Mayner

After an almost classic tailchaser with Patrickswell I looked at Fenit as a sleepy branch line terminus. I initially looked at including Spa with its beet siding and treating the Harbour Commissioners line as part of the hidden staging, but eventually decided to omit Spa and include a representation of the pier and its railway. [attachment=:name] The layout is a lot more challenging in terms of trackwork and operation compared to Patrickswell, with little in the way of structures, the footbridge and lifeboat station weer the most prominent structures on the mainland & a rather plain looking warehouse on the quay. The backscene would be a challenge a panorama including the Dingle Peninsula and Tralee Bay. The layout is essentially a scenic shunting plank, with operation mainly around shunting wagons between the station yard and the Pier. Traditionally small tank locos were used for shunting the pier, the Harbour Commissioners bought Hunslet industrial saddle tank which was passed on to the GSWR as 299, an ex MGWR J26 from the Waterford & Tramore was the last steam loco used until replaced by G & D Class diesels. The small rail mounted steam cranes used into the 70s were probably the most distinctive part of the operation and a challenge to model. Locos and stock used seems to have been mainly restricted to standard small GSWR types in steam days, there is a photo of a J15 with a train of 6 wheel coaches in a photo before passenger services were withdrawn in 1934. CIE provided seaside trains on Summer Sundays running the Sunday Tralee service through to Fenit. Traffic from the harbour mainly appears to have been spasmodic coal and timber for Tralee and presumably other destinations in Kerry. The harbour struggled financially, the Pier was closed to commercial traffic during much of the 1949s & 50s due to structural problems with the causeway which connects the pier with the main land. The final traffic on the Fenit branch and Western end of the North Kerry was sugar beet from Fenit, Spa, Ardfert and Abbeydorney to the Tuam factory during the 1977 campaign. For a modeller starting in 21mm gauge the Murphy Models B141 and DC Kits G Class with a 28:1 Blackbeetle Motor bogie would be a good option to get things running before venturing into kit or scratchbuilding.

The main purpose of the planning exercise was to see if it was feasible to fit an American style walk around design layout inside an 11'x17'6" garage. The idea definitely seems feasible in N and just about possible in OO though probably better off in American N or HOn3 given the amount of rolling stock building required for an Irish layout of this nature. In 21mm gauge it seems to be basically own to a simple through station on a continuous run or a U or L shaped terminus to fiddle yard effort, the larger radius curves required by the finer scale standards basically eat up space. It is sometimes said that it is easier to build a double than a single track layout in a small space, I have slightly modified Patrickwell as an example of a small but operationally interesting station for a continuous run layout in 21mm gauge. [attachment=:name] The station was on a gentle curve in a plain but visually attractive setting with a natural viewing point from the south with the station building and signal cabin in the background. Patrickswell was the junction between two single lines where the line to Croom and Charleville (The Cork Limerick Direct) diverged from the North Kerry. The two single lines ran side by side westwards from the station for approximately on mile giving the impression of double track, at the eastern end of the station a headshunt to the goods yard trailed back on the up side towards Limerick also giving the impression of a double line. The track layout was extremely simple with 3 points a crossover between the Croom line and The North Kerry and a siding trailing back from the headshunt to a loading bank, in later years the home of a crippled CIE brake van and an ex GNR covered goods wagon. In GSWR days the signal cabin was on the South side of the line opposite the junction crossovers, but replaced with a standard GSR concrete hipped roofed cabin further west on the platform following Civil War damage. At some stage a second crossover existed which allowed trains from the Croom line to run directly to the headshunt and the goods yard also had a second siding. These appear to have been lifted at some stage before the Croom line closed in 1967. Although simple a layout based on Patrickswell could be interesting to operate mainly for through train operation than shunting, with trains operating along the single line from Limerick in prototype fashion before diverging onto the North Kerry or Croom lines or even using the double crossovers to allow double line operation between Limerick and Patrickswell or watching trains go round on a double line. In the diesel era the Croom line was an important freight link between Cork and Limerick for a regular overnight goods and cement specials until Limerick Junction was re-modelled in 67, Patrickswell seems to have been busy as a block post and used for crossing oil and mineral trains during the Foynes freight boom era of the 60s 70s closing in 87. Although no loop was provided the layout was signalled to allow trains from Limerick to run directly onto the stub of the Croom line or from Ballingarne onto the headshunt at the Limerick end. The first train to arrive would presumably do the shunt, with the second running through. Modelling the steam era would involve a lot of scratch or kit building the SSM GSWR 101, 6w coaches and whitemetal wagons would be a good start, the pre-amalgamation era has developed something of a cult following in the UK with Paul Greenes S Scale GSWR layout and the WLWR in 7mm with Richard Chowns Castlerackrent system and David Walkers Killanney. A pre-amalgamation Patrickswell with GSWR green locos and purple lake coaching stock contrasting with WLWR Crimson Lake and well maintained infrastructure, would make an interesting contrast with contemporary gritty reality of modelling. The final instalment of the saga will look at a number of options for a model based on Fenit hopefully including the pier line possibly with a little touch of Torpoint or Craig.

A narrow gauge railway was used for hauling out targets to the Curragh Camp rifle range. Does anyone know if it still exists?

Cravens originally had a reputation of being very rough riding compared to older stock. The coaches were very light and the B4 bogies used under the Cravens did not ride as well as a Commonwealth. At one sage a Craven was fitted with DB pattern bogies and additional weights to see if it would make ay difference. I like your description sausage slowly unravelling. Circular fluorescents used to up-grade the lighting from traditional light bulbs in a lot of the pre-Craven stock including Park Royals and Laminates. Not sure what lighting the Cravens had at first, had strip lighting when I started exploring the main lines in the mid 70s.

I noticed the price difference too, as I write this a pair of Maroon coaches should be winging their way south for evaluation. Possibly looking at a set of test etchings mid-September. The big decision at this point is whether to reproduce the window frames and cover slips over the panel joints in relief by half etching the sides similar to the Worsley Works Park-Royals or to engrave the outline similar to my Tin Van kits. It should be possible to buy the basic bits for a layout coach for around £30, with say another £10 for detailing (interior, castings, roof pipework, ventilators etc.

I noticed the price difference too, as I write this a pair of Maroon coaches should be winging their way south for evaluation. Possibly looking at a set of test etchings mid-September. The big decision at this point is whether to reproduce the window frames and cover slips over the panel joints in relief by half etching the sides similar to the Worsley Works Park-Royals or to engrave the outline similar to my Tin Van kits. It should be possible to buy the basic bits for a layout coach for around £30, with say another £10 for detailing (interior, castings, roof pipework, ventilators etc.

Just to whet the appetite a bit: 1339-55 Series Thirds 3201 Series BSGSV BSGV Thanks for that excellent summary of early CIE coaching stock. While there are issues with length and end profile I saw the re-introduction of the Stanier 60' coach in combination with overlays as a relatively painless and inexpensive way for modellers who might want to try their hand at kitbashing to add a bit of variety to their roster. Older stock was common on Dublin inner and outer suburban services up until the commissioning of the DART & Park Royal, Laminate and Craven stock with TL lighting were cascaded off the Intercity routes following the introduction of the MK3s. A typical outer suburban working to Drogheda or Dundalk would have been made up of 3-4 non TL fitted coaches and a brake standard steam heating van hauled by a B201

In a way the T&D is best supported of the Irish Lines with John Campbells large scale models a largish range of small size kits. I am not sure if the Branchlines locos and coaches are still available, while the 2-6-0T could be trick to build, the coaches were fairly straight forward and build into excellent models in 4 & 7mm http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/35253-dlts-ng-workbench-ww1-baldwin-tractor-neil-sayer-kit/ The two CVR coaches need fitting with interiors, glazing and lettering and the rather impossibly tall looking horsebox is in for a rebuild and re-paint, all that's needed is a tram loco or diesel tractor to pull them.

I have been looking at using the Airfix/GMR 60' Stanier coach as a donor body with etched brass sides for the 1st batch of main line coaches introduced by CIE in the 1950s. Dapol have released these coaches in kit form http://dapol.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=177_60_87_220&product_id=1319 Several coach types were produced including: Buffet Car, Open Second, Side Corridor Second, Side Corridor Composite, Brake Second (railcar driving trailer). The coaches were initially introduced to provide modern trailer stock to run with the AEC railcars and later were widely used as hauled stock on both main and branch lines. Many of the corridor coaches were converted to Brake Steam Generator Vans to replace the tin vans on suburban trains, a sizable number of these coaches made it into preservation with the GSRPS, WISRA and more recently the DCDR I am looking initially at sides for the Buffet and one of the Brake Steam Generator Vans to fit the Dapol body shell, with other varieties to follow if there is interest for 10 or more of each type. The basic idea is to supply sides only to fit the Dapol body shell, and produce a correct scale length/width body shell if there is sufficient interest. GSRPS Buffet Car Mallow 1984? CIE rebuilt many of its older buffet coaches including some former GSWR coaches with B4 bogies in the late 1960s http://www.cs.vintagecarriagestrust.org/se/CarriageInfo.asp?Ref=3340

The carriage shops have been kept busy overhauling and upgrading rolling stock with a 'new' passenger train for the narrow gauge and HOn3 couplings and SSM lettering for freight rolling stock. In the early 1950s CIE transferred an ex T&D van and a coach from the West Clare to the C&L for use on the main line, it looks like another set may have been transferred or the van strayed from the main line onto the Arigna-Sligo branch. The model is a Backwoods kit dating from around 94, more or less as built, airbrush painted in a Humbrol green and Railmatch weathered black. I need to replace the snail without damaging the paint work. The GSR/CIE "cascaded" several T&D bogie coaches to the West Clare to replace the indigenous 6 wheelers which were in turn replaced by diesel railcars. The T&D coaches seem to have been a standard narrow gauge design similar to coaches supplied to the Muskerry & North Wales Narrow Gauge. Although bogie the wooden longitudinal seats were unlikely to be an improvement on the West Clare 6 wheelers and original C&L bogie stock. The model is built from a Branchlines kit of a T&D 3rd class coach dating from the early 90s, the coach is shorter and quite different in window arrangement from the coach transferred to the C&L for main line use in the 1950s I think the body was painted with a motor aerosol and finally was recently fitted with floor, seating and glazing following complaints from passengers. The convertibles were originally built from Backwoods kits in early 96 in Carrick on Shannon and painted in automotive aerosol grey primer. Before lettering the models were coated with Clear Coat Gloss using the airbrush and sealed with Testors Dullcoat aerosol. Despite the run-down locos and coaches, C&L wagon stock seems to have been maintained to a reasonable standard right up to the end of narrow gauge operation. While passenger traffic was light on the Belturbet and Arigna lines general goods and coal traffic appears to have been reasonably heavy. SSM prepared a custom deal set enough for my current wagon fleet and some additions. Most of the stock is now fitted with Kadee HOn3 couplers, a bit fiddly to assemble but mush more reliable than the N Scale couplers previously used.

Like the Clonakilty branch in the 50s the rumours of lifting the Arigna-Sligo section appear at least a bit premature. The reserved section from the loco shed to the roadside section was quickly re-laid and trains are again running. 8L had the honours of taking the 1st westbound train with an urgent consignment from McArdles & PJ Carroll for Sligo with traffic diverted over the Belturbet Branch and C&L following the September 57 closure of the GNR lines through Enniskillen & the SLNCR main line. On the day the line through Keadue seems to have been fierce busy with 3T preparing to work the daily mixed to Sligo and 6T working a goods. [video=youtube;Lp-cfwBas1I] Meaning I have finally sorted out the control system for the yard using a combination of hand held analogue controllers, with switching between sections controlled by Blue Point point actuators and a few fascia mounted section switches.

Keeping Britain on Track Great behind the scenes series including the policing aspect. Perhaps RTE or UTV might do something similar on Irelands railway and public transport operations.

The TPO is at design stage with artwork prepared with alternative parts for the TPO and Heuston Tool van versions. I am looking at expressions of interest/orders for a minimum of 10 vans before proceeding further. The kits will be in a similar price range to the Heating Van & Luggage van, and include an etched brass body, underframe and roof, whitemetal detail castings, top hat bearings & NMRA RP25 disc wheelsets set for OO gauge.

Probably as much to do with politics as economics. In the long term Serbia is more likely to source new locos and stock from Russia or European build, than repair/upgrade Tito era GM power. To a certain extent the turbo charged 645 engine used in the 071 and other similar classes like the SD39-2 & NZR DFT is now considered to be obsolete with railways moving to more fuel efficient Caterpillar, MTU & GE power. Locally Kiwi Rail seems to be running down the DFT fleet dating from 1980 while continuing to upgrade older GEs to run alongside modern MTU powered CNR built locos.

Kieran Love the MPDs the cut an shuffle from rtr hauled stock is totally in keeping with the prototype & the UTA approach to designing relatively advanced diesel trains with very limited resources.

I think British Transport Police have some officers allocated to general policing and crowd control duties in the major city stations and also an investigation and education role around public safety/trespassing. BTC regularly visit schools in areas where there are reports of children trespassing or playing chicken at level crossings. When there was plenty of staff on the ground CIE checkers and porters managed crowd control/public safety. I remember a couple of rather well built Kerry railwaymen shepherding passengers onto trains at Killarney about 20 years ago when Kerry was playing in Croke Park and everyone else was visiting Kerry for the holidays.

CIE had plans for a city centre "Transportation Centre" in the area around Halfpenny Bridge as part of a 70s metro plan and bought up a lot of property in the Temple Bar area. I think the metro was part of an integrated transport plan for the Greater Dublin area with heavy rail services and dedicated busways and motorways to serve the new town centres planned for Tallagh, Clondalkin, Blanchardstown, Ballymun and the Airport. The metro and dedicated busways were dropped in the 80s combination of opposition to investment in public transport and an attempt to capitalise on the "Left Bank" environment which emerged in Temple Bar when CIE began renting building to art groups and artisans. The rest is history with the Taoiseach Charlie Haughey's personal opposition "over my dead body" to a bus station in Temple Bar and setting up a development corporation providing tax breaks to investors in hotels and clubs in the area. In the 90s IE looked at diverting Southern, Western and Belfast intercity services into a new "Central" North Wall station. I suppose at the time £100m to re-develop Heuston and the prospect of a future income stream from the Spencers Dock development seemed more attractive than building a North Wall Intercity Station.

The plan as dawn just about works in OO with a minimum radius of 2', but would work/look better in a larger space. In 21mm gauge a larger minimum radius of around 3'6" would restrict me to a conventional around the wall scheme with an oval or folded or the traditional U shaped terminus fiddle yard scheme. Keeping the width of the baseboard down to 1'6"-2' can be advantage in an around the wall scheme, making the layout look longer and more circulating space for operators/visitors. I have an 8X4 work bench in the middle of the layout room. One around the room layout I have visited is an O Gauge mountain railway with basically an oval with floor to ceiling scenery another HO American marshalling yard with a branch line serving several industries. both with a large circulating space in the middle

Amazing stuff 33Lima hard to believe what can be achieved kit bashing plastic body shells. Impressed with the standard of finish and detailing especially the ends complete with jumper cables. Takes me back to one of my first journey on NIR an IRRS tour in a 70 Class set from York Road to Larne & Whitehead, lunch with the NIR driver and guard, reversed on the main line at Bleach Green and over the viaduct to a tightly timed connection with an 80 Class set on a Belfast bound train at Antrim connect into the Enterprise at Lisburn a great day out.

Interesting example of a crossing station squeezed into a tight space between a viaduct and a tunnel. The main line at the South end of the station is set for the siding to provide a margin of safety if a train over-runs the Down starting signal to Arklow at danger. The arrangement at the Northern end of the station is more common with greater stopping distance (overlap) between the Up starter and the beginning of the single line section to Wicklow. The goods yard closed about 50 year ago, the site became a sawmill. Apart from conversion from semaphore signalling to colour light and jointed bullhead track to CWR the station has changed little visually in the last 30-40 years. Miss those lattice post signals and loco hauled trains though.

Moving on to the 2014 version the track plan was prepared with Templot to get a better feel for the programme before tackling something in 21mm gauge and also to use up some of my stock of bullhead rail and C&L chairs. Templot is designed to produce templates for handlaid track rather than a layout planning or CAD programme. In this particular case the template is drawn on top of a drawing showing the outline of the baseboards and a rough track diagram. As drawn the run round loop is restricted to a loco and wagons, version two involves moving the crossover further around the curve and possibly adding a loco shed or other siding in the corner on the outside of the curve. Closeup of an actual templates plain track is SMP plastic sleepered bullhead by Marcway models Sheffield points will be laid using C&L chairs on plywood sleeper strip, most of the finer scale track is laid on relatively thin sleepers which takes most of the drudgery out of ballasting, simply lay the sleepers/track on a bed of pva or scenic cement and scatter on the ballast. Locos and stock will be the usual suspects. The Ivatt was built from a Comet kit, the wagons a mixture of Airfix, Dapol and Parkside. The Parkside iron Ore Tippler is probably one of the best designed and highly detailed plastic kits on the market. The Walthers quarry loader was bought when I was going through a American HO phase but looks quite impressive. The original idea was to keep the layout self contained to the two main boards, adding an extra board would allow loaded and full wagons to be exchanged through the loader to keep the shunter busy tripping wagons back and forth between the station and screens. Building the layout is a good motivator for finishing off a long list of projects which ran out of steam, the Austerity was a rtr Dapol model re-motered on a brass chassis with a Mashima motor and a reduction drive, the small saddle tank is an unfinished High Level industrial some of which ended up running in the 1970s in "plant yellow" she will need a lot of weathering though.

Safer to send back and wait than risk voiding the warranty on an expensive loco. Heljan had reliability issues with some of their diesels and ended up supplying free replacement chassis for the 1st batch of Class 17 Claytons which had similar reliability issues to the real locos.

I used JMRI several years ago as an interface with a Digitrax system for route setting on an American N gauge layout. I never advanced beyond point control to detection or signalling. The main advantage was I had a lot quicker and easier to build a virtual CTC panel with JMRI than build a hard wired one, easier to alter and far less in terms of emotional loss & physical waste in dismantling/scrapping a physical panel when the project was abandoned.

I like the idea of steam working one of the specials as I have vague memories of a big blue steam loco with smoke deflectors from around the same period crossing the viaduct at Gormonstown. Its just about possible that steam may have been used on one or more of the specials. It would have been simpler for the UTA to roster as steam loco and a crew to a special move, than try and co-ordinate a pair locos and at least two sets of crews with CIE. Presumably Belfast still had enough steam drivers and firemen who still knew the road to Dublin and wanted on last trash at the mainline. In 1963 the UTA bought four ex GNR steam locos from CIE S Class 170, 171, 174 & Vs 207 Boyne. The 207 appears to have been used mainly used the Tourist Train an additional summer service on the main line, she seems to have held down this duty until the summer of 65, there is a photo n Irish Railways a Second Glance" of Boyne 'roaring' through Malahide on a southbound train in July 1965.

I built a minimum space 4mm shunting yard layout based one of the plans in Layout Design by Iain Rice.I was living in the UK at the time & going through an industrial railway phase. The layout was self contained with a small marshalling yard and hidden storage on an 8'x'1"6 baseboard but capable of being extended or connected to another layout. The layout started out as a small yard on a an industrial system worked mainly by industrial and ex-BR diesel shunting locos. Smaller less powerful locos did most of the visible work, shunting loaded and empty wagons in the yard and working trips to an off scene quarry. The more powerful locos an Austerity 0-6-0ST and a pair of ex-BR locos worked trips between the yard & British Railways exchange sidings. Manning Wardle propelling empties into quarry mainline on right Some industrial systems continued to use ancient looking Manning Wardles into the mid 1960s Ancient and Ancient Hunslet & Manning Wardle The diesel is a 1930s Hunslet standard design one of which became the 1st LMS diesel. Hunslet acquired the goodwill of Manning Wardle in the 1930s and supplied/overhauled steam locos into the 80s. Pride of the line Austerity with Hunslet Patent Underfeed stoker and gas producing equipment Modern image steam? Hunslet & the National Coal Board developed a gas producing system to reduce smoke and make more efficient use of coal, not quite sure how the loco ended up on a quarry system. Although I started and completed most of the work on the layout before returning to Ireland, the layout was stored for several years in the UK before taking it home thanks to some high level pressure from the presidents of the Milton Keynes Model Railway Society and MRSI. Bankfoot became a widely travelled layout exhibited on its own and with the late Frank Davis layout in Cork, Bangor and Warley. The layout was passed on to Frank before I moved to New Zealand in 2004 not before running a "last train" when an Ivatt 2MT picked up the last load of iron ore from Bankfoot a scene replayed in many part6s of the UK as many small maining and quarry operations closed down. The last train Ivatt 2MT 46455 drags the last train off ore hoppers out of the yard at bankfoot 46455 leads her train across the crossover from the loop to the main line quarry siding leads off to the left After 10 years I have dusted off the Bankfoot idea once again as a small British outline shelf layout to keep Keadue company in the office and a home for the stock. The theme this time is based on a BR branch line connection to a quarry somewhere along the Welsh Border country between Hereford & Chester something that was not exactly un common. The space is slightly better than the original Bankfoot a 7'6" X 4'6" L modelling will be restricted to between the railway fence due to a 12" width restriction with the shelf. The track layout will be similar to the old layout main difference will be signalling and a passenger platform probably disused, a couple of sidings for sorting laden and empty wagons into trains and a longer running line to the quarry. The main change is to extend the run round loop to handle a reasonable length of train without turning the layout into another typical branch line model.