Mol_PMB

Quick question - you're marketing these as Hunslets, though the class was built by several manufacturers also including Hudswell Clarke, Barclay, Bagnall, Vulcan Foundry and RSH. Are all the models of Hunslets, or is there more variety of builders in the models offered? Don't worry, I'm not actually going to buy one! I already have a Dapol O gauge version waiting to be modified into an MSC austerity (they had 3 of these locos from 3 different builders).

Very nice indeed! I do keep wondering if I could find a use for one of these, but it's so far out of my period of interest that it's hard to justify. Any chance of a look under a bogie so I can get an idea of the challenges of making one 21mm gauge?

Originally all 60 railcars were ordered the same. This was amended during construction to provide: 10 'suburban' vehicles which had no toilet and 4 extra seats in its place - 2648 to 2657 2 'W&T' vehicles which had high-density bus seats throughout - 2658 and 2659. 2658 had a van section with heating boiler, but 2659 had no van, seating the whole length of the car and large windows in place of the van doors. In 1957, 2657 was modified and sent to the W&T. 2647 had been fire-damaged in 1957 (as noted in the post above) and was rebuilt to suburban specification to take the place of 2657 in the DSER suburban fleet. Having crashed or burnt several of their railcars, and realising the others were not achieving the desired availability, CIE decided to order 6 more cars - and got a quote from AEC / Park Royal in 1954 while the main order was still being built - the intention being that the production would simply continue for another 6. There was also correspondence about using spare parts such as toilets and seats that Park Royal had bought for 2648-2659 but were not used after their specification was changed, as above. But the Irish government intervened and insisted that the bodies were built in Ireland. This caused delay, and in the meantime the main production batch was completed. All the correspondence about this is in the IRRS archives. Park Royal offered to send the body construction jigs to Inchicore so that they could be built to the same design, but Bullied refused and built them using the standard Inchicore carriage jigs and components. Because the AEC underframes had a higher floor than a normal coach underframe, the whole vehicles ended up taller. Later, Inchicore proved perfectly capable of rebuilding damaged Park Royal bodied cars to their original shape, although some had differently-styled windows. I suspect the Wedgehead design was influenced by Bulleid's frustration in being forced to build them at Inchicore.

Many thanks! Useful info and some great photos. I’ll do a proper response when I get the chance. There were only 9 PIs but several variants, and they came out from rebuild in 3 different liveries!

@west_clare_wanderer

My apologies for the delay in completing the instructions. I've had a lot of other things on my plate, and on my mind, recently. I will try and get on with this soon when I am in the right frame of mind. In the meantime I have found another photo of 841. Not the best image but no worse than the others I have. It still doesn't show the pantry window arrangement so there's nothing to prove my guess wrong yet... This photo appears in the classic 'Irish Railway Album' (Boocock) in a section titled 'The Modern CIE' on page 45. I suppose the AECs were still modern back then... The photo is dated 1957 and shows the evening Westland Row - Sligo train ready to depart from Dublin. 841 is the intermediate in the first 3-car set, with the pantry at the near end. My impression is that the intermediate in the second 3-car set is also a pre-CIE coach but it's hard to identify. There is also some tail traffic - likely a van for parcels or mails.

Keeping a wary eye on the interloper from the other GNR.

Superb! Om is a nice scale to model in. That layout makes my effort look very small.

Superb! What a good interpretation of your cousin’s brief. No chance of the race cars overtaking the 2250hp GM!

Interesting. Hopefully the fact that the suburbans sold out quickly will encourage some more variants in due course. In the meantime I have some plans…

ModelU have made great progress on the appearance of their figures, but I don’t think the Accurascale/ESU collaboration has yet achieved a walking talking 1:76 figure. Maybe next year?

Very smooth! And it looks at home on the quayside.

I was just having a look at the 1959 summer WTT for Sligo, to see what would be occurring in that era. Firstly, on Sunday, everyone was either at Mass or sleeping off their hangover from the night before - no regular trains at all. Monday to Saturday the action was as follows: 0220 Westland Row - Sligo mail (with limited passenger accommodation) arrives, Diesel Electric loco 0545 Sligo - Limerick goods departs, Diesel Electric loco 0655 Sligo pilot loco morning duty starts, Diesel Electric loco 0730 North Wall - Sligo goods arrives, Diesel Electric loco 0800 Sligo - Westland Row passenger departs, AEC Railcar set 0830 Sligo - North Wall livestock departs, Diesel Electric loco 0850 Sligo - Limerick passenger departs, AEC Railcar set 1330 Westland Row - Sligo passenger mail arrives, Diesel Electric loco 1425 Sligo - Westland Row passenger mail departs, Diesel Electric loco 1500 Sligo pilot loco morning duty ends, Diesel Electric loco 1545 Mullingar - Sligo goods arrives, Diesel Electric loco 1600 Sligo pilot loco evening duty starts, Diesel Electric loco 1815 Westland Row - Sligo passenger arrives, AEC Railcar set 1910 Sligo - Westland Row passenger departs, AEC Railcar set 1930 Sligo - Westland Row mail (with limited passenger accommodation) departs, Diesel Electric loco 2005 Limerick - Sligo goods arrives, Diesel Electric loco 2035 Limerick - Sligo passenger arrives, AEC Railcar set 2120 Sligo - North Wall goods departs, Diesel Electric loco 2205 Westland Row - Sligo passenger arrives, AEC Railcar set 0000 Sligo pilot loco evening duty ends, Diesel Electric loco So in the Dublin direction there were the following round trips: 2 AEC railcar passenger, 2 DE-hauled passenger/mail, 2 DE-hauled goods. And in the Limerick direction: 1 AEC railcar passenger, 1 DE-hauled goods. Plus a DE loco on pilot duties most of the day. 3 passenger trains overnight in Sligo - 2 AEC railcar sets and the night mail. Considering that every train needs shunting, I could envisage that operating just the passenger/mail train sequence would be quite interesting.

One of Sligo in my collection shows a train arriving while a railcar waits in a carriage siding: This shot of Ernie's showing the Sligo throat is worth a close look. Not one but two B121s in action, plus a railcar set on the loco shed road (taking fuel perhaps). In a later era, those 121s were wired for multi-working and here they are ready to leave the departure platform, well past the starting signal. This is again one of Ernie's photos, but is how I remember the place. A 7-coach train was too long for either platform! Even in the early 2000s, a train which had arrived in the arrival platform would need to be shunted across to the departure platform, usually by a different loco borrowed from a freight on the quays branch. Here B132 has the dolly for its shunt move. There wasn't a proper starting signal from the arrival platform. The IRRS archive has a nice track diagram dated 1930, showing the track layout with alterations for the installation of a larger turntable: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/51569507131 Interestingly this shows the details of the turnouts: mostly B8 but some A7 and A6, which are pretty short by main line standards.

Which engine variant are you building? In most cases I think that location would have a louvre panel rather than a grille. Crossley (pic from Ernie): Maybach (pic from Ernie): EMD (pic from Jonathan Allen):

I've now uploaded some of the super Ken Cooper colour images I've bought in the last few months. Click on the image to follow the link to Flickr and see the caption. I find all these images very inspiring - if only I could model everything!

Sligo would make a nice model, and could be simplified/compressed without losing the essence of the prototype. It may only have had a few trains each day, but they were each distinctive and could make an interesting sequence for model railway operation. The main part of the station platforms would only be about 4' long in 4mm scale, and many photos show the trains being too long for the platforms with the loco beyond the platform starting signal. The two platforms were strictly arrival and departure - and it appears that the signalling did not permit a train to depart from the platform it had arrived at - even into the 1990s. That makes it operationally more interesting. When most trains were operated by AEC railcars, they could have some tail traffic that needed shunting by a pilot loco.

Yes, I think both Sligo and Galway are very good inspirations for this layout. With a bit of selective simplification they could fit and be interesting to operate. Both had a double-track approach. Galway is wide whereas Sligo is long and thin. Here's a couple of shots of Sligo in 1959 which illustrate the station throat in the map above. Note the short siding with a gas tank in it. The two middle roads could be reduced to one to save space, without losing much. The loco shed and turntable could fit nicely in the corner of your L.

The layout of the station throat is what defines Minories - take away the crossovers and it is no longer Minories! Minories is based on high frequency suburban traffic and one key feature of the trackplan is that trains can arrive into and depart from all platforms, without shunting. A typical long-distance terminus in the steam age wasn’t operated like this. Often there were separate arrival and departure platforms and the stock would be shunted from one to the other, allowing the loco to be released. Places like Heuston and Limerick operated like this into the 1990s.

Very nice work! I really need to sort out a place for my rolling road / programming track etc. Good idea you have there.

Very interesting! I think you're right to try and keep it fairly simple and achievable. I trust you have read through some of the thread on RMweb, which has now reached 172 pages! https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/60091-theory-of-general-minories/page/172/#findComment-6219164 Minories was originally conceived as a suburban terminus with a frequent service of short trains worked by tank engines, or railcars. More akin to the BCDR than the MGWR. But having said that, there is genius in the layout of the station throat and it should be adaptable for other purposes. Your station platform needs to be long enough for your longest train, plus a loco at BOTH ends (7'). Adding on the length of the throat pointwork (4') and the curve round the corner of the L (say 3'), I think you're going to be struggling to fit it in the 12' length. Best to draw it out to scale before committing to anything.

Over the past year or so I've bought a number of original slides and negatives (with rights) on eBay, and I've made a start on uploading these to Flickr. This collection will never come to close to the quality or quantity of Ernie's! But some of them may be of interest here. This is the link to the album; I will be gradually adding more:

I found some time to scan the rest of the Annaghmore photos. Click on the photo below and it will take you to my album on Flickr:

Here's an update from Richard with the link for the talk on Zoom and a payment link for your contribution to the costs of the event: We hope that you are looking forward to joining us this coming Thursday the 10th September when we are joined once again by Jim McBride. Jim has in store for us a fascinating talk on the railways of Ballyshannon and the last days of steam in Northern Ireland - we are sure there will be some fascinating content and insight from Jim on both of these topics and I am very much looking forward to his talk. As usual, we have set up a payment link to contribute to branch costs, that can be found here: https://www.paypal.com/pool/9satRBOWhi?sr=accr, and the login link can be found here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82713772388?pwd=wlSH5iJK5nMpkr6nX0eabqHX3vV2Xc.1. (passcode ; 304926) All of this seasons talks and events that are currently planned by the Manchester branch can be found on the main IRRS website here: Manchester - Irish Railway Record Society Venue and Programme Details As is usual, our talks take place at the Waldorf Public House on Gore Street, Manchester. The room will be available from 18:00, the talk commencing at 18-30 hours and concluding by 21-30 hours. The Waldorf is located within a 5-minute walk of Piccadilly Railway Station, the nearest Metrolink stop is Piccadilly Gardens and the venue is served by most major bus routes commencing or terminating at Piccadilly Gardens. At each of our speaker events, the society sales stand will be open for the sale of second-hand Irish and Non-Irish subjects. (cash only sales, please) The Waldorf now offer meals, until 8 pm and the bar has a well-stocked range of beers, lagers, ciders, wines and spirits, plus soft drinks and snacks. Non IRRS members will be made very welcome, at any of our talks or events. A charge of £5.00 applies for both IRRS Members and for non IRRS Members, please pay in cash on the door. if you are attending in person. If you've any queries, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Myself and @Richard EH will be there. Other forum members would be very welcome - you don't need to be an IRRS member. The venue is the Waldorf - in central Manchester just a few minutes walk from Piccadilly Station and other main transport hubs. It's a decent pub with real ales and food, and a function room upstairs that we use. And of course, an excellent talk about the railways of Ballyshannon!