Mayner

Wow! David you are fast worker David! I like the DAS clay on foam board for stone buildings. Will the station building be in brick similar to other CVR stations or was Fintona built I stone by a local company?

Great to hear that you have started tracklaying? Post 240 on this RM Web thread will give you an idea of the work involved with installing working point rodding http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/76110-moving-coal-a-colliery-layout-in-0-gauge/page-10

Roscrea Parkway? follows a similar pattern to the UK rural station with good road connections serving a reasonably well populated hinterland with a number of reasonably large villages and towns and villages. More convenient to catch the train at Ballybrophy than drive to Portlaoise of Dublin or use the Nenagh Branch

That's it exactly our daughter got a great kick out of the Thomas and Chuggington wooden railways at the railway museums and tourist railways we visited in the States last year, the sheer hands on playability factor. Smaller kids particularly girls incorporate the railway in their imaginary play giving the locos, cars trucks and animals personalities. Since we got the signals working the Sheriff's car is busy going around keepin law and order handing out citations to the other cars and trucks on the layout and even the poor John Deere tractor and the loco for a SPAD

Last week my daughter Skye asked me why she could not run train on the N gauge layout I have stored in the garage for the best part of 10 years. Rather than try and get the layout up and running I thought it was a better example to follow Dave's example and build the layout under a Lend-Lease arrangement in return for running powers at some future date Skye turned out to be a good project manager (cracking the whip) we had trains running after one evening and most of the scenic complete after 4 days. Dad was responsible for the civil engineering, trackwork and electrics, herself taking charge of town planning, scenics and the raod transport side of things. The Beginning a sheet of foam board and some Peco flexi track I bought a 4X2 sheet of foam board about 3 months ago for a mock up for a 4mm layout, I used Code 80 Flexible track for the curves because I already had the track in stock and had no set track. Track is pinned down to the foam board with Peco track pins which was interesting. Town planning complete and test running The points are large radius because I sold my stock of medium points about 2 years ago, I have a diamond crossing stashed away somewhere for a overlapping spur but cannot find it. Skye likes to park the loco overnight in the loco shed 1st time its been used for its intended purpose in over 20 years. Day 3 I think Skye applying Woodland Scenic ground cover on dilute PVA (Art Attack Glue!!!) after paint dried Nearly complete! Trying out 25 year old Con-cor Rivarassi Challenger The real controller Babuska also keeps an eye on the Large Scale layout

There is a lot of work in setting up a working point rodding system on a OO gauge mode. Personally I would a wire and tube or push rod system described by David under the baseboard and the Wills cosmetic point rodding above the baseboard. http://www.hattons.co.uk/62545/Wills_Kits_SS89_Point_Rodding_Kit/StockDetail.aspx

At first sight I though you had used one of the SSM open wagon kits. Looks really convincing

LQG109 shunting at Omagh North 1954 Photo N W Spinks No obvious ballast shoulder in the area in the area between the signal cabin and platforms where staff were likely to be walikg plus all important cinder path from cabin to platforms. It looks almost like the goods shed was re-roofed and the high gable wall with the 3 arched windows cut down at some stage after the 1954 photo

CIE originally planned to operate the Supertrains & MK3s as push pull sets, even getting to the stage of building a MK2D driving cab mock up but it never happened because o funding restrictions. The Park Royals, Cravens & MKDs had similar service 30+ years life to GSR built stock. Replacing the MK3s with Rotem's made sense in the same way as the replacement of DMUs and loco hauled stock on Regional Lines in the UK in the 1980s with Supersprinters which allowed a much more frequent service to be operated at a lower cost.

Found it ! Photo was by the late Des Coakham The truck was said to be owned by Scotts the local millers. The load could well be animal feed rather than wheat for milling, the legend "Excelsior Feeds"is just about visible on the truck

There is a photo in one of the Ian Allen Irish Railway Pictorial Albums of one of these wagons discharging grain from an elevated siding into a large bulk grain truck in Omagh goods yard. Difficult to describe the siding appears to be supported by a massive retaining wall that allowed trucks to draw alongside to load, which helps explain the side chutes rather than the more common bottom doors used with grain wagons Perhaps Tony may have a photo of this part of the yard.

CIE/IE use/used a number of different options for controlling the connection between a yard and running line. The connection is usually involves a crossover and head shunt or a set of trap points to protect a passenger carrying line. Signal Cabin control. Control from a local signal box with mechanically operated points and semaphore signals was the most common up and down the country up to the widespread conversion to CTC. The GSR/CIE converted a number of Junctions to remote operation from the 1920s onwards. The Junctions between the Burma Road and Sligo Line at Colloney controlled from Ballysodare and Manulla Junction controlled from Balla are good examples of junctions controlled by motor driven points and semaphore signals. Full sized or shunt signals were used depending on the pattern of operation, with a “mother & child”semaphore signals an arriving train would be stopped before entering a yard and the calling on arm of child” signal lowered to allow the train to enter the yard at restricted speed. Full sized signals were increasingly used for controlling departures from a yard onto the main during the Liner Train era. Longford was a good example of a yard with full sized departure or starting signals during the Rail Plan 80 era Dundalk South Junction was a more modern example using miniature colour light signals controlled from Dundalk Central. There does not appear to have been a facing connection from the down main to the Barrack St branch, which resulted in interesting shunting movements between Dundalk Central and Barrack St yard. Ground frame control. Several yards are/were controlled by ground frames operated by the train crew. Entry to and from the yards at Kildare and Portlaoise are controlled by ground frames released by Connolly CTC, The ground frames at Shelton Abbey sidings on the Rosslare line used to be unlocked by the Rathdrum-Arklow section staff. Access to and from the yard would be controlled by shunt signals where ground frames are used. Not a freight yard as such Limerick Junction South plenty of discs and trap points. Sidings were mainly used for attaching/detatching passenger train tail traffic. Beet Special crossing over from Platform to Down Main Special propelling back along Down Main to allow Down Passenger to pass from Southbound Platform to Down Line Disc & calling-on arms lowered for backing move along down main

Did'nt manage to get much done on the modelling front over the Christmas apart from some large scale track maintenance and fitting one of the locos with a Mylocosound sound card. Not 100% happy with the whistle, but reasonably happy with the chuff, safety valve and air pump sounds.

CIE hired and later sold a number of G Class including 616 to the Sugar Company. to supplement their Rustons shunting at the Thurles Factory.

Hope I am not hijacking the thread. Time and whether a person prefers running trains to building models are probably the greatest factors in favour of OO compared with EM, P4 or 21mm gauge. I think it was Cyril Freezer the late editor of Railway Modeller that said that it took twice as long to get an equivalent layout running in EM as OO gauge. This probably applies to a greater extent with Irish Broad gauge, apart from Murphy Models diesels & IRMs forthcoming wagons are relatively easy to re-gauge, the majority of Irish rtr coaches, wagons and locos need replacement bogies and running gear as there is insufficient clearance between for 21mm wheel sets. I am don’t know how Martyn Wynne came up with 20.2mm for 5'3" gauge in Templot For many years 4mm Irish modellers lay their track to the correct 21mm gauge whether working to EM or P4 standards. Tim Cramer built a 21mm gauge layout with a 19.5mm back to back in the early 1970s before moving up to O Gauge with coarse scale wheel standards just like the late Drew Donaldson! TMD supplied 21mm roller and a 19.5mm back to back gauge during the mid 80s The Loughrea layout was built to 21mm gauge to EM standards with a 1mm flangeway and 19.3 back to back during the early 1990s. Locos and stock with 19.5B_B run fine on this track work One of Tim’s locos a Bandon Tank preformed regularly operated on the Loughrea Layout together with a GNR JT built about 20 years earlier by the Harry Connaughton a professional model builder For someone who prefers operation to building the new Peco bullhead track should be a reasonable compromise for a pre-2000 OO gauge Irish layout and is apparently designed to be compatible with their Code 75 track system. which should be a lot easier to curve than the standard Streamline Code 100 track http://www.anticsonline.co.uk/1263_1_2848804.html.

Great layout Noel OO at its best! Reminds me of some of the plans in CJ Freezers plan book for larger layouts and the Rev Edward Beal's West Midland Railway. One word with the tank train if its carrying Class A (petrol) should have at least a couple of vans or mineral wagons as barriers between the tank wagons loco & guards van. At one time CIE used a nice rake of silver Texaco tank wagons on the North Wall-Inchacore oil train

Great photo Tony. The bracket signal is interesting Neil Spinks photo seems to have been taken near the stairs to the cabin, the signal had two arms reading towards Portadown & Enniskillen. It looks like the signal was altered to act as an up starter towards Newtownstewart after the Irish North closed.

Tony Your idea of modelling the approach tracks fits in pretty well with Iain Rice’s “Bitsa Station” approach of modelling the area where most of the operation takes place and treating the station as off scene. Your track layout appears to capture the essence of the area around the North Cabin, there is a 1954 Neil Spinks photo in the Great Northern in Pictures of an LQG shunting a goods from Enniskillen in this area nicely framed between the wooded background and the splitting signal for Portadown and Enniskillen lines I would omit the (enormous) goods shed and go for a wooded background, using the overbridge a view blocker at the north end and try and blend the platform ends into a curved backscene at the south end/eastern end. If you are planning to use tender locos the length of the shunting neck at the north end is likely to restrict train length, I don’t think that the lack of a run round is too restrictive as the exercise as the platform roads effectively function as arrival and departure roads for trains on the Derry Road and Irish North & SLNCR. The GNR is relatively well provided for in terms of locos and stock with OO Works U & UG locos & Provincial Wagons CIE & GNR wagon stock, SSM range of brass GNR loco kits and coaches.

Inside keyed chairs were apparently used on the Midland Railway in the 19th Century, but outside keyed chairs later adapted. as standard. The GSWR used outside keyed chairs wonder what the Belfast & Northern & County Down used in the early 1900s.

Happy Christmas to all & a great year modelling in 2017!

Not quite sure what happen to the photos in the last post: So here goes DRGWR #346 & 348 RGS Works Motor #6 This is a Berlyn Locomotive Works brass model dating from 1999 currently track power I am planning to fit this with a stay alive DCC chip. Roundhouse Fowler Motor #4 has backed into a spur to allow #346 to overtake the Shay hauled log train Setting the road for #4 to pass train #346 #4 takes the siding to pass #346 Shay hauled log train on the main line RGS freight just about visible on the "high line"

Our local garden railway group recently had an operating day on the railway. The turnout was relatively small but we managed to keep three trains running on the single line with one running in the opposite direction just to make things interesting. Visiting locos & trains included a Battery powered RC Bachmann DRGWR C19 2-8-0 & 3 truck Shay with log trains and a live steam Roundhouse Fowler 0-6-2. Passenger-mail services was operated by my battery powered RC RGS Motor 4. We attempted to run a 4th train a RGS freight behind a K27 Mudhen but things got a little congested and we ended up parking it out of the way on the High Line. #346 & #348 arriving with a freight 346 is a Bachmann C19 348 is a re-numbered Accucraft C16 masquerading as a C19. Staple motive power on RGS freights behind the arrival of the C27 2-8-2s in the late 1930s. RGS Motor 6 looking pretty as mechanics try and figure out why it wont run with the track power off. A plume of steam is just about detectible from the Roundhouse Fowler Things getting a little congested 3 way meet between RGS Motor #4 DRGWR #346 & Shay hauled log train. Raynor is waiting for #346 to clear the main line as #346 overtakes Andy's Shay with a train of log disconnects Shay on log train RGS freight just about visible in background. The logs are natural running on LGB disconnects. Ian lines the road for a meet between #346 & RGS #4

Postage from the UK to the rest of the world is reasonably fast, I received my copy within a week of postage. The postal subscription is the main source of income for New Irish Lines, though Alan will accept donations to support the electronic version on the website http://newirishlines.org/about/

From memory abusive passenger behaviour seemed to be more prevalent on CIE/IE than on British Rail, possibly the Gardaí did not want to get involved and not much a lone conductor or railway guard could do once trouble started on a train. Surprising to see morning trains disrupted possibly passegers still under the influence from the night or day before

The Nov 2016 edition arrived this morning featuring Chris Romain's jaw dropping 10mm Scale model of Killybegs & Philip Asinwall's SLNCR phantom Garratt