Mayner

JMRI with an IPhone or IPad seems a very good approach. JMRI is or can be made compatible with most DCC systems. Interestingly Digtrax has just announced that it is discontinuing the UR91 receiver for its Simplex radio system, potentially forcing users to upgrade to its "Duplex" system at $150US per receiver & $65 throttle upgrade.

Well done takes me back to my Irish gricing days Interesting but subtle changes in the close to 40 years since CTC was introduced, signal cabin and relay room survives, the shelter belt by the farm house has grown back in the 20 odd years since it was cut down, crossover between the up and down main lines moved to the North of the Crossover.

Besides the Dutch and BR vans CIE converted a sizable number of older coaches to Brake Standard and Brake Standard Generator Steam van (BSGV) format in the mid to late 70s mainly to replace the 4 wheelers on Suburban and the remaining branch and cross country trains. http://www.cs.vintagecarriagestrust.org/se/CarriageInfo.asp?Ref=3340. The Cravens as the most modern conventional stock appear to have been converted to TL lighting at an early stage, the all the Park Royals and even some Laminates were converted by the Mid 1980s.

The 30T vans seem to have been less popular with guards and the Operating Department than earlier CIE/GSR/GSWR brake vans. The all steel body would have been like a freezer or an oven to work in compared to the earlier wooden or ply bodied vans. The original oil boxes gave trouble with overheating and the hand brake was not supposed to be as good as a 20 Tonner. Apart from the running gear and foot boards the main spotting difference was greater variation among 20T vans, planked or ply body sheeting, wooden or steel duckets. Hybrids with a mixture of ply and planking. Perhaps another variation for Des?

Popeye Lovely job on the pallet cement especially the large wheels.

The timber swap bodies were fitted on 27301-27767 series 22'6" 14' wb skeletal flats the last 4w wagons built. These had a sightly lower frame to carry 8'6" containers and a longer wheelbase to improve stability at speed. The channel framing of the swap bodies sat down over the wagon like a saddlebag and hid most of the wagon solebars and underframe.

Great to see the local IE management getting the railway involved in the European City of Culture street theatre events. The event had major spin off effects for Glasgow and other cities that had suffered from poor press. Hopefully its good for Limerick as a city and some of the extra visitors arrive by train. The Giant Grandmother thing reminds me of a cross between Mrs Browne and in Gulliver's Travels'

Running a course to 'facilitate" Irish people to mix and mingle, a bit like selling snow to Eskimos

If you want to get something running quickly Marcway points with either SMP or C&L flexible track might be a workable alternative, they also build custom formations see Dave Holmans Arigna Town thread. Marcway normally use code 75bulheadrail soldered soldered to copper clad sleepers, with the chairs represented by blobs of solder, old technology, but a lot quicker and easier on the sanity and eyesight than threading on 1000s of chairs on a large layout

The Limerick-Tipperary section was opened in May 1848 two months before the GSWR line from Thurles. That single sided arrangement for large stations seems to have been common at the time Oxford, Cambridge, Bray is more convenient for passengers than crossing a footbridge and very handy for adding horseboxes, carriage, trucks and vans to passenger trains in era when most Irish passenger trains ran with a long string of vans. Besides the W&L & the GSWR did not exactly have good relations with the W&L blocking GSWR attempts to run to Limerick or divert traffic away from Waterford.

Besides the magazines Carstens published somewhat quaint landscape pictorials on many of the smaller American railroads, I came across a treasure trove of Casten paperbacks on Eastern roads in a Charring Cross Road bookshop about 20 yrs ago and later met the Carstens at a Chicago train show. A sad passing probably one of the last of the old style family publishing businesses.

Junctionmad: There are several good quality steam era photos and a pre-67 track layout in "The Waterford and Limerick Railway" CEL Feyer Oakwood Press 2000. It looks like the loop at Keane's Points was originally a siding, probably as a shunting neck for trains to an from Waterford while the section from Oolaor or Dromkeen was occupied. The station layout is similar to other single sided stations from the early railway era with up & down trains sharing a single long platform. The whole layout was designed around adding and removing coaches and vans to and from passenger trains with a minimum of shunting. I am not convinced of the merits of EM over OO for a layout of this nature. C&L & SMP both do OO gauge bullhead flexible track & Markway standard and custom built pointwork. OO has an advantage of a smaller minimum radius than either EM or 21mm in terms of curves and you are spared the chore of re-wheeling and possibly widening chassis. I work in both EM &21mm. Going back to the direct curve there may have been a subsidiary instrument out at Keane's Point's to allow a staff to be remotely released from the North Cabin for movements from the Direct Curve towards Limerick, or someone simply walked out with the staff.

TPO test build. Alternative sides and gangway blanking plates are provided to build the tool/riding van version. Some minor changes needed to the final photo tool the first batch of kits should be available November.

A 1953 built Brake Standard 1904 and Laminate Standard 1442 appears to have been the ‘official” Ballina coaches in the 70s and early 80s, both were fitted with storage heaters so the train could be operated without a heating van. Earlier some C class diesels were fitted with ETH equipment for use with a handful of early GSR composites fitted with electric heating. Although similar in general appearance most early CIE coaches were slightly longer and had different window arrangements to the LMS Stanier stock. Rather than carve up an expensive Bachmann or Hornby model I have designed brass overlay sides "shrunk to fit" the inexpensive Dapol Stanier composite http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/showthread.php/3482-JM-Design-Coach-Sides-amp-TPO-kit

IE seems to have recently lifted all the yard trackage in North Esk https://www.flickr.com/photos/be216cd1/sets/72157626321868083. This would seem to go against any plans to use the yard as a Cork railfreight freight terminal

Great looking test pilot job on the flat Richie, really captures the look of a skeletal flat Des! Going back to the Hornby MK2As I have a sneaking suspicion I tried kitbashing a pair into Cravens back in the early 80s by cutting out the centre set of doors and gluing the two parts of the body together.

Brilliant find: Quite stylish almost a cocktail bar. I am definitely tempted to do an interior, probably nickel silver. Miller Engineering pushed the boundaries with this sort of thing in Z & N http://jamesriverbranch.net/project_7a.htm Iarnrod Four Buffet Cars seem to have lasted in service into 1987 most likely for Connolly-Sligo & Rosslare Trains. Most of the wooden bodied stock were withdrawn in the early 80s, several of the side corridor standards passed into preservation 1st with the GSRPS in Mallow & Tralee, some were overhauled & repainted in lined green with flying snail at Tralee and were eventually used by Westrail between Tuam & Athenry.

Kevin Good to hear you have decided to take the plunge to Code 75, it easier to work with than Code 100 and looks one hell of a lot better. I used Code 75 on an American HO layout the running was very good and it looked fine. The Dapol or Wenn wagons should be fine, in the long run it will pay you to change to metal tyred wheels (sounds better and results in cleaner track. It should be simple to re-wheel with Hornby, Bachmann or Jackson or even Gibson wheels. Intercity Models Superoller wheels seem to be the best option for re-wheeling Lima wagons with their short 24.5mm axles, and dirt magnet wheels with deep flanges. http://www.intercitymodels.com/Superollers.html

The test etches for the 4w TPO kit & Buffet Car sides arrived last week. Some minor modifications required to the TPO tooling otherwise everything looks good. TPO with alternative sides for engineers tool van. Buffet Car Sides Dapol Stanier CIE Buffet Conversion Side Corridor Standard Mock-up. The Buffet Car and Side Corridor Standard sides should be available October. The first batch of TPO kits November. If there is enough interest I will produce an interior kit for the buffet complete with bar counter and tables and chairs.

Alphagrafix no web site but advertises in the railway magazine (23 Darris Road, Selly Park, Birmingham, B29 7QY, England) produces card kits of Irish buildings and steam era rolling stock. Several articles on assembling the kits in New Irish Lines http://newirishlines.org/tag/alphagraphix/

I started tracklaying on the latest version of Bankfoot about 3 weeks ago based on ideas in Iain Rices trackwork book. Progress ground to a standstill when I could not find my track gauges. General view of the station and yard The buildings are the Wills small station and goods shed kits, similar in general size to some of the smaller branch line and light railway stations in the Welsh Border country, the layout will be modelled as a goods only branch kept going by traffic from the quarry and the odd wagon load of coal or fertiliser for the goods yard. The wagons were built from a mixture of Airfix mineral wagon kits and the much more recent Parkside Ore Tippler. Trackwork is prefabricated on a sheet of kraft paper on the work bench before laying in place on the baseboards. First the Templot track templates are glued in place spray mount, sleepers or flexible track laid on a bed of PVA and ballast scattered in place. Sleepers/crossing timbers are ply stained with a water based wood stain, excess ballast is brushed vacuumed off before dropping in the rails. The C&L chairs are threaded onto the rails then glued down to the sleepers using Plastic Weld or Butnol. This is not as tedious as it first seems, the secret is to first file/sand any burrs or rough edges off the end of the rail before threading on the chairs and work on the little and often principal, points can be built quite quickly.

I managed to convince myself that I saw 207 Liffey at some time between first hearing “She loves me” and “Satisfaction”so definitely post 1963. A master for a resin UG should be fairly straight forward to produce. Alternatively if you can find a builder the Worsley Works UG might be a workable alternative for batch building, especially if it can be made to fit on a Bachmann SECR C Class chassis.

Definitely worth a field trip to West Cork apart from lifting the track very little seems to have changed since the track was lifted in the 1960s. http://eiretrains.com/Photo_Gallery/Railway%20Stations%20C/Courtmacsherry/IrishRailwayStations.html. There are some very atmospheric photos of the line in Ernie Shepherds CBSCR book. The branch is probably the nearest thing in Ireland to lines like the KSER, Mid Suffolk & Tanat Valley corrugated iron buildings very light construction. Courtmacsharry would make an attractive model with the main street as a backdrop, single slighty curved platform road, run round, two sidings one to pier, loco shed, small goods shed. Timoleague station curving layout squeezed in between the Abbey and town, seems to have been the operating hub of the line, cattle bank, carriage, loco shed/workshop on down side, single platform goods yard on up town side of line. The station site is now a car park. Colour photos of T&C in both editions Irish Railways in Colour Steam to Diesel Tom Ferris (Midland Publishing) incl. brand new C Class at Timoleague on excursion, J26 on beet working late 50s including a great shot of Timoleague yard full of wagons and trucks transferring beet.

I went the opposite way accidently building a MGWR 6 coach possibly I S scale from a drawing in Model Railway magazine, I only noticed something looked when I built a matching pair of coaches from a drawing in a later edition of the magazine. I transferred the dimensions directly off the drawings without checking the scale.

I though for a moment that Laurie was announcing a rtr Vs 4-4-0 http://transportsofdelight.smugmug.com/RAILWAYS/IRISH-RAILWAYS/GREAT-NORTHERN-RAILWAY-IRELAND/17846660_NWbrJP#!i=1744829757&k=ZTq6jCm. I have managed to convince myself that I saw 207 in action on the main line, my first loco a a chisler in the early 60s GLR3D Model Design seem to have mastered the art of 3D design with this van and the GNR full brake all that's needed is a couple of non-corridor coaches and a few bread vans to make up a typical Irish North passenger train. Surprisingly kits of most of the common loco classes are available in kit form from SSM, Worsley Works and GLR3D. The little GLR JT tank appears to be a reasonably simple to build model for the beginner and ideal for the Belturbet branch. The blue liveried S & U Class 4-4-0s added a splash of colour, S worked to Enniskillen on a GAA special and possibly other excursions, while the modern U class regularly worked daily the Bundoran Express through from Dundalk. The SSM PP 4-4-0 and SG and AL 0-6-0 are suitable goods engines.