's needs and so they selected the wagons in better condition for future use, and scrapped the bad ones. Apparently, M62 made it to Inchicore, perhaps as a sales pitch? NIR used these wagons in two ways: 1. A second (smaller) spoil contract, from October 1974 until August 1975. Spoil was carried from Magheramorne to Cloghan Point, and the trains were diesel-hauled. Initially the DH 0-6-0s were tried but they lacked power and reliability, so this became a duty for the spare Hunslet Bo-Bo. As far as I can tell, the wagons were unmodified from their previous use except that they were lettered NIR and renumbered. Jonathan Allen has a nice selection of photos of these trains on Flickr, including these examples: https://www.flickr.com/photos/152343870@N07/26136565608 https://www.flickr.com/photos/152343870@N07/49487458087 This photo is interesting because it clearly shows that the wagons have been renumbered in a series starting with S; the two nearest are S32 and S7. They are also stencilled NIR on the upper part of the hopper: https://www.flickr.com/photos/152343870@N07/49525562432 In a photo, it's usually easy to identify a spoil train as distinct from a ballast train, because a spoil train has all the hoppers the same way round, whereas with a ballast train they're usually mixed. 2. Ballast wagons for works trains and track ballasting. NIR rebuilt at least a dozen spoil wagons to become ballast hoppers. Whilst in principle both a spoil and a ballast hopper are designed to discharge stone, the functionality needed is very different. A spoil hopper needs to quickly dump the whole load well clear of the track. A ballast hopper needs to drop stone at a controlled rate, either in the middle of the track, or on the sleeper ends at either side. Ideally you need to be able to shut the doors on a ballast hopper while it is still partly filled. So it was necessary to carry out some major modifications. These wagons were renumbered into NIR's civil engineers' number scheme with a C prefix. So far, the numbers I have identified include: C291, C293, C319, C321, C325, C328, C330, C335, C338, C340, C342, C344. It wasn't a continuous number series of spoil hoppers, because C300-C313 were bogie flat wagons (former coach underframes). Most commonly seen behind a DH 0-6-0 or a Hunslet, the MVs took over these duties later on. These photos from Jonathan Allen on Flickr show how they were used: https://www.flickr.com/photos/152343870@N07/49724280377 https://www.flickr.com/photos/152343870@N07/49496930316 https://www.flickr.com/photos/152343870@N07/51561249361 In 1984, the preserved WT No.4 even found itself hauling ballast trains formed of the old spoil wagons, whilst running-in after overhaul! Some of these hoppers were still in use on ballast trains in the early 1990s (alongside the Walrus bogie hoppers) but were scrapped not long after the new French bogie ballast hoppers were commissioned. This photo by NIRailfan on Flickr shows some of the variety in the fleet at the end of their life: They're an iconic Irish wagon, which can legitimately be hauled by a WT 2-6-4T, SLNCR 0-6-4T, DH 0-6-0, Hunslet Bo-Bo, MV Bo-Bo, and various NIR railcars. I wouldn't be at all surprised if various GM classes ended up hauling them at times too. In subsequent posts in this thread I'll try to collate some photos showing the different former spoil wagons used as part of the NIR engineers' fleet, and hopefully make sense of the modifications. Anyone else is very welcome to add photos or info on the topic, of course! Mol

I found some photos of a couple of my earlier Irish modelling projects, a couple of decades ago. I haven't found anything of the first EM-gauge models (which were later thrown away at some stage) although the offcut of sundeala board I've just used in my photo plank is a remnant of that layout! However, here are some 20-year old photos of some of my later attempts. I think I still have these models (and others of their ilk) boxed up somewhere. Clogher Valley Railway in 4mm scale: 1980s CIE in 6mm:ft on O gauge track: The genny van did get finished, but I can't find a pic of the completed version. Ironically, these are all prototypes that IRM haven't tackled yet in 4mm scale... Cheers, Mol

I'll see if I can find any more photos of them, I thought I had some interior shots somewhere but I can't find them. Note that 6208 was a 'spare' for the Cu Na Mara set, and often ended up running with a normal Mk3 rake, as seen at Ennis for example. It had BT10-type bogies, like a Mk3, different from the rest which were on a variant of the T4. Here are the drawings for the catering car:

A few of my photos of International stock. Two shots in comparison to a Mk3, and one with the door open showing the door edge profile. It was nice to get some baby GM haulage in one of these!

In the new book 'Ruston and Hornsby Locomotives' (Tonks) two of the CSET 88DS locos are pictured, and the caption says 'These are to the Irish 5'3" gauge but otherwise identical to the standard gauge 88DS'. However, I don't think that's quite correct. On a standard gauge 88DS, the cab is the full width of the footplating. However, on the CSET locos the footplate is about 6" wider than the cab. So I suspect the underframe of the broad gauge ones is wider, and the bodywork is standard. Here are my photos of one at Fenit many years ago. the view from above shows the width difference quite clearly. But from most angles it's not obvious.

To improve the taste, I have dipped the layout in chocolate! This is a variant of the old papier mache approach. I still use strips of newspaper, but the 'chocolate' is a mix of Artex plaster powder, brown poster paint, PVA glue and water. I've put about 6 layers of newspaper on so far and will see how it looks tomorrow. Annoyingly, I've forgotten to do the electrical wiring first! I was going to put in some track feeds and a short lead connected to the chicken wire to use for earthing when applying the static grass. Never mind, I have a work-around for both. Several parcels have arrived today, making me wonder if I've spent too much recently! From the West I have received a box of new Irish books that I ordered from the RPSI, and a set of 3 IRM corrugated open wagons. From the East I have some track components and another baby GM, this time 149 of the new batch, also supertrain livery. That's definitely enough locos for now, the three of them together would almost fill my layout end to end! But at least I have one of each class that are clearest in my childhood memories. Though I do recall once seeing a little black shunter pottering around Limerick, which at that time can only have been G611. And then there were the trips north of the border...

Yes, they definitely had a different profile, more angular at the solebar, and the end taper was more than just the door.

Very impressive! Three of those have just come through my door, definitely not enough for a beet train but satisfactory amongst some vans in a mixed freight.

Here's the BREL drawing for the International brake coach, in two halves owing to scanner limitations! Mol

Excellent. I've only just bought the two mentioned above, from the RPSI to give them some support. I've had 'Rails through the West' for a while. What have we got to look forward to next?

Many thanks, that's very useful to see, though of course the crucial dimension is missing as you say. Your 12' estimate would make it 7" higher than an H van, which is quite plausible when comparing to photos. I've been trying to learn a bit more about the alternative door design with the external ribs. I looked through two recent books 'Rails through Tipperary' and 'Rails through Wexford' both of which contain plenty of photos of freight trains in the 1970s. There were a total of 23 Palvans pictured (I tried to avoid double-counting when the same train was featured more than once). Of those 23, 20 had the normal door, and 3 had the external rib door. Extrapolating that ratio to the complete batch of 500, there would have been about 65 with the external rib door. (Yes, I know there's a statistical margin of error to consider, but the true proportion is still likely to be between 10% and 20%). So far, the numbers I've got on my list are: Corrugated ends, normal door: 26073, 26123, 26135, ..., 26326, 26338 Corrugated ends, external rib door: 26188 (fits in the gap above) Corrugated over X ends, normal door: 26363, 26373 X over X ends, normal door: 26430, 26458, 26459 Incidentally, I learnt from those books that for a period, the beet trains often ran with a few vans as well (Palvans, H vans or ex-GNR vans) carrying beet pulp. Mol

Hmm, so we have bogies and mechanism for a Class 20 under the NIR Hunslets, and now we have bogies for a Class 40 under the Beihack ploughs. Let the frothing rumours commence...

Regarding the lighting, it's probably fair to say that 100+ years ago the lighting would have been so dim as to be almost invisible from the outside, except in total darkness. So I don't think that's a major omission. Bachmann are often a bit on the pricey side, but perhaps they're unsure of the potential market size and are playing it safe for now. In this initial release they have omitted what's probably the most popular livery (fully lined LMS) so they should get a second slice of income when those are released in future. Mol

Hi John, Many thanks for the details on regauging, that's really helpful to see the various methods. As you indicate, there seems to be a plethora of different standards for 21mm, in terms of BTB and wheel profile. I don't think I want to go the whole hog to P4 standards; something to suit the NMRA RP25-110 profile would suit me better. Unfortunately, Ultrascale wheels seem to be on very long lead-times at the moment and very few items are in stock. As yet, I haven't found a source for 21mm gauge wagon/coach wheelsets either, so your idea of extending the axles with a sleeve looks promising. I did find a useful thread about re-gauging the A class here, there are several different approaches shown for different wheel standards: I do like the 121 class but they don't feature in my childhood memories at all so I've been holding off buying one of those. Most of the ones available now seem to be of Chinese provenance with some doubt as to whether they are genuine. My plan at the moment is to see how my track construction method works for plain line, and then have a go at re-gauging an IRM wagon (which I hope will be fairly easy), before committing to anything more complex. Cheers, Mol

I’m cheating though, by making a tiny layout! And I don’t think I’ll ever match Darius’s pace at making nice models.

I've added some end profiles, chicken wire as a surface for the scenery, and the cork strips where the track will go. The tapered blocks at the ends are bigger than they need to be to secure the end profiles, but will give the option of planting a tree at each end if I choose to do that later. I'll leave it be now, for the glue to set, and have another go at it after work tomorrow. Hopefully I should be receiving two parcels tomorrow, which will progress this further. I'll need rails and pins before too long, though I'll do the ground surfacing first. Cheers, Mol

The revised version looks better and it's much easier to tap the pins in now, but they're nice and firm when through into the board. In some ways I'm glad the MDF didn't work, because switching to the cork made me think about the ballast profile that CIE used on its secondary lines, and how best to replicate that. Hence the two strips of cork with a gap between. I'll just have to be a bit careful to ensure that the 'narrow gauge' rail is adequately supported. Photos from Ernie's excellent albums as usual, I'm looking at the track here not the trains: As I said, the idea of the tiny layout is to try out ideas, they may not all work! Cheers, Mol

Many thanks. For now I'm using 9'x10"x6" cross-section approximately, and it looks about right. The new thread on the photo plank is here:

I've made a start on an extremely small layout, which I'll describe in this thread. It's 600mm long and 200mm wide, with just a single track. The idea is to test out a few ideas for track construction and scenery, to give me somewhere to photograph model rolling stock, and to help me decide whether to take the plunge into 21mm. I spent an hour in the workshop using a few offcuts to make the basic carcass, which looks like this: The base is 12mm ply, with two strips of 20mm squre softwood on top, and a surface of 9mm sundeala board. There's also a scenery former of sundeala board at the back. All these are glued and screwed together and the sundeala has had a coat of dilute PVA over all the exposed surfaces. At a later stage I intend to add some end profiles and a little backscene board. The plan is to have a very gently curved single track running the length of the board, with lower ground in front and higher ground behind, as if the line is skirting a low hill. The scenery will be rough grassland and gorse bushes. Hopefully that will look good for photos. The slight twist is that the track will be dual gauge 16.5mm and 21mm, so I can see how I feel about each option. My intention is to use code 75 flat bottom rail spiked to a laser-cut wooden sleeper base. We'll see how that works! Here's a photo of the first attempt. I've used 2mm MDF as a base to raise the track above the scenery, and then cut the sleeper base from 2mm ply. There are some good and bad features! I was dumb enough to put the ply in the laser cutter the wrong way round, so the grain goes across the sleepers rather than along them. That's easily fixed and the machine is now cutting me a new panel that's correct. The fine track pins are a snug push-fit into the laser-cut holes in the sleepers, and I'm hoping that this will be sufficient to set everything to gauge. However, driving them through the MDF is hard work. I may abandon the MDF and use cork instead. The pins are quite long so they'll go right through into the sundeala board and hopefully that will hold the rails firmly.

An hour or so in the workshop has produced a little board as the basis for my photo plank and test track: The idea is a gently curved single track, with lower ground in front and higher ground behind, as if the line is skirting a low hill. I might start a new thread for this project, in the appropriate part of the forum, even though it's a rather small project.

Many thanks! Funny you should mention that, as I'm just planning the track and you may be able to help with a couple of dimensions. My plan (for the trial piece of plain 3-rail track) is to use code 75 flat-bottom rail, spiked to sleeper bases laser-cut from ply (I have a small laser-cutter). I think I can also mark the spike holes in the sleeper bases too. I think that combination should reproduce the trackform in your photo quite effectively. How long should the sleepers be - 9' ? How wide were the sleepers (8"?) and what was their spacing? Were they closer at joints? Would rails have been 60' long, or 45'? Cheers, Mol

Thanks for the warm welcome. I've done the easy bit and spent some money! So I now have 3 new toys: A Bachmann/Murphy 190 in Supertrain livery (first batch of models) and a Cravens (also first batch) came from eBay. @Fowler4f was very kind to offer me one of his A class at a good price, and it's my first choice of 007 With a couple of IRM Park Royals on order, I'll be nearly there for rekindling the childhood memories of passenger trains around Limerick and Ennis. Though of course I'll have to make a Dutch van to go with them. Now, what next? 007 needs a bit of work to replace the IR logos with broken wheels (I have also got some Railtec transfers for this), and to try and replicate the distinctive A class weathering patterns. 190 is already 'factory weathered' but it's not very convincing so that needs some attention. I might have been better off buying an unweathered one, but the choices were limited and this one was fairly cheap. I'd quite like to renumber it too, although I haven't yet found any suitable number transfers. I may also look at modifying the front end and coupler pocket arrangements - I think I saw a thread on that somewhere. For those with experience of renumbering IRM and Bachmann/Murphy locos, what's the best approach to use for removing the old number? IPA? T-cut? careful scraping? But before I do that, I'm going to make a little test track / photo backdrop. My thoughts are a board around 24" x 8", with a length of dual-gauge track (16.5mm and 21mm) and some scenery. I haven't made a decision on track gauge yet, but this will allow me to try out some ideas and give me somewhere to check that my new toys work. Cheers, Mol

If you're looking for more inspiration on how to load your wagons, how about bales of horticultural peat, piled high and covered in a yellow plastic sheet? Photos on Flickr from 30937 Transport Photography; what a shame that old kettle is partly blocking the view of the wagons!

In the hunt for green H vans, I've spotted another, though unfortunately it's only partly visible. 'Irish Railways in Colour' vol.1 (Ferris) page 75, lower photo at Limerick dated June 1961. It has green sides and black ends, is pretty clean, and is coupled to a dirty grey H van.