Colonel

Yep, nice one Jim. Well done.

Also on Vancouver Island, at nearby Port Alberni, was delighted to find another logging engine, this time a 2-8-2T, on duty on a standard gauge tourist line. Meanwhile, back on the mainland, at Squamish [north of Vancouver] is the BC Railway Museum, a splendid collection of locos, stock and ephemera, telling the history of railways in the province. Star of the show is the Royal Hudson, a 4-6-4 that was used to haul the royal train across Canada. in the 1940s. I first came across in 1968, when visiting my grandparents. It was stored in the roundhouse at Vancouver & on the last day of that trip, they took me to see it. Imagine my delight when the friendly shed crew fetched a diesel switcher to haul it out on to the turntable for photographs! Later it was restored to full working order to haul tourist trains from Vancouver to Squamish. These ran for about ten years, but the loco is now retired to the museum and very splendid she is too.

The track is laid in a figure of eight & takes you past most of the exhibits and also out on a trestle over a lake. A detail picture below shows the verbal cylinders which drive two bogie trucks, via gears and shafts. As a result the boiler was off set, which is why they were known as "sidewinders". Bachmann used to do a 7mm NG model of something similar. A standard gauge Shay.

Recently had two weeks in BC, retracing old haunts from previous trips out there. Stunning scenery and amazing railways, but a lesser known gem has to be the BC Forest Museum, near Duncan, on Vancouver Island. Everything to do with the logging industry, there are preserved examples of Shay & Climax geared locos, including the only working Shay in Canada. Three foot gauge at that - so almost qualifies as Irish narrow gauge, but will climb 1 in 10 slopes with ease. Sound like it is doing 50mph, when actually only doing ten. Anyway, a few pics that may be of interest & more to follow. They are quite large files, so can only post a couple at a time.

Swillybegs/Fintonagh (at the Farnham Show on 10/11 October) only has one proper siding, rarely used plus an off scene kickback, yet the sequence of two railcars, three steam trains and a goods takes 45-50 minutes to run through, mainly because everything visits the turntable. A couple of wagons get swapped on the goods, using Phoenix as pilot, but otherwise, we keep things simple to keep trains moving. When the auto couplings are working well, it is very satisfying.

Ballyconnel Road, 3mm fine scale, is going to be in next month's Railway Modeller. Should be a treat.

Richard Chown was a great innovator. Only met him once, when my Arigna Town layout was at the Manchester show. After he passed, I bought some of his stuff, including WL&WR 0-6-0 Shannon, which he'd built for the original Castle Rackrent, in 36.75mm gauge even back then. It was interesting to see how worn the wheels were, from so much running on his vast system and little things like a removable coal load in the tender - presumably all part of authentic operation? There was also a Pacific Fast Mail sound system in the tender. Analogue, not digital like today, but it still worked. I think Rackrent bridged the gap between the earlier Cyril Freezer type of layout, with loads of track for intensive operation and the more scenic approach we see today. It did need quite a large team to operate it, but must have been amazing to be part of.

Looks like there are just enough trees and scrub at the left hand end to hide a hole in the sky. Real contrast between the lush green and the landward side and the dull scrub beside the sea.

As access is needed on three sides, if you fit a back scene down the spine of the two designs you can have two completely separate scenes.

Splendid!

Another thought on Sligo, is that while Galteemore did Rosses Point on the north side of the estuary, a passenger carrying extension to the quayside line would also spice up traffic a bit. Meanwhile, in pre - grouping days, with the GS&W, MGW, WL&W and SL&NCR all meeting up there, the range of liveries, locos and stock on show must have been quite something.

Not read the RM thread on Minories, but when you look at his Peco track plan booklets, it is clear that his main interest was passenger operations with freight traffic almost an afterthought. Contrast that with Iain Rice's designs where he took the view that on a terminus layout, most of the interest was in shunting, so goods facilities much more important. City termini always tended to be compact, because land was expensive and linear layouts often mean goods yards were further back up the line. Have always thought that parcels and van traffic fit in better with a city terminus, while the Sligo situation with the line to the quays kicking back from the terminus works well too. Ok, on a model railway, a freight comes into the terminus, only to reverse back out again to the (presumably hidden) quays, but traffic can be as varied as you like.The The thing about Minories style layouts is that they offer intensive operation in a relatively small space and seem a good alternative to just having trains go round and round an oval. As in all things with model railways, variety means there should something for every interest.

Could be...

In the last photo, presume that is a ground signal attached to the point mechanism? Nice bit of detail.

Sounds like an amazing resource Eoin, so good luck in sorting it and great to know Ken's stuff is in safe hands.

Great to see the 5p thread back again!

Given your usual standard of research, I was starting to wonder if you were indeed tempted to go 12" to the foot!

Fab.

Would put myself very much in the builder, rather than operator class. However, when I exhibit, I do enjoy staging a bit of theatre and there is something very satisfying about bringing a train into the station, uncoupling, running round and doing a bit of shunting - especially when it is all hands free and done at realistic speeds. Hence I tend to do a lot of rehearsing at home before a show and often tinker with the make up of trains in the hope of greater reliability, so guess this is when I do a plenty of operating. I try to keep each train's "performance" fairly simple, so I can still talk to visitors, but hopefully still believable too. One of my all time favourite exhibition layouts was Stoke Summit. No station, just the East Coast Mainline, with a slow road in the up hill direction. A constant stream of beautifully modelled trains, fed from two enormous storage loops - it was not unusual to see visitors actually transporting and writing down numbers! I rarely spend more that a few minutes in front of a layout at shows, but this one kept you there for much longer. Not many layouts combine real action with all the visuals, but Trevor Nunn's East Lynn was one. Prototype working, fully signalled, stunning scenics and exquisite stock that always seem to run beautifully. It was S gauge too...

If you fancy a cheap way to do Irish narrow gauge, check out Alphagraphix. Roger's card kits are only £3-4 and make either decent static 7mm scale models or the basis for working ones. Schull, Donegal, Cavan items included, plus much standard gauge too with a very good range of Sligo Leitrim.

Wonderful archive footage, especially of the Sligo Leitrim. Even the Howden- Meredith Patent Wheel gets a mention!

I think the other end just needs completing. A bit strange for someone to leave it like that, considering it is already painted, but looks a nice model. Indeed, crying out to be finished off with three teddy boys perched on the balcony as per that wonderful picture in Michael Whitehouse's book.

Apart from Society shows, where the cognoscenti gather to chat and compare, general exhibition goers mainly want two things: highly detailed, realistic scenery (useful especially on smaller layouts where only one train is present) or lots of trains going round and round. Which is fair enough. Having exhibited at over 100 shows, where there is a vote for best layout, this also goes two ways. If it is a public vote, the roundy roundy, ready to run layout nearly always wins - especially when it is nicely done and well operated. Folk seem to like things they can identify with. If the award is done by the exhibition organisers then fine scale stuff tends to be favoured. Overall, it is what you'd expect really - the joy of our hobby is that it is such a broad church and there is something in it for everyone. However, for me, at shows I always want to see both: nice looking layouts that run well and are well operated. Don't care what scale, gauge or concept they are, just that they are interesting to look at and (like some of the Lego or steam punk ones), make me smile.

Speaking of 7mm, while a full kit might be tempting, a set of Worsley type etches to cover sides, bodies and underframes would certainly be of interest, with printed ends a bonus!

Great project and will certainly look forward to seeing it progress.