Mayner

Amazingly I travelled in what was probably Railcars 12 and 18 during an IRRS outing to Shane's Castle during the early 80s, at the time the Shane's Castle railway had a great air of permanence with neatly maintained stations the main line almost the atmosphere of a roadside tramway. From memory No12 had interior seating, No18 a gutted interior but great fun standing in the doorway between the articulated section and cab watching the driver operating the railcar.

Had a workmate in the last job who was seriously into model cars, diecast, slot and RC and full size (Holden) member of several model car clubs. Had a great send off when he passed away several years ago several model car clubs represented, eulogies about his interest in cars and a Ferrari shaped casket quite something.

There certainly seemed to be a greater interest in railway modelling in the north and east (particularly ex-GN,NCC territory) compared to the rest of the country, possibly because for a long time CIE was considered drab and un-interesting in comparison with the GN and NCC with their colourful (modernish) express locos smart rakes of uniform coaches. I once recall a railfan from Kilkenny speaking about finding the local early 50s railscene drab and boring and eventually modelling the GNR instead. NIR demonstrated a lot of courage and confidence in the future of the Enterprise (and the railways) with the early 1980s introduction of its 111-113 locomotives and two MK2 Enterprise carriage sets increasing the frequency of the Enterprise from 4 to 6 return workings daily at a time CIE Enterprise was made up mainly of Craven stock. Interestingly Model Irish Railways the main Irish kit producer between the 80s early 2000s was established by a group of Ulster based modellers, while during the last 20 or so years modellers in the "greater' Belfast area have been pro-active in encouraging Worsley Works to produced etched parts for several of the distinctive railcar classes introduced by the UTA

Interesting the yard quite grass grown possibly siding & loop removed by mid 1957 while further south Gibbstown loop/running line reasonably free of weeds and still apparrently open for goods traffic. There is an undated SLS photop of a J4 (large ex-GSWR 0-6-0) on a north bound goods possibly dropping off/collecting a cattle wagon at Gibbstown in Donal Murray's Great Southern Railways . There is an uncredited 4 May 1957 1957 in a "Decade of Steam" of J5 (Midland Cattle Engine) 626 southbound at Gibbstown. Interestingly hoppers and opens are marshalled next the loco and covered wagons at the rear on the Northbound and vice-versa on the Southbound goods. At the time Kingscourt dispatched both bricks (Kingscourt Brick) and gypsum in open wagon, CIE & GNR each had approximately 6 Gypsum Hopper wagons.

Hopefully you'll find time to get back to modelling soon. We had a right scare about 20 years ago when wife Linda's bag with our passports were stolen in a cafe in Sydney while having breakfast, followed by the drama of trying to obtain emergency passports. Luckily an honest person found the bag with our passports (less any cash) dumped behind a low wall in a public park and managed to contact us luckily the thief had not swiped our phones or cards, was quite a day.

Take heart JHB thses days there is no point in trespassing as there is nothing interesting to see and its too dangerous anyway as generally trains are a lot more frequent than the good/old bad days and no staff to tell you 'to get off the track" if a train appears As a retired H&S professional company H&S policies and procedures are there to protect the organisation and partyicularly its top brass in case a custormer, worker or visitor is injured or killed ,no legal duties as such to trespassers but makes bad publicity and hard on all those involved (railstaff, falilies and emergency services) Back in the day (late 80s) I remember the signal man at Liffey Junction frantically yelling at trespassser taking a short cut from Dublin Industrial Estate to Cabra West to get off the canal bridge/railway track, the up afternoon Sligo was approaching under clear signals. The young people crossing the track like the trespassers killed at Leixlip (during Maynooth line doubling) and CIE/IE could not be bothered to securely fence the line at a spot where trespassing was a known problem. A lot of policies around PPE are driven by companies applying blanket rules to maintain discipline/control (worker/visitor behavior) regardless of whether its necessary (from a H&S or legal perspective or not). This can lead to a 'facade of safety" where everyone appears to wear the appropriate PPE (whether its needed or not!) and tick the boxes but not carry out the actual safety checks which can sometimes have disasterous results.

Still at the 'mock up" stage, though found enough offcuts of Peco track to complete tracklaying on the module and installed 3 on-off switches so lcos can be parked with power isolated from the DCC system. I need to level up and wire the module and extend the fascia to the end of the module! Although topped and framed in 7mm ply, the release module baseboard is a bit more complicated than usual because the traverser deck overhangs this area. Actual track base is laminated from pieces of 7 and 13mm ply, with a slot cut in the 13mm (before gluing to the 7mm) to accomodate the isolating switches for this area. I'll probabably end up cutting a hole/slot in the baseboard top to accomodate the wiring, just need to decided whether to use a hobby schroll saw I bought about 15 years ago or a jig saw.

The loco drawings published with New Irish Lines between 2014 and 2016 are in diagram form and exclude the narrow gauge. The drawings were intended to be a companion volume to GSR Locomotives but were eventually released with NIL. Diagrams include limited information generally showing one side and front end of a locomotive, ex-GSWR diagrams exclude an end view, several GSR diagrams in outline form only. The 7mm Narrow Gauge Association published a book of Irish Narrow Gauge Drawings which includes a variety of steam locos and petrol/diesel railcars https://7mmnga.org.uk/sales/publications/publication_details.php?ref=NLE06. The narrow gauge drawings were prepared for modelling purposes and are quite detailed including plan and sectional views.

Ironically Loco Remote clearly market the CDR railcar as 15mm scale as opposed to a 16mm scale model.

Jas Millhams S scale 1950s ex-GE Yaxbury branch complete with railbus was an eye opener in terms of scenic branchline modelling when I first saw it at an exhibition during the 80s in mimimum space branchline terminus form and later extended form with intermediate halt http://www.s-scale.org.uk/gallery5.htm, not a lot different from JHBs Dugort Harbour and Castletown West concept. I picked up a nicely assembled (non-powered) sample of an Airfix railbus during the mid 70s, but destroyed the model attempting to motorise it not realising its potential value. Not sure if anyone would consider it worthwhile to kitbash the NIR Railbus out of a Hornby Pacer. Then again David has proven that its perfectly feasible to build a SLNCR Railbus and thus GNR, DNGR? or even the solitary CIE variations in 7mm scale. 7mm or S scale 18-0' working diorama layout section of plain track possibly with halt and or level crossing, peat bog with turntable long enough for railbus and luggage trailer at each end!

Connected the 'loco release module" to the staging using a pair of DCC Concepts "Baseboard alignment dowels' and a nut bolt and washers I had in stock and demolished most the wall at the end of the traverser! The loco release will be long enough for a Bo Bo or a shunter, the A/001 class are already banned from Northwharf as a result of bufferlocking on small radius points used in the year. The oval object in the background is a freestanding mirror thats been waiting repair for about 18 months!, our family is getting to that stage in life with clutter and things I haven't found time to fix/repair I packed the trackbase for the 'loco release module" level with the traverser using off cuts of 13mm & 7mm ply, with strips of 7mm to prevent locos being driven/falling off the module. 3 of the traverser roads act as staging/running roads with a loco release, the 4th a spur serving an off scene industry a ware house or oil/tar depot a destination for vans and tank wagons. Unfortunately I managed to 'disappear' my stock of rail joiners and a bottle of woodworkers glue so a trip to the local modelshop and DIY store to pick up supplies tomorrow Saturday to complete the module. Although the layout is wired on a single circuit for DCC operation, I'll probabably feed the 3 loco spurs through on-off switches so individual locos can be isolated between turns, I may have some suitable switches in stock, but possibly another item to add to the shopping list.

I was quite taken with the stylish 1930s architecture (and signal boxes) on London Transport and the Southern Region when I first moved to the UK during the mid-80s though professionally I was marginally involved in restoring 4-500 year old buildings in Watford during the construction of the Harlequinn Centre during the late 80s which involved the oblitteration of early-mid 20th Century streetscape. The GSR signalling and electrical department managed to achieve a lot with very little with the conversion of Kingsbridge Station and Islandbridge-Dunlaoire to power signalling during the 1930s actuated by miniature lever frames fabricated using standard interlocking components housed in quite modernistic signal cabins (Amiens St & Westland Row quite stylish in design). While the majority of Dublin's 1930s era power signalling system was replaced during the early 80s in connection with the introduction of the DART, Heuston Cabin 1930s era cabin and signalling system remained in operation until the re-modelling of Heuston Station approaches during the early 2000s. What was considered modern state of the art during the 1930s was obsolete but sitll functional (if maintained properly) by 2000. As far as I recall control of Heuston and Island Bridge Junction was transferred to a temporary interlocking located in a new building at the Nort end of the Platform 9 a permanent interlocking installed upon completion for the remodelling of Heuston approaches and the re-instatement of platforms 1-5.

The majority of older photos tend to be 3/4 front views of locos or rolling stock, photo surveys of wayside stations became more common from 60s onwards as cameras and film became cheaper. Photos of the Meath Line before the ending of passenger services are relatively scarce, back in the 80s I bought up "Real Photograph Co" (Iain Allen) 1930s photos of 2-4-0 652 on shed Kingscourt (x426) and on the up passenger (3-6wheelers cw oil lighting) at Navan Junction (x429), (in those days publishers like Iain Allen and groups like RCTS published photographic catalogues) more recently "Great Southern Railways" Irish Pictorial album (Donal Murray (Ian Allen) 2006) included 1939 photos of Midland Standard Goods 601 with a similar consist (possibly electric lighting) a Down Passenger at Kilmessan Junction and Kingscourt, interestingly the consist of the "Passenger" includes a single Cattle Wagon as tail traffic in the Kilmessan photo. There are a couple of published photos of steam hauled 'Kingscourt" goods passing Gibbstown in goods only days one northbound behind a large ex-GSWR 0-6-0 (Stephenson Locomotive Society) and the second southbound behind an ex-MGW "Cattle Engine" (large powerful 0-6-0) uncredited photo Decade of Steam IRRS 1972?. With the KingscourtGoods reduced to a 3 times weekly working after 1917 and once weekly Wed &Thurs) in the 1960s WTT something more powerful than a Standard Goods was required to work the remaining traffic. During the 70s-80s Herbert Richard an IRRS member and photographer was very helpful in supplying comprehensive photos surveys of Kilmessan Junction (before track lifting) and Ballymoe on the Mayo Line for modelling purposes, hopefully at some stage his photographes may be added to the archive. In a way Kilmainham Wood is one of the more attractive Navan & Kingscourt stations from a modelling perspective with its distinctive brick station building and crossing keepers cottage and largish stone built goods shed once served by a spur siding off the goods loop, visually interesting on a slight curve. Kilmainham Wood contrasts with other station/halts where the station buildings on the N&K which had a rendered finish and small goods shed on the passenger platform at Gibbstown & Wilkinstown with a goods loop that served a long cattle bank. By contrast the goods shed at Nobber was served by a spur on the up side behind the station platform with a goods loop and long cattle bank opposite with an overbridge crossing the line at the south end of the yard

It may be worth while contacting the IRRS Librarian or visiting the IRRS on Library Night. John O'Meara published a 2 part IRRS Journal paper on the "Meath Line" during the early 50s which included details of staff and operations at the individual stations including Kilmainhamwood. The station was probabably at its busiest following its opening under Navan & Kingscourt Railway ownership when it acted as terminus for several years before the line was extended to Kingscourt, but there appears to have been little traffic under CIE ownership from the mid 40s onwards. One point of local interest is that a section of line alongside Whitehouse Lake was diverted away from the lakeshore as a result of a landslide during the 1950s, don't know if this diversion is noticable on the cycle track.

Finally got round to starting work on the loco release for the traverser staging in order to allow a 5 wagon train to enter the staging. For some odd reason I made the bookcase/shelving 7'6" rather than 8' long, possibly to fit the available space before a house move almost 20 years ago. First task was to cut and fit a L shaped piece of ply to fit between the existing baseboard and end of the baseboard. and then form the framing for the loco release all cut with a handsaw from some 6mm ply I had in stock for several years after lining the interior of a garden shed, all glued and pinned together with panel pins! Mock up with a loco on the loco release board . It will be necessary to pack the trackbase level with the traverser deck and provide some fall prevention to avoid driving/dropping locos onto the floor! I moved the layout outwards from its original position in the bookcase, to avoid cutting a slot in the gable end of the bookcase. There should be room for 3 spurs in this area capable of aligning with the traverser, which hopefully should help boost my motivation to use this layout.

The decline in the availibility of specialist parts and kits is tied up with the increasing availability of high quality British outline 4mm rtr models (since late 90s) as much as the business owners retiring or passing away. Designing and manufacturing high quality 3D printed models or parts involve similar levels of skill and experience to traditional methods. Markits beautiful turned brass parts are likely to have been mass produced using CNC techniques, rather than individually made by a craftsman. Ironically several years ago I used 3D modelling to produce lost wax brass detail parts for a D17/52 Class kit a precious metal supplier producing the lostwax masters and rubber moulds from my 3D digital model. There are 3D printers and 3D printers, for small parts I use a desktop resin printer that cost around £450, the businesses that carried out my production printing use full size machines costing upwards of £45,000.

The older generation of model makers including Sam Carse used tinplate spoke about sourcing tinplate from Belfast in a newspaper article on his CDJR system during the late 60s/early 70s, Harry Connaghton a Dublin based professional model maker active during 60s -80s trialed tinplate on some 7mm GNR 0-6-0s but reverted to n/s possibly customer preference. I think problems with rust was likely due to use of failure to neutralise Bakers Flux. When I started model making my main source of tin was from drinks cans! shifted to brass when Ks metal sheet became available in hobby shops. I built an O gauge Ranks wagon with a tinplate body on a Triang-Big-Big chassis over 40 odd years ago, corded solder and "Frys' flux not much of a paint job wonder if it survived.

Noel: Sorry to hear such devestating news, thankfully you, your family and pets are ok.

"Back in the day" when I joined a club as a junior member (14-15) in the early 70s the vast majority of members collected/ran rtr models (British & Continental outline) with a small minority who collected and assembled kits, one professional modelmaker who batch built mainly 7mm models of Irish outline locos and stock and one off comissions and a 1-2 modellers who modelled A Class diesels and Supertrain stock using a combination of scratchbuilding (mainly plasticard) and heavily modified BR rtr stock. Although one of the minority of model makers had assembled (though not painted) a largish fleet of LMS locos (incl a Ks Coal Tank, various Wills and GEM loco kits)), the majority had assembled and completed small-medium size tank locos of a GW or Southern theme. When I re-joined the club 20 years later some of the remaining model makers from the 70s had moved up to O Gauge or had shifted to 4mm Irish Outline modelling outline modelling using contemporary MIR and TMD/SSM kits. One of the most impressive things was that a younger generation of modellers had taken the initiative to scratchbuild and kitbash models of IE & NIR contemporary operations. A high proportion of the modelling was to a high standard exemplified by the construction of a 'fleet' of 201 diesels with plasticard bodies on Atheran chassis and the Greystones Layout the pre-cursor of the Barrow Street layout with the use of production techniques for the production of railcars and coaching stock.

Uncredited photo of J9 252 on Lisduff No1 Ballast at Attanagh 1958 "A Decade of Steam" published RPSI circa 1972

Alan It might be worth considering using the existing chassis rather than fitting an etched compensated chassis, the combination of heavy whitemetal loco body and strip brass frames is likely to result in a smooth running loco when assembled with a rigid chassis. I assembled several whitemetal kits with similar rigid chasssis during the 90s which turned out to be smooth reliable runners, at the time I mainly used Branchlines gearboxes as HI-Level gearboxes had not yet arrived on the scene. Alan Gibson produces an outside crank set which includes an extended axle which may be an option of the existing driving wheels and coupling rods are usable. https://www.wizardmodels.ltd/shop/locomotive/5000/. The cranks are moulded in the same nylon material as the wheel sets, although I substitute a 14ba brass bolt for the crankpin as I always managed to ring off the AGW steel crankpin. Back in the day Beyer Peacock built some outside frame locos for the Ulster Railway though don't recall a photo of an 0-6-0. So possibly a kit bash for Kieran's loco

Finally got round to resuming work on 229 or more correctly its tender axleboxes! Several years ago I produced a set of etched parts for the GSWR Type tender than at one stage ran behind 229, but still required springs, axleboxes and other traditionally cast parts to complete the tender. I decided to produce a 3D model of the springs and axlebox using Fusion 360 as the CAD/3D modelling programme I used over the past 20 odd years is not the most user friendly for 3D modelling, though excellent for conventional 2D drafting. First step was to find some 'suitable' drawings and photos in order to prepare a 2D sketch. Close up of one of 186s tender axlebox and a tracing from a GSWR Type B tender drawing were the first steps, not really practicable for me to travel to Whitehead to take measurements. I omitted the horizontal stay as it would be challenging to print/cast! Completed? 3D model of spring/axlebox assembly. Basically parts are initially drawn as 2D sketches then extruded into 3D componets. Individual leaves are modelled by forming rebates in spring outline, components such as spring hangers/hornguides duplicated or mirrored. The finished product! Springs/axleboxes were printed in a High Tensile resin with a Flex-admixture (both Monocure an Australian manufacture and printed at a 45° angle to the build plate (reduces risk of print failure and distortion) I used the same resin and set up for printing some detail parts for my recent run of "Tin Van" kits. Printer is an Anycubic Mono X bought several years ago and now finally producing reasonable prints after sevral years of trial and error! I had used brass castings from 3D printed Shapeways masters for the GSWR 52 Class produced several years ago but simpler at this stage to use my home desktop printer for other detail parts for the tender.

Used to regularly hear a Hunslet on evening Dublin-Belfast Enterprise while waiting on the 54 bus home from work in Killester almost 50 years ago. The Hunslet's made quite a racket climbing the bank towards Killester and Harmonstown. About 20 years ago found that mute (FO on American decoders) was the most important function on sound equipped locos during a running session in a club room with poor acoustics (low ceilings concrete block walls). At the time one of the senior club members was into collecting sound equipped UP SD70s and loved to run them in multiple on the club test track to everyone elses consternation!

The "Welch's Transport" cement tanker appears to be a generic tanker branded by EFE for various businesses rather than a model of an actual bulk cement tanker and quite different in outine to the bulk cement tankers used in Ireland and the UK. Whatever about the body I think a truck with an AEC or Leyland Ergonomic Cab (introduced 1964) would be more appropriate for use on a 60s-70s layout than the the late 1940s EFE model Trucks collecting bulk cement from the railhead likely to be owned and branded CIE due to the Boards almost monopoly position in licensed haulage and closed shop agreement with trade unions. During this era concrete product manufacturing companies such as Roadstone, RMC, CPI would have been allowed to collect bulk cement from the railhead using their own trucks and unionised crews, or Licensed Hauliers. https://www.flickr.com/photos/96862991@N03/50579882578/in/faves-60482654@N03/ EFE seems to have done a nice model of an Ergo but seem to be scarce on the second hand market. https://www.awesomediecast.com/efe-1-76-aec-ergomatic-short-2-axle-flatbed-lorry-alan-firmin/ Interestingly there is a Welch Fencing Ltd (est 1971) in Preston that supplies pre-cast concrete fencing components. Cement Terminals tended to serve plants within a 30-40 mile radius Tullamore -Banagher Precast Buildings https://banagherprecast.com/sectors/buildings/ Athenry-Oranmore Precast https://oranmore.co.uk/ plus smaller plants and readymix batching plants. When I worked in Dublin during the 70s-80s we received pre-cast products (blocks, pipes, roof tiles) from plants up to 40 miles away likely to have been supplied by rail to Cabra or direct by road from Platin. Working on the Masonite project at Drumsna during the mid 90s we received readymixed concrete batched at the Roscommon and Boyle Roadstone plants, using cement possibly railed to Tullamore or Sligo and transhipped by road or possibly direct from Platin. Roadstone was highly unlikely to buy cement from Sean Quinn although the Derrylin Cement Plant was a lot closer than Platin and transportation costs likely to be considerably lower

Really neat work, think its time to invest in an RSU as my hands are not as steady as they once were.