Mayner

Some working signals may have been retained at Abbey Junction to protect the Wharf Level crossing. The line from Waterford to Snow Hill Tunnel was converted to track circuit block working in connection with the opening of the Belview terminal about 20 years ago, Abbey Junction cabin was retained to control the signals protecting the Wharf level crossing. I am not sure if automatic intermediate signals were provided to allow trains to follow each other through the section from Waterford to Belview

I think Status Quo is building a GNR600 Class AEC railcar set. Both the railcars and later coaches were assembled using parts supplied by Park Royal. Photos seem to be official GNR or Park Royal not sure where I got them

The installation is pretty much the standard for large scale battery radio remote control there is no direct equivalent for the DCC mobile decoder and power chip. On the plus side running is very reliable as there is no problem with poor pick up and the locos have good momentum because of weight. The battery control adds another element of realism, to make sure that a loco has enough fuel (charge) to get back to the shed at the end of a days operation.

More large scale stuff but slowly clearing the backlog and may get around to some small scale Irish modelling. But 1st some un-scheduled maintenance when I took K27 464 out of service to fit a new sound system. The leading truck or pilot disintegrated possibly as a result of the loco riding over a nut or other obstruction on the track. Replacement trucks are no longer available so it was a case of fabricating a new truck using KS brass bar and slab. The rectangular side frames were cut roughly with a hacksaw taped together with double sided tape, then milled and bored to final shape with the trusty Unimat SL set up as a milling machine. The keyhole shaped piece was cut out using a fine toothed blade in a piercing saw. The truck bolted together with 10BA bolts then soldered with a cheap 60 watt soldering iron Carrs 179 degree solder and phosphoric flux I prepared and blackened the truck using Carrs Metal Surface Conditioner & Carrs Metal Black rinsing well between each application. I will spray the truck black once I have burnished the metal finish, and then seal the surface with Testors Clear Coat. This should hopefully reduce the risk of seeing bare metal in areas where paint is likely to chip off.

Nothing compared with some people confusing Austria with Australia http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/australia-is-confused-with-austria-way-too-often-for-anyones-liking/news-story/b0fed3bbad0192e20a434d981437b2df The 17 AK panoramic coaches used on Kiwirail long distance passenger trains are based on Swiss Rhaetain Bahn stock, the observation cars and generator vans are based on converted goods brake van which gives the trains a disjointed look. Passenger stock is sometimes added to the consists of freights for non-revenue moves between depots and works or press and vips for the opening of new freight services and terminals

Video of trains in the foothills of the Southern Alps in the Springfield area. Winter struck in earnest during the past two weeks with heavy snow fall blocking mountain passes in the Southern Alps and roads across the Desert Plateau in the North Island. I guess the photographer would have needed snow chains to go any further west.

The Railway Roundabout film would have been fairly typical of the West and areas with small family farms.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geuu47Rr35U Smaller cars and 22 axle trucks would have been pretty much the norm from the mid 1930s . Edward (donkey) was cheap to run for bringing milk to the creamry for small dairy farmers and bringing home turf from the bog, getting into places a tractor or horse could not go. Smaller cars such as the Ford Anglia, or VW Beetle often replaced the donkey for bringing milk to the dairy or transporting calves, sheep or pigs to the farm or mart. Oddly Ford or GM don't seem to have developed a Ute (Austraian/NZ farmers car/pick up truck) for the Irish Market The economy took off with the more open economic policies of the 1960, the more prosperous farmer would aspire more to a Mercedes than a Ford or Volkswagen.

Fayles Bulletin recorded 15 ex MGWR locos on shed in Athlone including 4 members of the Class 531,532,533 & 535 on a mid-week day excursion to Athlone in September 1937. 533 the last of the class to remain in service (1953) seems to have worked in the Galway area and the Loughrea Branch there is a LGRP photo of her on shed in Galway and a JP O'Dea photo of her opposite the signal cabin possibly in CIE days. The Achill Bogies were originally built as D Class 2-4-0s in 1880 and rebuilt into 4-4-0s after 20 years service. The 4-4-0s had smaller cylinders and were not as powerful than the K Class 2-4-0s (GSR G2) introduced in the 1890s. 531,534 & 535 were later rebuilt with superheated boilers and larger cylinders which theoretically would have brought the locos into line with the 2-4-0s in terms of tractive effort. The closing of branches and less frequent passenger services during and after the emergency would have pretty much made the Achill Bogies redundant. The G2s were preferred to the larger MGWR D6 & 7 4-4-0s for passenger services on the Mayo & Sligo roads having a reputation of being being steadier at speed and easier on the track than the larger locos

The film at Westport is likely to be in late GSR days, the loco is a 2-4-0 she still has laminated springs above the leading axle rather that the volute springs fitted to the class in CIE days, an Achill Bogie is hiding behind the station sign at Manulla Junction. I wonder was the train departing Claremorris the Limerick-Sligo train, the coach panelling looks GSWR in style and the WLWR line continued/s to be operated as a GSWR branch in Midland territory right up to the ending of passenger services with Limerick responsible for supplying locos and stock. In GSR & CIE days pre-amalgamation locos stuck pretty much to their territory with few exceptions. GSWR & Midland locos replacing withdrawn DSER locos on the South Eastern, a Midland Cattle Engine & Standard Goods on long term loan to Waterford. Occasional trails of ex Midland D6&7 4-4-0s on Kingsbridge-Nenagh-Limerick trains and GSWR D4s on the Sligo Road Midland locos sometimes worked ballast trains over the Burma Road from Lecarrow to stations on the Sligo Road as an alternative to Athlone-Mullingar I

Interesting to see the traffic is mostly in box cars rather than covered hoppers which is pretty much the staple in grain growing area of the mid-West. A lot of the duplicate traffic that was spun off by the Class 1 was bought by the State or City Government (to maintain rail connections to local industries) and the operation contracted out to a shortline operator. The Norfolk & Western absorbed the Nickel Plate and Wabash which served much the same area during the 1960s and used the best bits of the two systems to form a link from the East Coast to Chicago and St Louis.(The West). The whole dynamic in the North East change with the break up of Conrail between Norfolk Southern & CSX about 20 years ago resulting in both companies operating competing New York-Chicago routes a condition that hadn't existed since the mid 1960s.

You are not alone David!!! I am becoming more and more tempted to try 7mm 36.75mm gauge a bit easier to see than N or OO and easier on the pocket than 1:20.3. Dave Walkers, 36.75mm gauge Killanney a medium sized WLWR/MGWR junction terminus had a colour feature in the Oct 1985 Modeller. I saw the layout at the Chatham show about 25 years ago and may have slides or photos somewhere. The layout was inspired by and shared locos and rolling stock with Castle Rackrent, Daves own stock included some very fine looking WLWR locos with plenty of brasswork in lined crimson lake and a MGWR small tank in lined light green & a 101 Class in lined GSWR green. Killanney, Castle Rackrent and Paul Greenes S Scale layout are certainly an inspiration to model the pre-WW1 era when the railways were at their xenith, the WLWR may have been poor but the lined crimson lake livery exceptional and the locos and stock of plain outline and simple to model compared with the GSWR & Midland. Harry Mulhollands Knockmore Junction featured in April 2004 British Railway Modelling Irish supplement is likely to be O gauge, Harry's GNR locos regularly appeared at the Bangor exhibition. Going back to 21mm gauge Tim Cramer (Cork) once built a layout in 21mm gauge before moving up to O gauge, Tim regularly published articles on Irish Modelling and drawings or locos and stock in the Railway Modeller, Model Railway Constructor and Model Railway in the 1970s & 80s and he has also been the driving force behind many of The Tyrconnel/Alphagraphix 7mm gauge loco and rolling stock kits hence the heavy West Cork focus. Dublin modellers Brian Fennell and Jim Maguire built most of the locos and stock used on the MRSI Loughrea layout including several TMD/SSM kits and scratch built models. Brian acquired Tim Cramers Bandon Tank, another modeller Paddy Thormley a scratch built GNR JT built by a professional modeler Harry Connaghton.

David Malone Surrey 4mm S4 Cliffony based on Dromad Alan Edgar (De Selby RM Web Cambridgeshire 4mm S4 kit and scratch built locos including models of GNR (I) Vs, S & U, NCC Mogul & Whippet Steve Johnston Warwick 4mm 21mm EM standards CIE Supertrain era

Test fitting the masters for the spring and damper assembly for the 22'6" & 20' Steel floored flats. Should be going off to the investment casters for the 1st stage of the casting process along with the 650 Class masters next week Close up spring patterns skeletal and steel floored flats. Axlebox, buffer and vac brake castings by MJT. The steel floor flats will be available in sets of 3 with OO Gauge wheels from late 2017 The skeletal in the 1st quarter of 2018. Price to be confirmed.

Quite regularly being on the joint between the Australian & Pacific tectonic plates. Our engineers are fairly adept at re-building roads and railways after earthquake damage and wash outs following Cyclones. Like California several of our major cities including the capital Wellington are on fault line, Auckland is built on a volcanic plain the 1931 Napier earthquake has been the worst in terms of loss of life, Christchurch was somewhat unexpected as there were no obvious fault lines in the area. One of the disappointing things has been the poor performance of so called earthquake proof buildings in Christchurch and Wellington following recent earthquakes Apart from knocking out SH1 and the railway, the earthquake also knocked out Wellington container port, this has resulted in the diversion of Auckland-Christchurch (645 miles rail + 4hr train ferry) to coastal shipping and an even bigger hole in Kiwirails bottom line. Like CIE in the early 60s Kiwirail is expected to stand on its own two feet without financial support after a once off Government investment of $1B in a Turn Round Plan, the railway efforts to break even continue to be frustrated by natural disasters (washouts-earthquakes-fires) and falling prices for commodities like coking coal and milk powder that make up a high proportion of rail traffic. The Government decision to repair the Main-Line North may reflect a change in Government policy compared to recent years where a number of lines were mothballed following de-railment damage or washouts.

I have been a great fan of Richard Chown's work ever since Castle Rackrent 1st appeared in the Railway Modeller over 40 years ago, I once saw the original layout at an exhibition somewhere in Angus. It will be interesting to see what happens to the layout, it is unusual by British standards having regular operating sessions and a crew of operators who ran a timetabled service or sequence of passenger, mail and goods trains through several stations from Castlerackrent to Port Láirge (the fiddle yard).Most of the buildings structures and track layouts are based on the North Kerry with the principal intermediate station Moygraney and interloper from Kiltimagh on the WLWR northern extension. The whole succession business is becoming a minefield with a generation of modellers' passing on and fewer people remaining who share the same interest together with a considerable duplication of historical material that becomes a burden to the beneficary. The age profile of our local modelling group is getting older with the problem of dismantling layouts and disposing of a lifetimes collections of model railways, books and documents as people pass away.

A significant milestone in reinstating the Main Line North between Christchurch and the Picton ferry terminal leaving 10km to reinstate First train across the Clarence River Bridge since last Novembers Quake https://www.facebook.com/pg/KiwiRailNewZealand/posts/?ref=page_internal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFEBag6XkUw

Don't ask me to do the math, but there are several stories of couplings breaking and loose coupled trains running away in McArnolds "Golden Years of the GNR" and David Smiths "Tales of the G&SWR (Scotland) & the Little Railways of South West Scotland. The usual cause was a coupler breaking as the loco suddenly took in the slack while climbing out of a dip at the bottom of a long grade. One of the guards main jobs was to apply the handbrake on the van to keep the couplers stretched out while going downhill and avoid this happening. The usual procedure when this happened seems to have been for the loco crew to put on steam to get as far ahead of the runaway as possible in the hope the train would come to rest in the bottom of a dip. On CIE there are well documented stories of brakes failing on Woolwich including the Cahir Disaster and a near miss on the Midland between Clonsilla& Liffey Junction a distance of 5 miles where the crew managed to stop the train using the tender and van hand brakes short of the Junction for the Liffey Branch otherwise it was next stop Holyhead! as they would have no chance of bringing a train under control on the Liffey Branch or Broadstone lines

The JM Design MGWR K Class 2-4-0 is based on the post 1916 rebuild when the majority of the class lost the upswept Attock "fly-away" cab and received more conventional smokebox doors and injector pipework.

A 20 or 30t van would not have had snowballs chance in hell of stopping a heavy train once the coupling broke and the train started to roll back down the 1:70? gullet.

The late 1960s was an interesting period with conventional (usually unfitted) wagons and vans running in mixed consists with recently introduced flats carrying ISO containers, palletised fertiliser and Guinness traffic, or bulk cement wagons. Brian Flannigans Flickr site has a good collection of photos of typical goods stock mainly in the Tralee area. Dublin-Tralee goods services were the last to go over to Liner (unit train) operation when loose coupled services ended in 1978 when a coupling broke on the last scheduled loose coupled goods out of Heuston Goods as the train climbed the Gullet to Inchacore and the wagons ran back into the station

Loose coupled goods trains on CIE main lines could load up to a max of 780 tons or a maximum length of 53 wagons subject to restrictions over certain route and sections of main line. As Leslie said the majority of traffic was carried in covered wagons, with open wagons and specialist wagons such as container flats, tank cars and grain hoppers pretty much in the minority. CIE had a handful of Lomac style well wagons which in later years were mainly used by the p.w. Dept for transporting small Priestman crawler cranes.

Noel. If you think the B121 was crude nothing could prepare you for the whitemetal A Class produced by Q Kits for MIR. Except for the A Class the quality of MIR pattern making and castings was far superior to most British outline "Modern Image" kits MTK and Q Kits produced some real shockers. 3D printing through the Shapeways of this world I that the designer/commissioner has much lower up front cost compared to other manufacturing processes with no expensive pattern making or tooling costs, its economic to produce one off items as the buyer pays the set up cost when they place an order.

SSM produce complete kits for 4 types of GSWR 6 wheel coach 1st, 1,2,3rd Comp, 3rd and 3rd brake The kits are probably an easier starting point than using the Worsley Works scratch aids and sourcing castings, bearings, seats and other parts. MGWR coaches are on the JM Design to do list

Lasted a good few years when the up and down Day Mail was cancelled following the closure of Carlisle Pier and the TPO & Van attached to existing Heuston-Galway trains. The Day Mail used to connect with the overnight "Mail Boat" at Dun-Laoire usually a very heavy A Class hauled train full of tired passengers many of whom had already spent 8-9 hours on the train and boat from Euston.

Its good to see that the Ballyglunin group have reasonably realistic objective of restoring the station building for community and tourist use and long term plan to re-build the goods shed as a theatre/exhibition venue/community hall? has a greater chance of community buy in and success than a railway museum largely dependent on outside support. Many rural museums in New Zealand and the United States are 100% volunteer operated and only open on occasional weekends during the year or by appointment like Kiltimagh. Our local preserved railway the 7km Glen Afton Line has 7 regular operating days every year plus the occasional charter (coach tour) and is 100% volunteer owned and operated with some sponsorship from industry, charitable trusts and government agencies. The Welsh Highland Heritage Railway operates a daily service for roughly 5 months of the year and is pretty much dependent on legacies, donations from its members to fund the restoration and maintenance of its locos stock, building and plant. Shop and ticket sales pay the shop assistants wages rates & taxes, and the running cost of the train