Mayner

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

Agree the curved points off the main line on that could have been constant radius curves placed slightly future south rather than reversing angle for higher speed ops. The whole track plan with all the reversing and shunting to get on and off the waterford platform seems crazy, not to mention the scissors instead of a down mainline platform on the other side. I wonder why the Limerick-Waterford line was not laid to converge parallel to the mainline and then diverge again rather than an almost right angle cross over. The time saving on operations would have been so much easier and with a less expensive track layout. This was the practice at most UK junctions where two counrty lines were crossing at right angles to each other.

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.

Super work John, I will certainly be ordering the Tpo and the sides for Buffet car , it would be great if you could do the interior for the Buffet car.[ATTACH=CONFIG]14684[/ATTACH]

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.

Now, why would I want to announce a rtr Class VS? I've already got one! Colm Flanagan has made about half a dozen for various of us over the last or so.

 

If you guys look up the link John has highlighted, I hope that you realise that the main photo isn't "Merlin" ( a Class V) but almost certainly No.207 after the UTA bought it in 1963.

 

John, I've noted your version of an Irish North train. Give me a while and I'll marshall it upstairs and see if I can persuade the camera to photo it.

 

Leslie

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.

I did a test build, as you suggested, and discovered I was building in HO. Oops, scaling error.

Making some changes now.

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.

Brilliant stuff Tara & Valarie seem to have found a winning formula of using a the branch line railway as a vehicle to launch a performing arts project. It will be interesting see I the evening train ride develops into a regular thing nice way to unwind after a busy day/week, a couple of drinks would go down very well with the food and conversation.

It might be worth while looking at getting a Silhouette Cutter! I would recommend preparing a template drawing for one wagon and doing a test build to check fits and minimum width/sizes for strappings and other details, to avoid repetitive errors before batch building.

If you haven't gotten to deep with TurboCad it might be worth trying Draftsight its free 2D software http://www.3ds.com/products-services/draftsight/overview/.

The main disadvantage is that the TurboCAD is that the file format is incompatible with the programmes used in photo etching, laser cutting and 3D printing and its necessary to export the file to a dxf. or a 3d modelling format which can result in all sorts of interesting problems.

The 071s were delivered in a slightly darker richer shade of orange to that used for other locos and coaches. They were more intensively used than other classes and tended to be look a lot darker as they were usually covered in road grim.

Good to see those old H&M controllers still going strong.

A little information on the plough wagon. 3409m bought 1924 possibly war surplus built by a Belgian company 40 ton capacity 60' long bogies 49' centres.

I read somewhere think it was IRN that its planned to permanently close central cabin and control movements to and from the platform lines from the Waterford Check Cabin. The Line to Belview appears to be worked as an extension of the goods yard.

From an operational point of view modernising/rationalising the signalling at Waterford is long overdue.

I suppose the big question is whether the citizens of Waterford or the rail users & the NTA pay for the preservation of the cabin,IE is basically broke.

Spudfan

Any idea what's the purpose of the machine that looks like a loco with hydraulic jacks?

The underframe looks very light for a loco. The yellow machine with caterpillar tracks, dozer blade and Hiab crane is used for preparing the trackbed and laying track, saw one operating at Boora in the 90s

Not your regular excursionists I love it some very cool and happening people!

Could make the branch a trendy venue for cultural events and parties. IE might even get Arts & Heritage Council funding.