Mayner

Interesting stuff those Mail Trains almost remind me of Amtrack in the same period passenger trains trailing a string of freight trucks. Most of the TPOs were new builds in the late 1950s with a handfull of ex-GSR Bredin Suburban coaches re-built in the late 1960s like the one in dave Rolands Photo. There was an explosion of parcel traffic in the early 70s and CIE re-built a lot of old stock as parcel brakes which also ran with the mails. All long gone now John

Stall type point motors like the Tortoise are the simplest, instant detection when you wire a LED into the circuit between swich and motor.

Estimated shipping to Ireland around $150 which appears a bit on the low side, add Customs Clearance and VAT if its shipped by Fed-EX.

Most of these printers are probably manufactured in China, TurbCAD also market printers with compatible software priced from $1200-$11000 US. If you are tempted to have a go first try producing a simple model model using one of the free-3d design packages like Google Sketchup or Autodesk 123D http://sitesupport.123dapp.com/home and having the design printed by a bureau like Shapeways or I Materialise. Shapeways can be a pain to deal with but their frosted detail material is suitable for our use and capable off producing small detail parts and I Materialise have a good reputation, local companies that offer a rapid prototyping service to industry may also be able to help.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2735[/ATTACH The 3-d Cad the easy bit, the headwrecking stuff is converting the 3-d drawing to a format the printer can use. Personally I think its probably easier and a lot cheaper to either scratchbuild or prepare a 2 d design for etching or laser cutting than mess around with 3-d printing in its current state.

Jeremy Suter produced some whitemetal wagon kits about 10 years ago including a standard 10T van, GN & NCC container wagons with bread containers, MGWR loco coal and a UTA parcel van all designed for 21mm, it might be worth enquiring if he would be prepared to do a re-run?

I think the low level of capital expenditure was more to do with insufficient net income to fund renewals and pay a dividend to ordinary shareholders than anything to do with tax avoidance. Rather than new locos and passenger stock the GSR appears to have concentrated capital investment which paid off in modern terms of cost savings and operational efficiency, like the Midland Line singling, Kingsbridge, Harcourt Street and Amiens Street-Dun Laoire power signalling schemes and the new Inchacore Erecting Shop. To a certain degree the GSR in the 1930s was ahead of the UK in superheating older superheated loco could be charged to current expenditure and use up to 20% less coal to do similar work to a saturated engine. The draub GSR livery and image was probably a hangover from GSWR obsession with economy, committees were formed to hunt and melt down brass number and name plates and carry out work study of Inchacore piecework rates. While at the same time the road transport side of the business built really modern Art-Deco tourist coaches and streamlined horse-boxes

My first thoughts was why did The Cavan & Leitrim want with Exactocsale. It looks like Peter Llewellyn is planning to replace worn out C&L toolings with Exactoscale http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/ind...e_fromsearch_1 .

First class really neat. Did you use plastic sections or metal?

This week was mainly spent preparing and lining the walls on two sides. While there was little sign of rot or insect attack I got a nasty shock when one side of a stud broke away while I was nailing in bridging or nogs to support the bottom edge of the plaster board. Treated the area around the affected stud for borer (similar to woodworm) but otherwise very little sign of attack. My basic reasoning is that if the garage has survived for 80 years it will probably last longer than a modern building with a design life of 15-20 years. Ready for lining the timber is probably rimu a very slow growing hardwood that was once widly used for just about everything, very durable unless subject to constant damp. The garage probably dates from the 1920 no bridging, I installed nogs to support the edges of the sheets. Sunday Afternoon GIB fixed and joints taped two sides. Fixing the boards horizontally is a good time and timber saver for lining older buildings with framing at imperial centres and cuts down on the amount of taping and jointing. The square opening in the far end is for the connecting track from the garden railway, the Irish Layout will be based out immediately above basically along the horizontal joint in the plasterboard. I am looking at a metal stud shelving system with adjustable shelf brackets. [attachment=:name] Next weeks challenge to clear this and get ready for wall lining. Its mainly a mixture of baseboard framing, G Scale track, fixings and goods knows what. John

I dont know if there is any connection, but a minimum space 7mm Irish Broad Gauge layout Port Lairge Wharf appeared in 80s and is still on the Scottish Exhibition circuit http://home.btconnect.com/Enhance-Ecosse/llcase.html. This is part of Richard Chown's Castle Rackrent empire based on 19th Century WLWR practice the fiddle yard is called Port Lairge Market! The running lines along the waterfront is a fairly recent deveopment, in the 1970s main line was diverted to run along the riverside to provide space for the present day gantry road and freight loops. Originally there were sidings in the area between the main line and the river, complete with a rail served wharf used for importing coal, Port Lairge Wharf?

Some ????????????? do this sort of thing on purpose http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=cLEm-SQb6co&NR=1

Yes its built from an Anbrico kit originally built in OO9 more or less in accordance with the instructions with a Fleischmann Picollo 0-4-0 steam loco power bogie rather than the Anbrico whitemetal version. I rebuilt the car as an articulated unit about 20 years ago with a re-gauged Fleischmann diesel shunter chassis as a companion for a Backwoods Railcar 14. I had a nasty surprise during the latest re-build the whitemetal castings appear to have become brittle and easily damaged.

Despite a burst of activity in May and June I have done very little on the modelling front in recent months, not sure whether or what but things were just not conductive to modelling. When we moved to Hamilton I initially concentrated on the garden railway to get something running but had no permanent home for my Irish Models. We initially planned to build a new hobby room/studio as the garage appeared to be in poor condition and all the rooms in the house in use. I set up a temporary storage yard and shelving for the G Scale in the garage and negotiated a space for my workbench in a spare bedroom and eventually the office. I unearthed and started to work on a narrow gauge layout started in Auckland and to build a broad gauge layout on a bookshelf. The narrow gauge occupies two sides of the room above a computer desk and you neary need scaffolding to access the storage/display shelves above the layout. So maybe the problem was more to do with the lack of a proper layout room than anything else Kirleys shed inspired me so maybe it was time to have a close look at the garage. Although the garage was leaning over at an angle and the floor was damp, most of the framing and weatherboard was sound, my tools and electronic equipment stored there were showing no ill effects of damp The big advantage of timber over brick and block is that its easy to level and repair an old structure. The wooden piles that supported the framing had rotted away causing one side to sink and the whole structure to lean over. Levelling the garage and replacing the piles was fairly simple, the biggest problem was that the ground was waterlogged after two months of heavy rain (St Swittan?) when I was replacing the piles it was basically a race against time to dig out, install and concrete the pile before the hole filled up with water. The repairs were simple enough the biggest job was moving everything out and putting it into storage. At this stage I have installed a false ceiling and started to line the walls with plasterboard, with 3-4 weeks work to complete. This should give me a room approximately 17' 6" x 11' mainly for railway use and a workshop. The basic idea is to have the G Scale storage sidings on one side with a U shaped Irish layout on the next layer at a height of approx 4' and storage shelving display cases above and a workbench in the middle. I hope to base the Irish layout on the Burma Road or North Kerry from early CIE days up to closure/end of traditional freight working, getting some track down should be a good incentive to sort out the running with my locos and stock. The only confounder is to find a space for ladders, powertools etc without having to build an extra shed

I have done some development work on designing a 4 wheel container wagon producing some test etches for the 22'6" flats used on the Asahi and general container traffic. The wagon is designed to run on 21mm or OO gauge and I am looking at ammending the final design to simplify assembly and to add some weight either mixed whitemetal and brass or all whitemetal construction. The other alternative is the earlier steel floored flats that didnt last long in container traffic and ended up under the Bagged cement and beet doubles. At this stage I am trying to get an idea of the number of people interested i.e. whether to comission a 10-50-100 or 1000 wagons

A barrier is only required where there is a risk of a spark from the loco igniting the load, petrol or light fuel oils, trains conveying heavy fuel oil like Foynes-Drogheda, Foynes-Ballina or Tivoli-Ballinacourty didd not need a barrier wagon. On trains like the Northwall-Claremorris and Asahi Liner that conveyed highly inflamable and general freight, the tank wagons/container were marshalled at the end of the train behind the general freight. Tank wagons are basically colour coded, highly flamible liquid silver of grey barrel generally with red solebars, heavy fuel oil, tar and bitumen plain black. There are some good photos of the ESSO and Foynes-Ballina oil trains which show up these differences in Rails in the West,

Certainly looks the part Des! At the time Mike Cole (Q Kits) and MTK more or less pioneered modern traction modelling, unless you can actually go out and measure the prototype there is a lot to be said for Colin's approach the official drawings are often an indication of the designers intent rather than anything else, I have a CIE GA of a Beet double that is nothing like what was actually built.

While the lack of money was obviously a factor most mainline duties would have been worked by relatively modern GSR or pre-amalgamation locos, with the older locos on branch and secondary lines most of which were up for closure by the 1930s. I think the high average age of the fleet was more due to the large number of J15s and small GSWR passenger locos than anything else, part of the problem was that the attempts to build a slightly more modern replacement for the J15 and a modern passenger tank for the Dublin Suburban services were unsuccessful. Rather oddly the GSR scrapped some of its more modern locos in the 1920s, surviving class members remained on main line passenger and freight work until dieselisation. These may have been considered redundant with the introduction of the Woowich or not worth the cost of an overhaul. Even odder still in the 1930s the GSR built the 342 Class 5 new mixed traffic 4-4-0s based on a 1903 GSWR design to replace 5 similar GSWR 4-4-0s scrapped in the 1920s.

Most diesels and modern steamers have a scaled down standard gauge than a narrow gauge look in order to fit through the tight tunnels on many lines http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2YH-djIASE. Several of the Frateschi locos have similar bogies to the Irish Bo Bos and 121s, the scale seems to vary depending on whether the loco is based on a South American broad or narrow gauge loco. Rather than use the more popular scale and vary the gauge New Zealanders tend to vary the scale and use a popular gauge with an extensive range of kits available in most gauges steam diesel and electric. 9mm on O gauge is particulary impressive

Hi Horsetan Good luck with the S Class I have built 2 with a good can motor and a decent gearbox they build into a powerfull sure footed loco. Ultrascale http://ultrascale.com/ will supply high quality S4 wheelsets to order for 21mm gauge both plain and pinpoint axle, 6-8 week delivery more expensive but far superior to Aland Gibson. My local supplier Northyard http://northyard.co.nz/catalogue.pdf will supply a 28mm SN3.5 pin point axle which is suitable for use with Gibson and Maygib wagon and coach wheels.

I haven't taken too many photos in recent years but last Friday and Saturday the Sun actually shone and it got marginally warner. West/Northbound Metroport service behind Chinese built DL9066. These have MTU power units with a seriously noisey exhaust, the Metroport trains run to 120TEUs or 40-50 bogies, imported goods in exported Milk Powder out! While freight has been doing very well, the future of long distance passenger services is more uncertain. The North Islands sole remaining long distance passenger train the Overlander has been re-branded and re-equipped with new locally built Panoramic stock as the Northern Explorer replacing stock built in the 1940 & 50s. The new train is aimed at overseas visitors as a "Tourist Experience" operating Wellington-Auckland 423 Miles on alternative days with most of the smaller stopss eliminated. Day Car Microwave Cafe Observation car/generator van.

The smog from the city and diesel exhaust, would add to the atmosphere The approaches to Cork were very interesting at that time with the cabins at Rathduff, Rathpeacon and Kilbarry and the 'run of goods" between Cork and Rathpeacon Yard. There always seems to have been long strings of wagons loaded with scrap at Kilbarry and even into the 80s control had a habit of running a Liner through the tunnel and up to Kilbarry immediately before an up-Intercity. This may have been something to do with conditioning the rails to reduce the risk of an 071 slipping with the Intercity, at one stage a loco and brake van would be used to sand the rails through the tunnel before important passenger departures.

Almost like being home! Google Streetview! Hard to believe that this was once an important freight terminal, trains would have been unloaded just over the crossing, access to the Avonmore plant was by a set of gates somewhere in the bushes that grew up over the past 10 years since the traffic finished!. IE had started to install a run round loop roughly where the track panels are laid in the grass on the Northern side of the line.

Alas no. The scrap metal containers were carried along with keg and container traffic on the Galway Liner that ran at night rather than a separate train. The containers seem to have been old 20' containers that had the roofs removed by gas cutting, they were painted a dark blue and looked pretty rough, they may show up in photos of Galway station and North Wall Midland. If you are looking for a challenge in the 1970s CIE ran loose coupled block trains off crushed cars to Cobh in standard 12t corrugated open wagons.

The grain and mollasses traffic was set up on pretty much of a shoe string to use under-used redundant stock and would have been carried pretty much at marginal cost, the downside was that it was pretty easy to abandon the traffic as neither IE or Avonmore had any capital tied up in modern wagons or terminal facilities. CIE also used similar dark blue open containers for coal traffic to Arklow and Ballina and scrap metal to Oranmore, the scrap containers were naturally a lot scruffier and seem to have started life as standard containers that had their roofs cut off. There seems to have been some investment at Foynes the backshut from the old lead & zinc (Mogul) tippler was extended eastwards into a paved area for loading grain and mollassess trains complete with overhead chute. There is a photo of the Foynes arrangement in one of the IRRS Journals and I have a photo somewhere of the chute and the Premier Mollasses storage tank in Foynes. There seem to have been enough containers in use to allow loaded and empty containers to be swapped around to allow the train to be loaded quickly as there was usually a ground stack of containers waiting loading/unloading at both Portlaoise and North Wall.