Mayner

The B101 may be on a Heuston-Dunlaoire Pier working. My first memories of the B101s were in the bay platform at Dunlaoire on parcel or passenger trains during the late 60s in my early teens, at the time I noticed the B and that the locos had 6 wheel bogies. Some Southern Section passenger trains worked through to Dunlaiore Pier until the connection was severed around 1980s in connection with the the DART works and Busses substituted. Its possible B101s may have been used between Island Bridge Junction & Dunlaoire Pier allowing the train engine a pair of Baby GMs or an A Class off an incomming train to run to Inchacore for servicing.

Car Turntables are sometimes a planning planning condition for new homes/renovations in fashionable (expensive) suburbs in some of New Zealand's cities. https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/latest/105333242/car-turntables-and-car-stackers-in-hot-demand-in-crowded-cities We have also built the odd rotating house and resturant. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/20/new-zealand-rotating-house-sale-auckland-maraeta-hillside-valuation-pictures. While the traditional urban New Zealand home was a (3-4 bed bungalow on a 1/4acre section (site), there has been a growing move towards intensification in recent years with town houses on small sites in major cities together with a tendency to build large architecturally designed homes on very small sections in the most expensive suburbs. Another New Zealand oddity is the high proportion of private funicular railways/cable cars used to access homes on Wellington's hillsides. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/19/city-of-cable-cars-the-ups-and-downs-of-life-with-wellingtons-private-incline-lifts

Quite a contraption and its interesting that the 'Diving Bell" was apparently in use into the 1950s Strictly speaking the bell appears to be a "Pneumatic Cassion" https://fendermarine.com/what-is-a-pneumatic-caisson/ a technology that's still used for underwater excavation work. Technology 1st seems to have been used for bridge pier foundations near Rochester Kent in 1851 so proven technology by the 1860s The cassion is open at the bottom and basically operates as an inverted cup of air that provides a working chamber for the divers and keeps the water out. The workers entering and leaving the cassion through a double air lock in the shaft. The cassion appears to have been used for 'levelling up' the seabed rather than excavating foundations or other heavy hand excavation work. Dublin Port info https://www.dublinport.ie/about-dublin-port/a-city-port/ talks about the 'excavated soil (muck) being stashed in trays inside the bell and brought up when lifted. Interestingly workers classed as "miners" excavated shafts and tunnels by hand sometimes in compressed air on drainage and civil engineering projects in our cities at least into the 1990s. Like occupational diving, mining was considered high skilled, high paid specialist work usually carried out in Ireland and the Uk by people from Donegal. I worked on a couple of projects in the UK where 'miners' sunk shafts and drove headings for sewer connections, in one case being treated to a ride on bogie on the 18" gauge rail line used to remove the muck and access the working face in a tunnel about 30' under Watford High Street, it was necessary to crawl or lie on your belly to pass through the tunnel, unlike the Dublin Port diving bell the atmosphere was nice and cool in the chalk beneath Watford and no water to keep out or need for compressed air.

In the larger scales Battery Radio Control is often used to control both live steam and electric locos, I originally used a model aircraft transmitter before graduating to a model railway transmitter which is capable of controlling both live steam and electric locos together with a number of functions Contemporary receivers/controllers for electric models are not unlike DCC Chips, while the regulator and reverser on a live steam loco are operated by separate servos. For a clockwork loco possibly looking at at separate servos to control the on/off and reversing controls. Possibly worth chatting to RC model aircraft people for info on suitable transmitters and receivers that may be suitable for clockwork.

Colour shades vary over time depending on a lot of variables. The 'Tan" on the 101 Class Sulzers laid up on the Inchacore sound barrier during the late 70s varied in shade from golden brown to pink although they were all likely to have been re-painted around the same time., Ironically the B101s still in Black and Tan appeared to be the least faded although possibly the 1st withdrawn. I guess it really depends on what suits your personal tastes attempting to capture the variety of shades that existed on the prototype or a more pragmatic uniform approach most of my 'green' stock is painted in an approximation of the late 50s light green scheme custom mixed at a local auto paint supplier. I forget if the paint was originally matched with a photo or a 90s repaint of a Hornby Stanier. These days I retain a sample of each custom colour on a piece of MDF or Plasticard, though the shade tends to vary between others although colour 'matched' with the original sample, not drastically though.

I remember reading somewhere that the West Cork railcar set was serviced weekly (at Cork) and a steam working substituted on the day (a GSWR 2-4-2T?) Its possible that railcar maintenance was centralised at Inchacore? as sufficient railcars became available to work all regular diagrams, in a similar manner to the way the Cobh 2600 set was swapped around on Sundays using a return Cork main line working. There was some odd C Class diagramming for maintenance rotation purposes on the West Cork system, the one of the Up goods trains was apparently scheduled to swap locos at Clonakilty Junction with the loco of the Up Branch train. The loco off the Up goods presumably working the Branch for several days while the Branch loco continued to Cork for service/maintenance. Presumably swapping the loco of the goods with the Branch train avoided a light engine movement from Cork to Clonakilty Jnt With the C Class reputation of poor reliability its possible that a lot of swapping about was required to keep sufficient locos in operation to operate the two daily goods trains & the Baltimore and Clonakilty mixed. Dan Renehan in his article on the Metrovick diesels in the IRRS Journal wrote about the amount of 'swapping' around that was necessary to operate the schedule using the A Class diesels, main line passenger and goods workings were diagrammed to the locos in the best mechanical condition and lubricating oil regularly monitored to assess condition and locos rotated to less ardous passenger and finally goods workings as the condition of the lubricant deteriorated. He wrote of fitters travelling in the engine compartment of A Class on Knock Specials attending to leaks and faults as they developed while the train was running. There was a story of Radio Technicians boarding a loco in white overalls which quickly turned grey while trialling radio telephones on the A Class during the 60

Being young and ambitious I was recruited a couple of times in the late 80s into DOGE style management teams on London area construction projects that were in or getting into trouble. (Usually over budget, behind schedule and sometimes serious quality problems. Interestingly the recruiter and interviewers kept very quiet about the trouble shooting nature of the role or being recruited into a new team to replace existing staff. The first on a major Wapping residential development (opposite the Prospect of Whitby) by an old established Building Company from the South Coast was one of my most enjoyable and frustrating roles in 30 years working in construction. I was hired by the London director (a GWR enthusiast) and got on well with my Boss a Londoner of Scottish extraction who was brought in to turn the project round and the Commercial Manager (Snr Quantity Surveyor) going out for a meal and drinks on Thursday evenings, the job paid well with salary review and pay increase almost every time the deputy GM visited London, the car was the best perk the company ran its own fleet and I got the Managing Director's David cars (a Ford enthusiast) as he traded up starting with an Escort XR3 and later a Sierra Saphire (XR4) pretty good with unrestricted private use holidays and weekends. The frustrating bit wasn't that the project had fallen behind schedule, over budget and there were serious quality problems/repetitive errors, but there were serious problems at Head Office level that the Trouble Shooter, Peter (a Scott) brought in to re-organise the company was unable to influence. The business was basically a family firm controlled by three brothers divided into a Building Division (income from external clients) run by the MD, with a Plant Hire division (Brother 2) and Joinery Divisions (Brother 3) as preferred suppliers to the Building Division. Dealing with the Plant Hire division was almost Dickensian there was a minimum 2 week lead time on all orders regardless of urgency (fax & paper original) anything from a small power tool to a Site Office faxed & internal mail to the South Coast although often cross-hired from a Docklands Plant yard. The last straw for the Commercial Manager was when the Plant Division supplied some WW1 or possibly Crimean War huts as office accommodation for our Client and then got into trouble for ordering some modern Portacabins. My last straw when finally given 'my own" project a project for a Hackney Housing Association that was at an advanced stage of construction (beautiful Facade tiny apartments/town houses, was to find that I had 20 almost complete two storey town houses with no staircases, the Joinery Division were unable to provide a projected delivery date. Peter (the Troubleshooter) and I resigned around the same time. Peter had to go as the MD David was not prepared to have the hard words with his brothers, the Brothers eventually managed to sell the business which ceased trading after 2000, though its now almost 40 years since I worked at Shadwell Basin. The next job was with a building company that pioneered "Fee Contracting" in the retail sector which morphed into a form of Partnership Contracting for major commercial and retail projects in the 1990s and again found myself recruited into a new management team on a major retail project in Watford. After the nice pleasant interview and induction & given a company car at Head Office, my first inkling that something was amiss was when I was greeted with 'who the fuck are you" when I reported to the "Site Superintendant" on my first day on site. I was quickly taken under the wing of Tony the Superintendant (company tended to use different job descriptions for the same job to most other UK contractors) on Phase 2 of the project which was complex and kept me busy for about 4 years. During the re-organisation the company dropped all reference to "Site" and usual industry roles from its job descriptions A Site Manager became a Construction Manager, a Quantity Surveyor a Commercial Manager. Although originally pioneering the organisation became outdated and complacent and was not up to managing the large complex projects that emerged in the "Big Bang" era, the entire senior management team (above line manager) on the project was replaced during my first year on site, some of the senior management people did not realise what was happening until they received their severence. In certain respects the old school of senior management was more line Grace Brothers than what you'd expect on a then £100m project. David the "Superintendant" that greeted me on site had a site clerk more a military "Batman" Tom to keep the office organised, both were Scot's received lodgings and travelled home once monthly. Tom assumed that my overcoat was 'company issue" and asked me to sign a chit for my own coat. Tony's and my Senior Manager seldom if ever appeared on site (Project Office) had to be specially summoned to the Project Office to return his company car & receive his severance pay. Project was great fun for me identifying and offering solutions to problems, in one case we had to install a 12m temporary bridge to cross a basement excavation, after the local council a project client would not allow concrete trucks to cross a bus lane, in another the Clients Project Manager was not exactly pleased that I identified design issues that added £100k to the project cost. Client had imposed a 'design freeze" on the project before the completion of the architectural and engineering design was complete omitting a series of 'plant room" doors. Like the little boy pointing out that the King was wearing no clothes, I asked the Project Architect why there were no door openings or doors to a large no-of rooms and he was unable to answer. We had a good social life for several years on the project once the new management team settled down, though they increasingly became leaving does as the project would down with little emerging work in the pipeline I had that meeting with HR with generous redundancy terms and I got to keep my company car.

Thanks everyone for their support during the last week, my kid seems to be determined to keep me on the straight and narrow, and make sure I don't over-do things.

Interesting the Tralee & Dingle acquired a bogie van from the "Tubular Frame Wagon Co" in 1892 the long horizontal framing member looks tubular in section in the Alamy photo where you would usually expect to see a steel channel or rectangular section solebar. The underframe bracing and archbar trucks (bogies) appear very light in section for a goods wagon. There is a photo and a drawing of the T&D Tubular Frame Bogie Van No40(t) in David Rowand's Tralee & Dingle album (Bradford Barton 1977) Perhaps a sales rep trying to sell 'modern' high capacity wagons visited Tralee around the same time as the Harbor Commissioners fell out with the W&L. Some railway companies including the BNCR experimented with 'high capacity" wagons around the turn of the Century and wagon builders like Lancashire C&W would have been building high capacity wagons for the 'Colonies" The Lancashire wagon is quite different from American practice where Gondola's steel or timber framed usually have fixed sides and ends

Original Tralee & Fenit Harbor Commissioners loco which may not have passed to the GSWR. Recall seeing a photo somewhere an 0-6-0WT with outside cylinders and outside Stephensons valve gear

Featured on TV this evening the clip included a railway wagon, derlict Stockyard (Cattle market) public toilet complete with authentically modelled grafitti. Some mind blowing building and structure modelling (warts and all) buildings lost in 2011 earthquake by Mike Beer. https://www.artscentre.org.nz/whats-on/ghosts-on-every-corner/ https://www.instagram.com/ghostcat_mb/reel/DHXg5_CS5D2/

Can't hold a drill steady myself but a slitting disc in a Dremel seems to have been the preferred cutting tool of the guy that scratchbuilt many of the locos on the OO9 County Gate layout. Scratchbuit OO9 locos were watchmaking compared to OO or the so-called finer scales.

Here is one I assembled earlier (years ago!) & a set of instructions. Mixture of whitemetal castings, plasticard and brass w-Irons. The instructions recommends quick setting glue such as 5minute epoxy or superglue. Challenging bit may be sourcing suitable axles as the W Irons are designed for 21mm gauge which uses an axle that 2mm longer than standard for OO gauge, though I can sort you out with suitable wheels and axles if you decide to go ahead. The brass W Iron arrangement with one axle rocking (compensated) was a fairly common arrangement with scratch and kit built wagon. I generally solder whitemetal kits using a special 'temperature controlled" soldering iron (expensive) with 100º solder & phosphoric acid flux not really practical or wroth while for assembling one kit. Age experience and skill. I first tried my hand at scratchbuilding using plasticard when I was around 14-15 and later moved on to tin scrounged from food tins, usually on second hand Triang chassis none of these early efforts were exactly successful. I started my first reasonably successful efforts at model making in my late teens after I began working after finishing secondary school including a reasonably successful "Irish' N gauge layout before returning to 4mm and attempting to model in 21mm gauge in my Mid-20s. I assembled my first Etched Brass loco kit a TMD/SSM Midland Tank in the Mid-80s but it took me approx 8 years to become reasonably proficient in kit/scratch building. Like training for a profession or "serving your time" as a trade its takes time to become reasonably proficient in model making.

Well my plans to set out some modelling time daily came unstuck when I collapsed at home on Friday was admitted to Emergency and ended up spending 24 hrs under observation in hospital. Luckily my 15 year old who is suffers with anxiety stayed calm gave first aid, called the ambulance and accompanied me to hospital, Luckily they found nothing life threatening, most likely cause was a sudden loss of blood pressure possibly de-hydration or stress. Our family have been in a difficult position for the past 18 months split between the United States where my wife has been caring for her elderly father while I care for our 15 year old who has mental health problems and my elderly mother in law. Strangely we though we had got through the worst of it, my father in-law (a great guy) recently peacefully passed away and our 15 year old had begun showing signs of improvement before we experienced a series of setbacks during the past four weeks. I suppose my collapse was a warning sign for me that I am not invincible and to slow down or I may not be around for my family or to play trains, The irony is I have been down this way in my working life 3 times over the past 20 years and still think I am invincible and can keep everything under control. Wife Linda hopes to return during the next 6-8 weeks which should spread the load in caring for our child and supporting Linda's mum, in the mean time I need just to do the bear essential at home. I did manage to sneak into the workshop last night and complete some adjustments on E421, which now runs more reliably though still occasionally de-rails on Peco small radius points.

I originally standardised on Sharman wheels for my 21mm gauge locos and then shifted to Gibson (AGW) when Sharman became generally unavailable about 20 years ago. I usually buy direct from AGW (Colin Seymour) usually by phone or message on his answering machine being 12 hrs out of synce with UK, as the majority of specialist component suppliers no longer stock loco wheels. AGW supply a 1/8" extended axle suitable for 21mm with their Outside Crank sets for locomotives Code 5000. I generally use these "Outside Cranks" as extended axles with AGW wheel sets in 21mm gauge. The main drawbacks I have found with AGW wheels are (a)driving wheel tyres working loose (remove and secure with Loctite Studlock) (b) AGW steel crankpins shearing off. Substitute 14BA brass nut and bolt as replacement of ideally Ultrascale crankpins (involves forming a shallow recess in the wheel crankpin boss) I originally used a B-B of 19.5mm with Sharman Wheels on 21mm gauge track which successfully operated on the MRSI Loughrea Layout (derived from EM standards) but found it necessary to reduce the B-B to 19.3mm when using AGW wheels which have a wider wheel thread than "Sharman B Profile" EM/OO. I found that there was insufficient running clearance between wheel face and splashers on SSM J15, S and Midland Tank using ASW wheels with the B-B set at 19.5mm. It may be worth considering setting the B-B at 19mm for 21mm gauge locos using AGW wheels assembled from TMD/SSM kits, I used custom ordered 21mm Gauge Ultrascale wheels for both diesel locos and rolling stock, the Ultrascale wheel system is superior to Gibson on a number of aspects Ultrascale wheel center appears to be moulded into the tyre eliminating risk of tyre working loose. wheel failing, large boss on the inner face of rolling stock wheels eliminating risk of wheel wobbling, superior crank pin system compared to AGW. TMD/SSM Midland Tank. I assembled one of the original kits supplied during the early 80s and more recently on with the replacement N/S chassis. 1. The original kit is supplied with a brass chassis of the same thickness of material as the body with ready formed hornblock cut outs suitable for top hat bearings with spacers suitable for OO & 21mm gauge. I successfully assembled the original chassis as a compensated chassis using Sharman compensated bearings/bushes (an early form of compensated bearing) sliding directly in the 'hornblock" cut outs forming hornblock guides (to stop the bearings revolving) from scrap brass. I assembled the chassis as a 'keeper plate" chassis using brass wire and strip both to retain the wheels and represent the brake gear, the brake gear supplied with the kit may have been too fine/delicate for my level of skill and available tools of 40 years ago. 2. Later versions of the kit were supplied with a beam compensated nickel silver chassis in addition to the original brass chassis. The compensated chassis is designed with elongated bearing holes to allow the compensated axles to move vertically, the axles running in top hat bearings soldered to twin compensation beams. I picked up this version of the kit at a swap meet about 20 years ago and assembled the loco at some stage during the last 5-10 years, a comparison of the two chassis is featured in a 17 May 2018 posting on my Work Bench thread. I found it necessary to solder a large diameter washer inside the flange of the top hat bushes to retain the bushes in position, as the flange/head of the bushes supplied with the kit were smaller in diameter than the width of the bearing hold in the chassis. I was disappointed at the exaggerated bellying of the coupling rods of the revised chassis, and would have preferred to have used the neater rods of the original, but was unable as the coupled wheelbase of the two chassis/sets of rods were different