Patrick Davey

David was that an off-the-cuff remark? No doubt you will tell me to button it before I get collared...... Love those GNR U Class locos - pure elegance! More fantastic selections Ernie.

A truly magnificent signal box

Folks during the time the IRM lads were keeping us updated with the progress of the A class, they produced a superb livery timeline graphic, showing how the livery each of the A class locos they would shortly produce fitted into the overall A class timeline. I thought I had the graphic downloaded but it appears not, and the link from here in the forum isn't working - would anyone have it downloaded by any chance? Cheers - I have also asked IRM directly.

Delighted to meet ‘The Countess’ tonight, or at least her chassis and running plate! @Tullygrainey Alan is making great progress with our joint project to build Ballycastle Railway loco No. 2 ‘Countess of Antrim’ for Capecastle 2. I’ll probably spoil it when I try building the rest of it Thanks Alan - your precision is, as always, remarkable!

Ummmm…….

Plan B has already been agreed Once this installation starts to show its age, I will install a separate dowel for the other turnout.

I didn’t think this was going to work but miraculously, it has!! My usual method of turnout control, ie a wooden dowel under the board with one dowel per turnout, has received an upgrade - on this baseboard, a single dowel now controls both turnouts of the crossover, thanks to a nifty bit of mechanical jiggery-pokery Well chuffed!! I have also placed wooden knobs (behave) at each end of the dowel so the crossover can be operated from either side of the layout (noting Alan’s cautionary tale of a wee lad doing exactly that at a recent exhibition when Alan was trying to operate The Stone Yard!) The successfully operating crossover: FullSizeRender.MOV The double-knobbed dowel: How it all works underneath: Obviously it remains to be seen how durable this installation will be…..

Lovely stuff - great progress!!!

A touch of foliage now in place at each end of the limestone siding.

An impressively precise approach to the glazing, how do you place the masking tape pieces with such precision Darius? This is a cracking build!

Definitely no need for any further weathering than this, a bit more added between the rails today. Plus I’m not going to overdo the foliage either, maybe just on the limestone siding as it would have been less used. Also a few suggestions of oil deposits, where locomotives might have been expected to stand.

Gulp

Purely the latter

Cheers - am thinking just a tad more dark between the rails and that should do it.

Slow but steady progress - track weathering and foliage. And the point rodding has been oiled Will possibly add more dirty track colour and build it up until it looks right. In the period of this project, the line would have been open for over 30 years, so I am guessing that this would have been enough time for the permanent way to accumulate appropriate levels of grime.

Ha ha not sure I can produce anything to the same level of magic as this! Looks amazing Alan!!

Fabulous - love the station building too JB!

Even with the talk of new layouts elsewhere and selling others, life goes on at Clogherhead.

Ballasting & point rodding finished, and none of the ballast fell off when I lifted the board. I'm one of those strange types who finds ballasting very relaxing! This ballast seems to be actual stone too which I haven't used before. Nice stuff! A busy work weekend ahead so that should give the ballast time to dry completely so I can add a bit of weathering and some foliage next week.

Ballasting and point rodding being added. I’m just using 4mm rodding as there isn’t very much needed and it looks ok to me!! Also OO gauge ballast too - it’s always recommended to use ballast from a smaller scale and it definitely works here!

After a rookie mistake with electrofrog points, which was swiftly identified and rectified by Alan @Tullygrainey, testing of the track layout has been successfully completed FullSizeRender.MOV FullSizeRender.mov

Alan you will be ready for this in no time:

Nope!

Wow

Magnificent transformation!