Mayner

Richie its more a case of determination than patience, my biggest problem is impatience rushing things and destroying models or starting projects and not having the patience to finish them. Building a working chassis is probably simpler than detailing a loco or coach, provided the axle and rod centres line up you should have no problems. I cut my teeth with OO Gauge Craftsman 02 & 07 diesel shunter kits http://www.pagenumberone.co.uk/layouts/dock/Stock.htm before tackling EM or 21mm locos. The Craftsman kits are quite dated but simple to assemble using Marikits Wheels and a modern High Level Gearbox and motor, Comet produce excellent replacement chassis for most British rtr steam locos which will basically run for ever. The number of driving wheels makes little difference at one stage I had a nice little side-line building DJH Austerity 2-8-0s taking on average 30hrs to complete a loco.

Going back to locos its about time I got the J26 running, the first thing is to sort our the wheels. Marikits or Romford wheels are probably the best option for OO or EM as they are simple to use, and with metal centres last for ever, for 21mm gauge Ultrascale or Gibson plastic centred wheels are the only option. Ultrascale are probably the best wheel on the market and will supply with axles cut to any gauge, the downside is a limited range, slow delivery and very expensive. Gibson have a huge range, reasonably priced but a lot of care required in their use. For the J26 I used a set of 4'6" drivers the wheels are supplied with OO & EM axles, but an extended axle is available. The 14BA crankpin bolt cuts its own thread in the soft nylon wheel centre and is secured in place with Loctite, the last thing you want is a in working loose when the loco is assembled. The next stage is to fit the power pick ups, press on the wheels fit the coupling road and test run the loco which I hope to cover in the next couple of episodes. Progress has been slow of late as I had a couple of miss haps with the large scale locos including nearly dissolving the body of one in paint stripper and damaging the cab of another during the final test fit.

I always found Bangor to be a bit of a disappointment was a Model Shop in the lower end of the High Street, if you have the time Portmadoc is a much better option both the Festiniog and Welsh Highland Heritage Railways have large model railway sections and the WHHR shop have an excellent book shop usually stock books of Irish interest. Plenty for er-indoors excellent scenery crafts shops, pubs and cafes. Almost makes me want to up stiks and go back

The SLNCR seems to have ordered the engines after the war and hadn't the money to pay for them on completion in 1949, eventually a hire purchse agreement was sorted out with the Northern Ireland Government paying 2/3 of the initial down payment of $3000 allowing delivery in 1951. Presumably Beyer Peacock received marginally more than the scrap value for the locos from the UTA, there was not exactly a ready market for small 5'3" gauge steam locos in 1958.

Entertaining stuff Richie I always loved the discription of the SLNCR as a Pirateering Railway handing its doors on the opposite side to everyone else, fighting against overwhelming odds to remain in business and ordering its final pair of locos from Beyer Peacock when it was virtually broke. The SLNCR remained independent mainly because of Sligo business opposition to a Midland & GNR take over, apparently the take over would have given the Midland a strangehold of Dublin-Sligo traffic and they knew a thing or two about running a monopoly. Besides cattle traffic to the North East the SLNCR & GNR competed with the Midland and its successors for Dublin-Sligo freight traffic and cement from Drogheda to Sligo and the North West. Although both the SLNCR and C&L made a lot of noise about capturing the Arigna coal traffic, neither was willing to risk money on a line to the mines. The Arigna Valley Railway and the Wolfhill and Deerpark lines in Leinster were built by the Government near the end of WW1 to support the war effort. While Iron making had taken place at Arigna it could not compete with mainland iron manufacturers, the coal was not great as one C&L driver told Mr Leyden (the mine owner) "this stuff wont burn even if you pour petrol on it." The upper section of the Arigna Valley line was abandoned less than ten years after it was built when some of the mines played out, traffic from Leydens mines was spasmodic, probably the main reason why the GSR did not standard gauge the line or install mechanical exchange at Belturbet or Dromad. Besides the ex GNR hand me downs a pair of very small 4-4-0s and a trio of small 0-6-0s, in the 1940s the SLNCR seriously looked at a Beyer Garratt articulated loco as an alternative to ordering Lough Erne and Lough Melvin the final Leitrim tanks. An interesting might have been is what would have happened if Stormont had adapted the 1957 proposal of retaining Enniskillen-Omagh as a goods siding presumably worked by the SLNCR in order to retain the West of Ireland-Belfast cattle traffic. UTA atempts to capture the traffic by road largely failed and CIE had to introduce a new Sligo-North Wall shipper and extra goods trains on the Sligo line to handle the additional traffic. `

The Argentinian & Mexican GA8 locos are probably the nearest appearence wise to the 121s http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=350229&nseq=2 They have the same engine as the 121s but ride on freight trucks with a pair of traction motors inside the body.

Have you any Irish stock Chris? We might need an Irish Special Interest Group at next Easters National Convention in Hamilton or at least Richies Irish Railway Modellers group poster

Richie how do you do get time to do it time travel? Amazing

Although they had the same engine as the 181 Class the re-powered C Class always seemed to be a lot noiser and they were really worked hard on the Push-Pulls on the Dublin suburban.

A little bit heavier down South http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8qVRF1VD0s Tom The electrics handle most run through freights over the 255 mile central section of the Trunk, with a changeover to diesel at Hamilton & Palmerston North. The electric are rated at 4000hp and diesels basically cannot keep time with the current load rating of 1200Tonnes. Diesels are used for short distance freight workings from Palmerston North to the pulp and saw mills at Tangawai 83 Miles and Hamilton to the dairy plant at TeAwamutu and lime and stone traffic from the Waitomo area 60 Miles. Pairs of DX (GEU28C) work the traffic from Tangawai to the Ports of Napier and Wellington, while large and small GMs handle the trip workings at the Northern end. Anthony. The Northern Explorer was quickly nicknamed Dora after "Dora the Explorer' hopefully we will get a chance to take our 3 year old daughter along some weekend to "see the snow". The last car is an open obseervation car for hardy Kiwis. While the TrazAlpine is reasonably secure, its hard to know if Dora will succeed,the train set became available basically because the newly equiped Coastal Pacific was failing, the long distance passenger business its aimed mainly at overseas tourists rather than the domestic leisure or travel market.

1st snows of winter on the plateau.

J26 nearly ready for the paint shop, Inchacore style smokebox and chimney (SSM J15) smokebox door fitted with riveted straps. Only realised one of the foot steps was missing when I took the photo. Sandbox operating levers stilll to be added. J26 stripped down to its main component parts, the chassis was spray painted with Howes Weathered black then sealed with a flat varnish before fitting wheels. The motor and gearbox will be concelaed in the boiler leaving the cab free for detail, this area is wide open in the kkit so I fabricated the cab floor/bulkhead in brass and fitted a whitemetal firebox backhead (probably Alan Gibson). The next stage is to fit the wheels and get tthe chassis running which should be reasonably straight forward. The NZR tank loco has been dismanted for painting, I have airbrushed the loco using a Floquil "Engine Black" and Flat Finish as a sealer. I will do the same with the plumbing sub assemblies, which should protecct against scratching during final assembly. Des supplied a sheet of custom lettering for my C&L stock, most of the wagons are now weathered but there are still one or two in reasonable condition. CIE used solid rather than stenciled lettering and numerals on the C&L.

Try the J P O'Dea colletion National Library http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000303526 seems to be a diagram and photos from 1950 onwards, JP focused on stations and signal boxes and stations rather than trains. It might be worth while checking out J F O'Neill's collection of photographs from 1939 in the Stephenson Locomotive Society http://www.stephensonloco.org.uk/SLSphotocollec.htm Great Southern Railways Irish Railway Pictorial, Iain Allen ISBN (10) 07110 31509 is maid up mostly of photos from the SLS collection and includes two from Manulla mainly of trains.

Great work Gareth good to see some body is still scratch building.

Personally I think N is a better option than OO or HO for modelling a railway in a small to medium sized space. The lack of rtr stock is not such a big issue with the Valve Design loco and rolling stock bodies that fit on rtr chassis, the focus is on modelling the railway and whole train rather than an individual loco or wagon. Brian McCann's Bagnalstown layout from the late 1970s was probably one of the best examples of Irish modelling what could be achieved in the gauge using scratchbuilt buildings and modified and re-painted rtr locos and stock. I found the best advantage was that it was possible to build a good operating layout in a relatively small space without train-set curves, with an around the wall shelf layout with a small junction station and a secondary main line terminus in a space 11X11. Operation was based on the Mayo Line with twin 121s on through passeneger trains, 141 hauled Night Mails and local freight and A Class on goods and liner trains. Loco bodies were either modified or in plasticard on Atlas or Arnold chassis, coaches and freight stock repainted British stock, with a smattering of bagged cement wagons and keg flats with scratchbuilt plasticard bodies on rtr chassis. More recently my interests turned more to American modelling again in N some of the Kato and Atlas locos were ahead of what was aavailable in OO My only advice would be to stear clear of the Lima locos they look the part the motors are only fit for the bin after a coule of weeks work.

B231 was the first C Class to be re-started in preservation, some restoration work was done on B231 in the UK and she was restarted in Yorkshire in 2000. For a small group mostly based in the UK the ITG have shown a lot of dedication and determination to collect and restore Irish diesels

David Jenkinson of the NRM prepared a glowingly positive report as part of the feasibility study for Mullingar, and at the time described the opportunity as unique in these islands a large country junction station complete with mechanical signalling and other steam age infrastructure. While CIE were originally supportive, Mary O'Rourke as minister responsible for transport and Westmeath TD (Athlone) seems to have opposed the scheme from the begining pulled the rug out from underneath CIE & a local comittee after making disparaging remarks about railway enthuiasts and train spotters and wanting a proper museum. The feasibility project for the "proper museum" blew the cost of setting up the project out to around £5m there was no prospect of public funding with Mary apparently supporting a rival scheme in Athlone, so in the end nothing happened.

In the 90s there were quite concrete plans for a National Transport Museum in Mullingar but it rapidly fell apart when it was realsied a lot of public money was involved and Mary O'Rourke wanted the money to go to Athlone. One has to take one hat off to the Council and people of Belfast for setting up a transport museum at a time the Northern Ireland Government thought railways were a complete waste of time and public money.

Hi Gareth I seem to be having a good run of modelling at the moment with a lot of progress on differnet fronts, holding back on starting the layout until I have finished a lot of unfinished projects has been a great motivator. Polyurethane resins are much of a muchness, looking at the data sheets Barnes Easy Cast has similar characteristics to Easi Flo 6 but slightly longer pot life. The main drawback with polyurethane are the air bubbles and brittleness, I am looking at using a liquid epoxy the nexxt time I have a go.

Nice and subtle just brake dust and road dirt. Is the Class 25 the Hornby model?

About 10 years ago a guy managed to blow himself up working on a truck with a concealed fuel tank at a garage somewhere in Monaghan. The truck was a beaver tail transporter with a full length tank under the transporter body, it looks like the victim was welding and didnt bother to purge the tank beforehand, everyone involved disappeared into the background, or knew nothing about the tank. The HSA and Gardai investigated it was not counted as a workplace death as there no ILO Code for criminal activity

I think the camera man may have had the shakes . Bogies the roughest running was as he powed up on the newly laid CWR for the climb out of Headford Junction. A light weight freight bogie was used under the Bo Bos and Yanks to keep within the axle load down, there is a story of the driver of a 121 on the up Enterprise in the early 60s having to make an emergency brake application approaching Malahide. The loco was swaying so badly as he crossed the Broadmeaows he thought that the cab might strike the rather tight bridge at the Dublin end of the station.

It was mainly down to a few far sighted people in Belfast Corporation who set up the Ulster Tramsport Museum in an East Belfast Tram Shed. It was probably a natural step for Belfast Corporation as it had been involved in running trams and busses, but at the time there probably would have been an outcry from ratepayers in Dublin had the Corporation leased a tram shed or the Broadstone Roundhouse from CIE and started filling it with old trams busses and dirty steam trains. At the time the railways were very supportive donating a lot of the locos and stock that got the ball rolling including GNR 91, 800, 186 and the DKR carriages. In the South everyone made a song and dance about heritage but no one was prepared to pay, while the Ulsterman put his money where his mouth was and gots on with it setting up the Belfast Transport Museum, RPSI and Downpatrick.

I cannot run anything straight out of the box so much the same applies to my American as Irish models. I have a G Gauge layout in the garden mainly using Bachmann & LGB American outline stock. The main problem is the lack of a steam or diesel loco that right in proportion to the rolling stock There is an odd scale gauge thing with four different scales and one gauge rather than the OO, EM, S4 business in OO. Most of the better quality Bachmann steameers are to a larger scale and dwarf most of the rolling stock. I am modifying Bachmanns rather odd looking 2-8-0 to look like a DRGW narrow gaugee loco. Basically new funnel, cab, modified tender running plates to narrow the loco by about 1/2", also moved the headlight on top of the smokebox. Cab and tender detail a lot easier than N or 4mm . patch smokebox following removal of original funnel. The diesel has been a bit more drastic convert a modernish centre cabbed GE into an early 1950s end cabbed design. More plastic surgery new cab, narrow footplate 3/4" either side fabricate new valence, join two sections of bonnet into one, cut outs for radiator grills, block off original end grills. Both locos will be converted to on board battery Radio Control, DCC has been problematic in the garden.

Coal trains are about to start running with 10 wagons painted lettered and most fitted with couplers and work in progress on coal loads with real coal. Weshty produced a sheet of custom decals for solid snails and lettering used on the C&L section. The station also got a carriage shed to balance the loco shed at the country end of the station. The shed is framed in box seection brass, the corrugated roof from a Wills Timber Yard kit and the wall cladding Evergreen planked styrene. The building was spray painted with a cheap car primer with a nice weathered look. This one neeeds some serious weathering, the GSR removed all the C&L carriage sheds in the 30s as an economy measure and the carriages gradually fell to pieces stored outside in the Leitrim weather. Somehow or other the shed at Keadue was forgotten, but there is no money in the maintenance budget to repaint a shed that does not exist. Ceramic soldering pad a very usefull tool from Micro-Mark, no its not asbestos.