Patrick Davey

And we're off!

Looking ahead to the final major build of my current layout project now (does anyone else start a new build before finishing the previous one...?) and it's going to be a small church (well I thought it was going to be small......) St. Mary's Star of the Sea RC church, Clogherhead, Co. Louth. And yes, no such church exists or existed. It's in the style of the simple 'barn' churches which were common in Ireland. Unusually for me, I'm starting off with life-size drawings: Previously I made church windows by cutting and filing plasticard: ...but I'm not sure my wrists would be up for that this time so I have decided to use the fantastic products of York Modelmaking for this build. The images of the windows in the drawings are taken from the YM website to help me get an accurate idea of dimensions etc. A card mockup has been made: And this has been positioned on the layout to get an idea of how it will fit in: Looks like it will become the dominant feature of the layout and am not sure I'm totally happy about that so I might look at lowering the height a bit. It will have a fully detailed interior, with an altar (pre-Vatican 2), pews and a gallery. And I am already planning a series of totally insane posts about the clergy who officiated at the church so you have been warned...... Fr. Ray Codd and Fr. Finn Sharkey are looking forward to introducing themselves.........

The Ballynahinch branch train has got a bit lost!!! Fantastic Alan, just fantastic!!!

Cracking video - nice to see the diesels' smooth slow running. Enjoying the updates GL!

Excellent - love this!

A few views from around the station this evening, I am starting to get a sense of how it is going to look once the building has been fixed in position. The nameboard & boat feature will be sunk into the platform surface rather than sitting on top like it is at the moment. I have decided I don’t like the red brick platform walls, these will be replaced with dressed stone from Wills sheets - I’m still experimenting with painting these to get the desired effect.

Alan you have all the stock you need now to recreate Ballynahinch station!

Great to see these coming together so well Alan! Fair play to you for the patience required for this!

Wooden benches have been fitted to the booking hall, they don’t look particularly comfortable though

Interesting recollections thanks John @Mayner My earliest recollections of railway travels are from around 1975 when my primary school class went on a school trip to Dublin from Great Victoria Street then family trips to Butlins etc. I also remember the excitement around Central Station opening but I was only 6 so can’t recall the finer details.

Booking hall interior detail added, just some seating to be built - too late on Sunday evening now though

Couldn't resist! And another for the mill:

More excellent advice, thanks, GM! Clogherhead is intended to be something of an anomaly though with a basic passenger service through the week, and the remnants of holiday traffic at weekends, and also excursions, so the idea will be that the station would be manned during the day, even during the week, (anything to justify the frequent appearances of those MM & IRM diesels ) The booking hall interior will be fully detailed, so that’s a great idea about putting posters in there, and yes I think I’ll take down some of the external enamel ones as well. Thanks

Spot on David - I knew there was something I wasn’t quite happy with and that’s exactly it, those clumps shall be removed and repositioned to ground level once the building is permanently fixed. Thanks!

I had an unexpected few hours free this evening, so I started adding details to the building, including period advertisements, vegetation and weathering, and I also ‘frosted’ the lower panes of some of the windows. I have some Irish travel posters which a friend is printing for me and I will hopefully add those tomorrow. I’m thinking the derelict end of the building might have been over done a bit…..

The Hatton's Genesis B&T van looks awesome!

Getting back on topic before this thread descends further into the sewer….. The toilet block is now finished, and I’ve added a small bit of weathering. I’m not going to bother decorating the outside rear wall as there will hopefully be a small shed there and some vegetation. The toilet block is based on one which I saw in a photograph of Aldergrove station. It’s good to be approaching the end of this build, just the booking hall interior and platform canopy to go, along with some more general weathering and small details eg. posters, advertisements etc.

Was actually there last June!!! That’s gone over my head……!

Relief for Mr. Weaver

I suppose the collective name for a group of toilet puns would be a ‘chain’

Yes he prefers sitting so he can check all the toilet puns on the IRM forum

Superb!

Today’s work is more a matter of convenience. Mr. Weaver is dying to spend a penny so he hopes the builders get finished before things get awkward. Amiens Street have just released funding which can be used to improve toilet facilities on station platforms. I suppose it could be called a flush fund….

Forecourt canopy this morning.