Patrick Davey

Another attempt at artistry...... KLM.mp4

So not quite the 80 class this time Nice addition though

80 class would be nice though……

Superb!

Probably something relatively small after the last announcement......

Hup!

I think I read on Facebook.....something about an announcement..........?

Wow - plenty of space! Enjoy!

Thanks John. The owner is hoping to create a small historical display for visitors to the commercial side of the property, with the diorama in a glass case as the centrepiece. Chuffed!

So it's getting close to the time for me to say farewell to my Knockloughrim 'working diorama', as it will shortly be moving to a permanent home in the actual station building itself. I ran the final trains today - it was an emotional time for all present (me). Knockloughrim, Winter 1958.mp4

More BR blue yummy-ness. Fabulous stuff.

Superb Alan!

Once again, your output and swiftness are both very impressive! BR blue is iconic and looks well on those units.

Only catching up on this excellent thread now - hoping your health is improving Derek. Layout looks fab - I see nothing wrong with the greenery, I would maybe even add more? Those stone walls are fabulous, would love to know how you created them!!!

Lovely scenes!! Now you have got started, keep going!!! Thanks for posting.

Some further progress.

Thanks David - 4mm. And yes to the fun!

Another of my 'banish the winter blues' projects was to have a go at building a cottage diorama, with an emphasis on including as much interior detail as I could realistically cram in. The interior is based on an original building once owned by my grandparents, which still stands today in King Street, Newcastle, Co. Down. The main building material for this project was 3mm mount board, with most details eg. furniture also built from this material. A few additional details are from Scale Model Scenery, including kitchen table & chairs, armchairs and terracotta roof slates. I have progressed the build sufficiently to share progress, as I reach the final stages. Some of the interior detail is known only to me (very obsessive) but most of it was photographed before the roof went on and interior lighting also shows much of it. Further updates will follow!

Blackstaff Cottage When Mr. Weaver was approaching retirement in the early 1950s, he began to think about the options for his future, post-Brookhall Mill. As much as he loved living in the station house at the mill with his two cats Merlin and Peregrine, he knew he could not remain there after his retirement, and in any case he wanted to seek new challenges and explore new horizons. As was often the case, fortune found its way to Mr. Weaver, and in July 1955 he unexpectedly became the owner of a cottage in Co. Monaghan, which was gifted to him by his late father’s sole surviving sibling, the rather eccentric Auntie Hester. Mr. Weaver was originally from Inniskeen, Co. Monaghan, which is where he began his career on the GNR(I) as a boy porter, back in 1905. The next stopping place beyond Inniskeen, travelling towards Clones, was the small halt at Blackstaff, and from 1930, Auntie Hester was the crossing keeper at the adjacent level crossing, living in the small railway house across the road from the short platform. Hester had been a lifelong spinster, a passionate feminist, a controversial columnist, a prolific artist, a committed ornithologist, a renowned botanist and a notorious socialite. She was also an obsessive cat lover, with no fewer than nineteen felines keeping her company at the crossing keeper’s house. Since the 1930s, she had also been the custodian of the nearby ‘Blackstaff Cottage’, the ancestral home of the Weavers, and it was this property which she gifted to Mr. Weaver in 1955 after she surprised the family by announcing that she was getting married, at the age of 82, to the obscenely wealthy Lord Ignatius Piriton Meen, the 98-year old chairman of the international pharmaceutical company Sneezoff which specialised in the production of anti-allergy medication. Blackstaff Cottage was located a short walk from the railway halt, and Hester would divide her time between the cottage and the tiny crossing keeper’s house at the halt. The cottage occupied a scenic location on the banks of the River Shinn, a tributary of the larger River Fane, and the two waterways combined to complement Mr. Weaver’s political leanings, which he had wisely suppressed while he had been at Brookhall. Hester’s late night get-togethers at Blackstaff Cottage were very popular among the high and mighty of Counties Monaghan and Louth, and were frequented by everyone who was anyone in the locality. The famous Monaghan wordsmith Patrick Kavanagh was a regular attendee, and on one occasion the Carrickmacross Chronicle published a somewhat risqué tribute from Kavanagh to Hester, and to the quality of the entertainment and cuisine on offer at Blackstaff Cottage: To get to Hester’s hooleys, the locals they are itchin’ They’ve heard about the tasty treats she serves up in her kitch’n They walk the lane from Culloville, they cross the hills from Cooley They bridge the gap from Newry town to get to Hester’s hooleys Micky-Joe McConnell says he’s feelin’ rather wooley After drinkin’ to the wee small hours at one of Hester’s hooleys There came a Sunday warning, from the Reverend Father Dooley But he went astray that very same night, at one of Hester’s hooleys Mr. Weaver was horrified at the implications of impropriety in these lines and he eventually forced an apology from Kavanagh and the newspaper. But Hester was quietly delighted at all the fuss, which only served to enhance her socialite status, and it was thanks to this incident that she first met Lord Meen, when he was an honoured guest at one particularly boisterous gathering at the cottage. Kavanagh subsequently completed his earlier poetic tribute by adding this appropriate verse: Then Hester met the young Lord Meen, he said he loved her truly Cupid was a guest that night, at Hester Weaver’s hooley Needless to say, Kavanagh received an invitation to the wedding, but Mr. Weaver wasn’t too happy about this and he refused to acknowledge the prominent poet’s presence. The marriage of Miss Hester Flora Weaver to Lord Ignatius Piriton Meen was, unsurprisingly, the biggest social event ever held in County Monaghan. Hester insisted that the wedding ceremony be held in the magnificent setting of St. Macartan’s Cathedral in Monaghan town, and that there would be a strong botanical theme. Very extravagant floral displays were created and the 25 bridesmaids (with a combined age of 1,875) proudly carried bouquets made from the most expensive and exclusive lilies, roses and daffodils. And it was, of course, highly appropriate that the chief celebrant was the Bishop of Ferns. Lord Meen decided to make one of his customary generous community gestures on the occasion of this, his 17th marriage, and after consultation with a local Monaghan pharmacy, a wedding invitation was extended to everyone in the locality who had suffered from a debilitating allergy in recent years. The presence of so much floral material heightened the emotion of the occasion, and by the time the ceremony was over, there was hardly a dry eye in the cathedral. The reception was held at Castle Leslie in Glaslough, and all those attending were brought to Glaslough by a special GNR train - Lord Meen was also a former director of the GNR(I). Lord Meen appointed his own wedding co-ordinator for the day, she was the meticulously-efficient CEO of Sneezoff, Anna Phil Actic. Mr. Weaver had been a regular visitor to Blackstaff Cottage for many years, travelling by train of course from Brookhall to Lisburn, where he changed to a main line train to bring him to Dundalk, from where he took an Irish North train for the leisurely jaunt over to Blackstaff Halt. Auntie Hester would usually be waiting for him on the platform, ready to berate him for not being a more frequent visitor. She was the only person who could make the usually stern-faced Mr. Weaver recoil in fear. Mr. Weaver was of course very grateful to Auntie Hester for gifting the cottage to him, because it answered the question of where he was going to go when he retired, but he was also quietly amused by her marriage to the anti-allergy medication millionaire Lord Meen, because it handed the wordplay-loving Mr. Weaver the golden opportunity of henceforth referring to Hester as “Auntie Hester Meen”. Sometime after Auntie Hester had departed for her new life of opulence and leisure, Mr. Weaver was delighted to discover a photo of her from her time as the crossing keeper at Blackstaff Halt, and he maintained that it was none other than one E. de Valera himself looking out of the carriage window beside the photographer, no doubt making his way to Blackstaff Cottage for one of Auntie Hester’s legendary evening soirees: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54253226569/in/photolist-2k5Mnxq-2qEaY76-2mz5zGU/ (Apologies - the photo will only be viewable by IRRS members.) Obviously this is just a totally crackpot story, framing the fact that I have built a freelance cottage in 4mm - it was intended to be an exercise in obsessive interior detail, so keep a look out for a workbench post with more details! **** This is the site of the actual Blackstaff Halt, in a selection of photos taken a few weeks ago. The halt was opened by the GNR(I) in 1927 and was open for exactly 30 years, closing with the end of regular services on the former Irish North lines in 1957. Although one imagines that with so many highly-placed contacts, Mr. Weaver and Auntie Hester may well have benefitted some 'unofficial' services at the halt until the complete closure of the final stretch of the Irish North, from Dundalk to Clones, in 1960. The platform is, unusually, built in concrete, but this has meant that it has survived largely intact. The railway crossing keeper's cottage also survives, with some alterations having been made. The first of my photos roughly copies the angle of the historical IRRS photo.

You are hereby sentenced to creating more of these!

I chat to him on FB Messenger JB but he’s on the forum here, can’t remember what his name is here though! @enniscorthyman can tell us am sure!

Another nice arrival at Clogherhead today, a superb palvan from Enda Byrne! Truly magnificent craftsmanship and very quick service at a very reasonable price. Winner! Thanks Enda!

Stunning!!!! Great choice for the number too - a favourite of mine from historical photos!

Can't wait to see this one finished Alan!! Already the finish looks even more immaculate than before and the rivets look straighter!

Just superb, Kevin!!