Mayner

Adayoyle/Aghadavoyle was a popular location for models before Tony Miles built his Adavoyle layout during the 1960s/early70s a Model Railway Society of Ireland committee member had a OO gauge Adavoyle layout at at time models of Irish railways were extremely uncommon. 

I never got to see the layout, but saw some of the locos and stock, very much in the scratchbuilt body on a modified rtr chassis school of modelling. I picked up an O Scale Clogher Valley 0-4-2T on a triang Jinty chassis when the club disposedof his models. Loco body was a reasonable model in card and timber, but I wanted the chassis for a OO gauge project.

Have IE/Shannon Foynes Port Company identified an actual freight flow/customer or allocated funding for terminal facilities when the line re-opens in 2025?

Not much of interest in the way of shunting or the loading operation at Navan, the Dublin Port unloading operation is much more interesting with a lot more shunting.

Basically the entire train of wagons is loaded inside a big shed, the only shunting as such is the loco running round the train.

The entire Tara Mines operation was covered in an Irish Railfreight Video published by Paul Shannon during the early the 1990s, its possible Markle Associates may be able to help.

On the face of it Autumn makes sense relatively quiet time of year for cropping farmers and historically relatively dry settled weather conditions. 

The NZ Fieldays largest agricultural event in the Southern Hemisphere aimed mainly at the at the pastoral and forestry sectors held June (early winter) during the quiet period before the calving and lambing seasons when farmers have to work around the clock.. The Fieldays held in a permanent event centre is not as muddy as the ploughing https://www.fieldays.co.nz/attend-fieldays/about-fieldays

I built a small 4mm (EM gauge) industrial layout using C&L bull head track in a small apartment in the UK about 30 years ago!

Pointwork handlaid using their abs chairs and sleepers and plain trackwork using C&L flexible track, fairly straightforward to use layout operated at home and at a number of exhibitions in Ireland and the UK including Warley

As Horsetan indicated can work out expensive, especially if you use their pre-formed switch blades and crossing assemblies.

Peco ready to lay Bullhead track system would probably be a better option if you are working in OO https://peco-uk.com/blogs/news/bullhead-oo-fine-scale-code-75-track

Interestingly the chaired track is not too noticeable at normal viewing distance

7 hours ago, Westcorkrailway said:

Your right. If regular engines could be converted to hydrogen with relitive ease on tractors, trucks or even cars. It would cut out the huge proportion of co2 burned in producing a new engine while making current engines last a little bit longer as well as be great for the environment 

Its being done in New Zealand one transport company is trailing a dual-fuel diesel-hydrogen truck for long haul work using the existing engine https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/131659022/southlandbased-transport-company-launches-dual-fuel-truck-powered-by-diesel-and-hydrogen-gas while hydrogen diesel conversions are being trialled on short haul waste disposal and civil engineering work in Auckland. Meanwhile Huyandi is pushing fuel cell technology with its Xcient range of trucks https://www.hyundai.co.nz/trucks/xcient/fuel-cell?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9-qCsqywgQMV_R-DAx2MtAs8EAAYASAAEgJJKfD_BwE

The fuel is carried in cassette/container mounted behind the cab on the diesel conversions, probably need a fuel tender (not unlike the Union Pacific Gas Turbines) for a diesel loco to run from the West of Ireland to Waterford and back.

Don't think there is the traffic density to justify main line electrification in Ireland, though battery for passenger trains seems to be a no-brainer after all a Drumm Battery Train managed Amiens St-Gorey and back 90 years ago, before introducing battery trains into regular service on Dublin suburban duties.

Crude as hell I normally used flatbottom rail soldered to copperclad sleepers to represent flatbottom jointed track and bullheard rail with abs plastic chairs and sleepers for bullhead.

I dropped a clanger of spacing the Yard tracks too close to the running line and struggled with getting double slip points to work!

The main weakness was that I struggled to build a workable 21mm gauge layout within a 7'6" x1'6" space with 1:6 points, the same space is now occupied by a OO gauge Timesaver shunting layout which uses Peco small radius points and a run round loop and fiddle yard long enough for a Bo Bo diesel and 4-5 wagons.

The MM B141 runs on Ultrascale EM profile wheels, stock mixture of modified OO wagon kits on Gibson wagon wheels on extended axles.

If I was starting out again I would probably work to Double O Gauge Society Intermediate rather than EM standards, allowing stock IRM/MM/Bachmann wheels to be used, the increased OO running clearances potentially allow main line locos and stock to run through smaller radius curve/crossing angle than using EM or P4 standards

Less is more in a way, the backscene with the coastline and hill really brings the layout to life.

My first proper job was as an Apprentice Barman for about four weeks in 1973 after I completed the Inter Cert before one of my teachers persuaded my parents to send me back to do the Leaving.

After being shown how to pull a pint my first customer was a builder who paid for a pint with a Scottish £20 note that I thought was play money, the bar manager was pleased when I asked him about the note and the customer took it in good part and was happy with his pint.

At the time bar trade was unionised at the time strictly male only and took family connections to get the job, I was technically minded wanting to go into engineering but ended up in construction management and regularly got to spend Scottish banknotes 20 years later!

Think Dublin Dairies and TEK used horse drawn milk floats into the 60s. Some smaller Dublin Market traders and coal men used horses into the 70s-80s, there are tales of travelers and traders taking their horses in the lifts of Ballymun Flats, before the 'urban youth horse" culture developed into a major phenomon on the 'praries"  on the Council Estates on the outskirts of Dublin City during the late 80s and 90s.

On 7/9/2023 at 9:25 AM, jhb171achill said:

Numerous narrow gauge variations in a number of South American countries…. 3ft, metre, 3’6”….

Depends on whether you consider the CIE 121 Class a variant of the General Motors GL 8 and GA 8 export model or vice versa because some variants share a common cab design.

The B121s are considered to he a high cab variant of the GL8 model of which 96 Bo-Bos appear to have been supplied in total including 69 to Brazil (metre gauge), 15 Ireland, 12 Tunisia, 53 A1A A1A  12 Taiwan & 41  Bangladesh, 12 Co Co Queensland Australia (3'6'

The 96 (5'3") Victorian Railways (Australia) T Class (Variant EMDG8 built under licensein Austraia) are considered to have been the inspiration for the GL8 and B121 Class

The 94 GA 8 export locos ran on wagon trucks (bogies) with two traction motors mounted in the loco body used mainly in Central and South America.

Not to be outdone Australia produced a 600hp 3'6" gauge Bo Bo loco which looked similar to the B121 Class

Rtr models and kits may be available of the Victorian T and various GL & GA 8 variants in HO Scale, one of the big surprises was that Australian modellers and manufacturers like their American counterparts model the standard gauge in HO scale.

15 hours ago, Patrick Davey said:

FILE UNDER: HOWLERS

Sometimes you just have to put your hands up and admit you made a complete mess of things....

Yesterday, I completed two of @leslie10646's fabulous new GNR wagons, and even if I do say so myself, I didn't do too badly as there was a decent even finish with the Halfords primer, and I took extra care to get the decals positioned properly before sealing everything with matt varnish.  So far so good...

These were intended for the sand traffic at Clogherhead so I put some of the actual sand into each wagon, thinking it would be a good idea to drop in some dilute PVA glue and let it set overnight......

Sorry Leslie.........

 

 

 

Interesting . 

I use removable wagon loads, in this case coal glued with PVA to thick plasticard and a stripwood packing piece.

Wagon body was cast in resin part of a rake of 8, 10 years dust and pet dander has taken the sheen off the coal!

On 30/8/2023 at 12:44 AM, minister_for_hardship said:

Good looking locos, but according to the GSR reports, rather a lot of duds. Dated, sluggish runners and poor steamers in the ex MGWR stud.

G2 and J26 classes are probably the pick of the bunch in terms of usefulness and longevity, although both were tiny little things. Excluding the Woolwiches as not being an in-house design.

Its likely that some of the criticism of ex-Midland locos in the GSR/CIE as sluggish and poor steamers may have been due to the lack of familarity with Midland locos on the Southern and at Inchacore.

With a few exceptions ex-MGWR 2-4-0s on DSER and Bray Suburban trains, a pair of 0-6-0s a Standard Goods and a Cattle engine on loan to Waterford for the Beet Season and the successful use of ex-MGWR Cs Class 4-4-0s on Kingsbridge-Nenagh-Limerick trains during the 1930s, ex-MGWR locos worked the majority of goods and passenger trains on the Midland until displaced by railcars and diesels.

Jack O'Neil describes his first 1946 run as a fireman on 540 assisting the down Galway Mail from Mullingar to Athlone, talks about the rough riding (Woolwich Moguls also had a bad reputation) advised if he had false teeth to take them out when getting on!

Described the loco as free steaming and easy to fire and a steady runner until "notched up beyond 65%" (worked hard)

Jack's last fired one of the Class "being worked to death" on DSER suburban service "until no longer safe to be on the road" in 1954 .

Also notes a high speed (70max) 1954 run with 543 on the "Caddagh" (Dublin-Galway via Portarlington) a precursor of the Cu na Mara" railcar express of the 50s and 60s and a 1939 run on a Limerick-Kingsbridge via Nenagh with 60mph running.

The MGWR large 4-4-0s appear to have been designed as mixed traffic locos capable of hauling heavy passenger and livestock trains, the locos had smaller 6'3"  driving wheels and the valve gear was set up differently to the GSWR  6'7" 4-4-0s which were designed for high speed running on the Cork Main line. The MGWR 4-4-0s would have had to be worked harder to achieve a similar speed which would have also increased maintenance costs.

It likely that overloading and a backlog of maintenance became a significant problem during the CIE era as train frequencies were reduced in an attempt to control CIEs worsening financial position and overloading was identified as a significant problem with the Woolwich Moguls and rebuilding of some Moguls as 4-6-0s Woolwich cylinders and motion, 400 Class boilers was actually proposed

On 25/8/2023 at 12:26 AM, Irishswissernie said:

I have just realised that I am away tomorrow entertaining relations (including 5 year old granddaughter so definitely no free time! We are, so I'm told on diverging Learning Curves ) so I have added these to flickr today.

Wexford Shed, 543 minus its front bogie wheels and 87, 5 July 1954.

Ennis D14, 93 on 8.55am Galway - Limerick passing the West Clare sidings 23 September 1953.

Cork City Railway, C7 317 heads for Kent station 10 June 1952.

CDRJC (NCC) Londonderry, Victoria Road, 5, 'Drumboe' 12 July 1954.

  

 

Interesting photo of 543 formerly MGWR C Class No10 "Faugh-a-Ballagh" at Wexford in 1954. The Class had a reputation of rough riding being considered top heavy and poorly sprung, its possible the bogie is out for attention to a bearing.

CIE converted an ex-GNR DUTC AEC Regal bus into a railbus during Howden's brief period as CIE General Manager before becoming UTA Chairman.

CIE seems to have lost interest after Howdens departure, like the UTA no need for railbuses or branch line railways when it could operate its own bus and road freight services. Oddly Thurles-Clonmel was one of the few bus routes licensed to a private operator after the railway closed, CIE found the Thurles-Clonmel route unprofitable and licensed the service to a private operator.

Don't know if anything is available with a similar roof profile destination board arrangement.

Haven't had time to do anything on the model railway front since the beginning of June, though I recently managed to dust North Wharf off for a short operating session using A23r as motive power rather than the usual B121 which revealed a problem with buffer locking with the larger loco and wagons running through Peco Small Radius points.

The backstorey was that Northwharf remained open for goods traffic after regular services ceased in the early 70s, an Ar supplied to work a special of imported animal feedstuff" and shunt the yard after a ship was diverted to Northwharf as a result of a storm.

Looking the part train made up and ready to depart behind A23r.

A considerable amount of shunting was involved in making up the train as only 3 wagons at a time could be loaded at the "Mill"

Buffer locking developing as A23r begins to propel a cut of wagons over the crossover between the main running line and loop (Kadee 19 Coupler)

Buffers now locked with wagons propelled through crossover onto loop, de-railment likely if loco continues to propel wagons.

Loco and wagons buffers and couplings in normal position. Loco was uncoupled from the wagons during the shunt and the wagon moved with a pinch bar.

Lesson ban 6 axle diesels from North Wharf! The model Metrovicks tended to be a bit clumsy for shunting and more importantly took up more space on the traverser than the Bo Bos reducing the train length for 4-3 wagons.

The main reason for using the small radius points was to fit the "Timesaver" track layout into the available space!

Curiously Jack Kennedy spoke about the SLNCR 0-6-4Ts regularly bufferlocking when shunting the yards, giving the photographers plenty of time to compose/set up their photos!

On 27/8/2023 at 1:44 AM, Bob229 said:

Excellent looking forward to seeing  Macmine junction and Scully Dock,  saw Rathmichael at WMRC Apr Exhibition a great show. Fine work by John Walker

Great to hear that John Walker is still producing fine work after all those years, first came across John's work with his Ballinagee Layout over 40 years ago, the the time there was virtually no commercial support for Irish modelling, buildings, structurers, locos and stock were mainly scratchbuilt or heavily modified rtr.

The main exceptions would have been the Woolwich (Wills whitemetal kit) and re-painted Palitoy LMS corridor coaches, the steam locos which included ex-DSER 0-6-0  442 and ex-WLWR 2-4-0 290 (Enniscorthy Pilot Loco) were built in plasticard with Arfix tender drive and scratchbuilt non-powered loco chassis

On 18/8/2023 at 11:16 AM, Patrick Davey said:

You've heard of folks going snowboarding, or paddle boarding.... well today I went 'foamboarding'..... building up the terrain on my new layout:

 

 

 

 

The pavilion on the slightly foamboard has a nice windswept East Coast atmosphere of where the Central Plain meets the Irish Sea in Meath and Louth with the station 'in the middle of "no where" between the village and the sea/quay with the plain falling off steeply to the sea. 

I'd think a less is more approach might be the most effective with just railway buildings, big sky backscene possibly church spire and roofs of buildings in village in background, there is not a lot to be seen along the coast from Rush to Drogheda and Gormonstown Station was a pretty good study in rural seaside isolation.

Yaal have to work on the Louth dialect for the railway people and locals, spent a day working with railway people from the area thought they were speaking a foreign language maybe French.

1 hour ago, StevieB said:

A lovely video. There’s an interesting reference to the role of the Stormont government in the closure programme of the 1950’s. It wasn’t interested in anything outside of the six counties, very inward looking. I’m not sure if that view has changed in some parts of unionism. Apologies if I have strayed into a no-go area but it was part of the video.

Stephen

One of the more interesting provisions of the Great Northern takeover agreement was that the Republic could subsidise loss making rail services in Northern Ireland if Stormont declined and vice versa. Merrion Street was equally inward looking declining to subsidise the "Border Lines' in Northern Ireland when it had the opportunity, which would have been a major good will gesture towards Northern Ireland and support for the Border Region (on both sides of the border) at relatively little cost. Ironically the Northern Ireland minister of transport who presided over the 1950s closures was from the economically liberal wing of unionism which favoured improved community relations within Northern Ireland and improved relations with the Republic.

The Northern Ireland Government was opposed to subsidising the railways as they believed correctly that the could not be made to operate at a profit, while UTA road services could be made to "pay its way" The UTA was not slow about opening up cross border bus and intercity coach routes or carrying cross border road freight traffic.

On 18/8/2023 at 12:28 AM, leslie10646 said:

Sorry, John, it definitely says it's a KIT!

It would be a daft CR loco to do - just five of them.

I was sure (over ten years ago) that Hornby would do a CR "Dunalastair Class 4-4-0. Still waiting!

Saw Hattons and automatically assumed it was rtr, though I bought a few Gem locos kits from Hattons "back in the day"

Actual no's of locos built of popularity of a particular loco often seems to have little to do with a manufacturers/commissioners choice of a particular model the Triang "Nellie" was apparently inspired by the LSWR C14 not exactly a large or well known class and the recent Hornby Hush-Hush a "one off"

With the intense competition in the British model railway market whether Hornby Hobbies under its current owners  focuses its energies away from model railways towards the high turnover toy end of the the market.

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

I’m afraid I never got round to lining it out, coal in the bunker and so on. It’s built as a double bogie, out of necessity to go round curves.

Similar to the LGB G Gauge American Forney loco, curiously the GSWR built at least on of its 0-4-4BT locos as a Fairlie (double bogie) but appears to have been withdrawn/re-built before the "Amalgamation"

The majority of our wagons are available in undecorated form on pre-order.

I am currently unable to supply rtr decorated wagons or undertake loco/stock building commissions as a result of family commitments.

https://jmdesignmodelrailways.com/

It looks like Hattons a planning to introduce a OO Gauge rtr Caledonian 2-6-0 

Went through a phase of assembling kits of 'modern" British outline steam locos about 20 odd years ago only for Hornby or Bachmann to release a rtr model 6-12 months later. Never thought anyone would introduce a model of a Scottish 2-6-0

https://www.hattons.co.uk/directory/vehicledetails?id=3144935

As they say a picture or a couple of pictures are worth a thousand words.

DSER 2-6-0 originally planned as a large boilered 0-6-0, boiler diameter reduced and pony truck fitted.

GSWR 2-6-0 358 originally built 1903 as an 0-6-0  re-built 1907 as a 2-6-0 later re-built with GSR cab and large belpair boiler.

A rather Scottish looking locomotive?

K3 357 originally built 1903 as an 0-6-0 rebuilt with Belpair boiler and GSR cab

K4 359 built as a 2-6-0 1909 rebuilt with Belpair boiler and Inchacore cab 1935

Chief spotting difference between the K3 and K4 seems to have been the framing at the front end and cab roof profile

1 hour ago, Rob R said:

There was a question a few posts back  about the livery of WLWR wagons, the 2 in Ernie Sheperds book from the Gloucester Carriage and Wagon Co are shown varnished timber with black ironwork and lettering.

Here is one of the cattle trucks in service still with the black lettering and presumeably the varnished timber weathered down so that it looks grey.

All the other wagons in these photos and others are lettered in white so presumeably it was just the GWC batch.

Donkey 01

Donkey 02

I have put both links in as the people have moved around between photos uncovering different bits of the wagons.

The HMRS have the underframe drawing for these cattle vans

Cattle van underframe

The cattle wagon looks relatively modern by the standards of the time a 14' Van similar in appearance to the GNR(I) vans built into the 1950s, a wooden top rail rather than a metal rail at door head level and solid planked sides appear to be the main spotting diffrences.

4 hours ago, Rob R said:

Hi, I hope you don't mind me resurrecting an oldish thread.

In the National Library of Ireland online photo collection there are some nice WLWR period views of Foynes.

This one (when you zoom in) shows the tail end of a brake van, presumeably WLWR as all the other visible stock is WLWR.

Foynes

Zoomed in

A different type of van is clearly visable in a couple of later views but as they were taken in early GSWR days it may well be from that company not the WLWR

Another Foynes view

Another GSWR? Brake Van

The Brake Vans two different designs on with/one without veranda appear similar in construction and outline to a MGWR design dating from the 187O. Martin Atock held the post of Waterford and Limerick Locomotive Superintendent for 11 years before moving to the Midland in 1872 and may have designed the Brake Vans in the photos.

The 'Covered Wagon" beside the crane in the second photo appears to be a MGWR design, the other covered wagons appear to be GSWR with their distinctive end framing with a single post supporting the roof.

I think most of the wagons on Richard Chown's Castle Rackrent layout were based on British Rolling Stock Manufacturers drawings from UK museum collections.