Mayner

Railtours Ireland are planning to start the Emerald Pullman from July using a dedicate Intercity Railcar set staying overnight in 4 Star Hotels https://railtoursireland.com/

Is the CVR coach Worsley Works or did Andrew Mullins produce a 3mm scale version of the Branchlines CVR coaches I am tempted to build a CVR 0-4-2T & a 4w Passenger Brake in 4mm myself to go with a pair of Branchlines Coaches & a Horsebox I bought/built about 30 years ago.

More Angus & Galtemore's territory Dromahair on the SLNCR is another station where trains crossed using a siding as there was never a passing loop. The layout was very simple with a running line two sidings and 3 points. The SLNCR made up for the simple track layout with an unusual two armed signal at the Enniskillen end of the station to facilitate trains crossing. The upper arm acted as an Outer Home signal to allow trains to approach from the Enniskillen direction while another train was at the platform. The lower arm which had an X on the sighting bar acted as an Advanced Starting signal permitting a train to enter the Dromahair-Manorhamilton section, the lower arm also acted as a 'Shunt Back Signal" to allow east bound goods trains to reverse back into the yard for shunting or to cross trains. Although small the station appears to have been fairly busy with goods traffic with two goods stores, one of the stores was destroyed by fire in the early 1950s but quickly rebuilt. Florencecourt 5 miles from Enniskillen was simpler still a goods shed and loading bank served bay a single siding connected to the running line by a crossover in the middle, single storey station building, level crossing, signal box and up and down running signals. Although more or less in the middle of the countryside the station served a Fermanagh County Council depot and received bitumen in 45gal barrels until the line closed. Glenfarne along with being a Free State and Republic of Ireland customs post appears to have handled Leitrim County Council bitumen traffic the loading bank is covered in tar barrels in most 1950s photos. I guess tar barrels are a must for a 1920s to 60s Irish layout before Councils started receiving tar and bitumen in bulk road and rail tankers.

Holyhead Yard late 1980s & 2002/3

Dunsandle had a minimal layout in its final (post 1971) years a siding serving a goods shed and loading bank connected to the running line by a single point at the Loughrea end of the station. Curiously beet trains continued to operate on the branch for a number of weeks after the line closed to regular traffic in November 1975, there is a Walther McGrath video on the IRRS channel of a beet train shunting beet wagons at Dunsandle before continuing to Loughrea to run-round. http://eiretrains.com/Photo_Gallery/Railway Stations D/Dunsandle/IrishRailwayStations.html#Dunsandle_20100118_002_CC_JA.jpg Prior to 1971 the layout was more extensive with three points the goods shed and loading bank was served by a goods loop off the running line with a short siding off the loop at the Attymon end of the station, in MGWR days the siding apparently extended across a road into a ballast (gravel) pit. One of the oddities at Dunsandle was that locos and passenger stock were not allowed to pass the goods shed as the shed was built too close to the edge of the loading bank, an interesting rule to add to a shunting puzzle

The most significant "take away" from the Irish Times article is that the Dublin Port Company no longer want trains running into the port. Talk of a potential road transfer from East Wall Yard is a significant reversal in policy since the Port Company paid for the spur to the Ocean Pier and proposed extending the Alexandra Road Tramway into the Ro Ro Terminal. The article indicates that the Port Company even suggested that "cargo for the West could instead be shipped through Waterford, which also has a direct port link to Ballina". In a way keeping trains out of the Port helps the Government justify having spent €750m on a toll free HGV Port Tunnel.

The New Zealand GST (goods and sales tax) is a more accurate description of VAT as a sales and purchase tax. The recent international changes in how VAT/GST is collected is partially as a result of political pressure from retailers and locally based traders about business lost because of people importing small and large stuff from overseas without paying duty or GST. The former owner of the local equivalent of Mark's Models was literally fit to be tied because local railway modellers were increasingly buying their locos and stock from the United States and the UK. The move to international on-line platforms and electronic payments makes it easier & cost effective for governments to levy VAT/GST/Import sales tax on small purchases, than Customs Checks at the point of import. Basically before governments forced businesses like E-bay to collect VAT/GST on imports it was costing Customs services more to collect VAT on small purchases (<$100NZ) than it was earning in revenue despite various levies and charges.

Looks like a brake van at each end to simplify reversing a Drogheda-Cabra or possibly Cork bulk cement train at the Boston Yard. Bulk Cement trains ran to the Boston Yard to change direction on weekends & public holidays when Church Rd cabin and the North Wall Yards were closed. CIE unions quickly agreed to guards riding on the loco on Liner Trains, it would not have been too pleasant being bumped around at 50mph in a 4w van in a cloud of cement dust. The 30T vans were all steel construction without insulation or sound deadening, the older 20T vans would have been quieter and better insulated with timber internal lining.

Its something people will have to learn to live with as the "e-bay" tax is driven by pressure from Governments internationally to plug "tax leakage" through international and domestic on-line sales. On line platforms like e-bay make it a lot more cost effective to collect vat and duty at the point of sale than Customs intercepting a package at the Border. The logical extension is for Governments to levy a sales tax on all financial or barter transactions between individuals within the state, cashless transactions make this a lot easier. In the good "old days" around 1975 while living in Dublin I had to pay duty and tax on a order of Irish railway books from the IRRS London Area. More recently I have had to pay duty and sales tax on second hand large scale locos and rolling stock bought from private individuals in the UK and United States. Buying locally was not an option and would have been a lot more expensive than paying the tax and duty(Electric trains are liable for duty in my part of the World)

The purpose of this post and survey is to establish the potential level of demand for each 'era"/style. The responses to the survey and this post indicate that there is a similar level of interest in the 1950s & 1970s version of the model (neck & neck) with the 1960s version trailing slightly (2 lengths) behind. Its possible that demand is fairly evenly split between "collector's" who want one of each type and between steam/transition era modellers who may have a OO Works J15 or ordered a Crossley A Class and post 1970s modellers who may have black and tan and Supertrain diesels. Thanks for your feedback and support.

American outline is probably a better option than British if you start modelling in N very large range of relatively inexpensive locos, stock and buildings from a large number of manufacturers including Atlas, Kato, Walthers, Intermountain and Micro trains, most DC locos are supplied DCC ready if you want to convert to DCC at a later stage. The scale gauge ratio is correct and perhaps most importantly the majority of American N Gauge locos and stock are fitted with knuckle couplers suitable for magnetic uncoupling. I found that I could get an American layout up and running very quickly, building 12" wide shelf modules based on the One Trak system which started as a self contained switching layout that was later incorporated into the main yard on an attic layout.

We achieved a milestone today with the first batch of Brake Vans primed and ready for painting and final assembly. Its planned to release the vans in 3 livery variations and we welcome feedback on prospective customer preferences. Link to our survey on https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/7596LJW 1. 23543 Dark Grey snail logo stencil lettering 1950s onwards 2. 23580 CIE wheel logo post 1963 light grey with warning stripes 3. 23583 CIE wheel logo post 1970? red oxide with warning stripes. The colours are approximate.

Most likely problems on the ground within the Port slower turn-round of container through the port as a result of a combination of Covid and Customs examination of freight arriving from the UK. Loading and unloading a 36 TEU train takes time and a lot of space, while trucks can queue outside the deport and depart immediately they are loaded. Its possible that the decision to temporary suspend the IWT service was in response to pressure from the Health and Safety Authority, there were problems with 'congestion" in Alexandra Basin in the early 2000s separating cruise ship passengers from the ports freight operations and the HSA had to intervene. The rapid partial re-instatement of the service indicates that Coca Cola/IWT put considerable pressure on the Dublin Port Company perhaps diverting their traffic through another port. It will be interesting to see if Coca Cola and other companies divert more of their traffic through Waterford Port to achieve a quicker container turn-round than at Dublin Port. Re-locating the ports container operations into the most congested section of the port seems odd (rather than developing the rail served facility developed in the 1990s) especially when it was necessary to re-locate the Tara and Oil Jetties and the dredging of contaminated sludge to allow larger ships to use the basin.

The bearing tube and compensating beam arrangement was used in the locos built by Guy Williams for the Pendon Dartmoor and Vale of the White Horse layouts and is detailed in his book "The 4mm Engine". The Pendon locos appear to have been mainly built using hand tools cutting out the frames with a piercing saw and turning the tubular axle ends in a lathe before forming the axle slots with a needle file (tricky). Fitting compensation in a small loco is certainly worth while because of improved power pick up with all 6 wheels in contact with the rails at all times as opposed to the 3 legged stool effect with a rigid chassis.

The shortie (13-14') Cleaning up removing un-cured resin and the supporting structure is very labour intensive and a significant cost in SLA printing. The business that I use for prototyping was very reluctant to take on volume production due to the risk of a slender part being knocked over during the "build" and loosing a nights production. Both my suppliers use isopropyl for clean up, one uses a converted car painters mixing room with mechanical ventilation and intrinsically safe electrics for the clean up process. Some models are printed vertically or at an angle to improve strength and improve finish by reducing the layering effect and the cleaning up to one face. The wagon chassis were designed for 21mm gauge wheelsets, the brakevan steps were printed integral with the chassis to reinforce the w iron axlebox spring assembly, while we increased the thickness of the W irons on the IRCH wagon chassis. We learned a lot about the capabilities and limitations of the 3D printing process during the design of the Brake Van originally designed as a pattern for resin casting with a lot of individual parts, it went through several iterations before we arrived at the final design once it was established that resin casting was not a practical proposition, by contrast apart from missing some of the rivet detail we got it right first time with the IRCH open wagon.

We have examined the options for exporting DDTP to Ireland and the UK mainly to remove the uncertainty around price for high value orders. The main issues are that the DDTP shipping rates for small parcels are considerably higher than ordinary air parcel or international courier services and only one company operating an affordable DDTP service from NZ to the UK. There may not be much difference in total price in ordering duty unpaid and paying the vat and associated charges on arrival as ordering an item DDTP as the charges and fees are built into the DDTP shipping rate. From a practical point of view there is no additional labelling on a package to indicate that its sent DDTP, packages are kept separate from other mail and parcels sent in a separate DDTP mail bag from the customers premises to a internal airport and distributed from a "fulfilment center' in the country of arrival rather than being scanned by customs. The E-Bay Global Shipping Services and some Chinese shippers operate on the same principal, high value package arrives from the States or China with a local postmark and no customs declaration on the box.

We have successfully printed wagons chassis suitable for OO & 21mm gauge, though a rigid brass or compensated chassis with metal detail castings is likely to be a better option using S4 or EMF wheel standards. A brass chassis is likely to be freer running and more dimensionally stable than a 3D printed chassis. The main risk in printing a chassis is part breakage as many of the SLA resins are very brittle, particularly in cold weather. We originally considered resin casting for production version of the CIE Brake Van but settled on 3D printing as we were unable to find a business with vacuum resin casting capability as small scale manufacture has moved on to 3D printing. We overcome the brittleness problem for wagon chassis by using a resin with ABS properties and have printed the IRCH wagon chassis in one piece complete with brake gear, door springs and hopper operating gear something that would be extremely difficult to achieve using resin casting or plastic injection molding. I use a freelance designer with experience in 3D printing, local and Chinese 3D printing bureau as it would have taken a long time to develop adequate 3D modelling skills to design and print a 3D wagon and could not justify the expense (at this stage) of buying a SLA printer capable of volume production. The challenge from my perspective was finding a designer and a printing house prepared to push the boundaries on what could be achieved using 3D printing.

There is an article on the 1914 Donemana Derailment in the June 21 IRRS Journal. Class 5 2-6-4T Letterkenny de-railed and rolled over on the points as it entered the station with a passenger train from Foyle Road at speed. While speed appears to have been a factor the large outside frame 2-6-4Ts may have been less steady that the smaller inside frame 4-6-0Ts that were the mainstay of Donegal motive power up to the introduction of larger locos in the early 1900s. In the authors words "The passing loops at Donemana was subsequently removed and later those at Raphoe and Inver on the Strabane and Killybegs lines respectively, likely to be influenced by the events at Donemana" Being an 'economical' railway its likely that the CDRJC relied on hand signals for backing moves when crossing trains at stations without passing loops such as Inver, there are descriptions of passengers staying on the train in railcar days during shunting moves in places like Donegal and no doubt the smaller stations. An option for a layout for watching trains go bye with minimal pointwork is a remote junction between two single lines such as Challoch Junction between the Ayr-Stranraer Line and the Port Road in Scotland single set of points and a signalbox or several Junctions with remotely operated points and semaphore signals on the GSR & CIE system such as Clara & Banagher Junction, Colloney Junction. For a minimum space Irish Inglenook shunting layout "Webbs Mill" at Quarterstown would fit the bill with a compact footprint and interesting buildings which could be modelled in its original form as a Corn Mill or final years as a Bitumen Depot before closure in 1977. The siding appears to have been usually worked by the Mallow pilot engine, though Roadbinders may have had some form of improvised 'rail tractor" There s a photo of B151 shunting bitumen tanker s at the mill in the Feb 2019 IRRS Journal

Coca Cola uses rail primarily to reduce its costs under the European Carbon Trading Scheme as there was little difference in cost between using the IWT liner and road. Perhaps some of the traffic may be diverted through Waterford Port with the recently reinstated Ballina-Belview Liner An additional 25 trucks a day between Ballina and Dublin Port is fairly insignificant in terms of overall road usage or Ireland's carbon emissions..

In New Zealand the timber processing industry is basically rationing timber supplies to construction, basically because the same companies cut "surplus" capacity during the 10 years following GFC and focused on exporting logs to China. The timber supply situation and the shortage of trades people is not exactly helping a housing availability and affordability crisis which is not dissimilar to Ireland's

The Back to Back fertiliser "wagons" were de-mountable containers introduced in the late 1960s early 70s that were mounted on existing flat wagons as opposed to special purpose fertiliser wagons. The Back to Backs appear to have been used to transport fertiliser in both fixed formation (20 wagon) Unit Trains and individual wagons loads and reached destinations that were closed under Railplan 80 such as Newcastle West & Listowel. 25970 was part of the 25436-25982 series of 20T flat wagons introduced in 1966. The wagons were basically introduced on spec to carry demountable "Lancashire Flats" and containers with a variety of load securing gear as the ISO cuplock was not finalised at the time of their introduction, cuplocks were retrofitted to the wagons to carry ISO containers and the "Back to Back" containers in the late 1960s. Before the introduction of ISO containers in the late 1960s lot of Irish sea unit load traffic was transported door-to door by road on de-mountable "Lancashire Flats" or open containers, during the late 1960s CIE applied the same principal developing its own de-mountable flats to palletise keg and container traffic. The Back to Backs and original keg flats appear to have been a short term solution before introducing high capacity bogie wagons for these traffics. The end bulkheads on the Back to Back containers were used to secure the load in transit with one fixed and on adjustable bulkhead. The wagons were loaded/unloaded by removing the sides by lifting with a forklift. The flat in the photo has metal lifting hoops which may not have stood up to use in service, the random looking strips of board fixed to the sides in the Cork City railway photos appear to be to assist the fork lift driver unloading, significantly there is no damage visible to the ply panels panels from rough handling in either photo.

Looks like Simon de Souza's model of Dromad. Simon produces a range of high quality C&L wagon kits which are sold under the Foxrock Models label. I have a number of Foxrock C&L cattle wagons and opens to assemble, whenever I make the time.

I downsized from OO to N in my late teens as it was a better option for building a realistic layout in a restricted space than OO and built a U shaped end to end layout in my bedroom which was approx. 11X11. I had struggled to fit a similar OO gauge layout into an 8X6 box room and was not happy with the crammed in effect with 2' radius curves and short train lengths, 18" radius in N is the equivalent of 3' in OO , it was easier to fit station layouts without major compression into the available space and I could run longer trains. Originally I focused on modelling Irish buildings and structures running British locos and stock, but eventually began re-painting and modifying rtr locos and stock and ended up with several Irish diesels which passed the 2' rule. I abandoned the Irish N Gauge layout as a result of a house move and focused more on building locos or stock in 4mm as I did not have an opportunity to build a layout for another 20 years. Although my main interest is Irish modelling, I started collecting American N gauge during the late 1980s and eventually built a looped 8 N gauge layout in the 17'X8' loft of our house in Dublin and started work on an American style walk-round layout in a 24X12 converted garage following a move to New Zealand in 2004. My N gauge layouts were fairly short lived on average 2-3 years usually as a result of a house move or change in circumstances, but were thoroughly satisfying both in terms of the realistic appearance and operation modelling the railway rather than focusing narrowly on the locos and stock. These days I work mainly in large scale with a 1:20.3 American garden layout and Irish modelling in 4mm, but I still retain my collection of N gauge American locos and stock. For an operating railway I would avoid the Lima Irish N gauge locos as I found from bitter experience the locos were unreliable with poor power pick up and motor quality even by the standards of the 1970s & 80s though the coaches and wagons were ok Irish N gauge layout c1980 pair of 121s kitbashed from Atlas SW1500 switchers hauling repainted Minitrix BR coaches. Terminus station c1980 Station with allover roof based on Foynes, background buildings from sketchbook on Irish architecture, GSWR style sawtooth loco shed American N c 2005 yard module re-located to New Zealand American layout final Dublin op session Apl 2004 before re-loacting

My understanding is that the "Tara Mines wagons" are owned by the mine (Locomotives and Rolling Stock of CIE & NIR Editions 1-3 Oliver Doyle a reliable source). I am uncertain about the situation with the NET Ammonia tank wagons and LHB bogie cement wagons. The Ammonia tank wagons were originally leased from Storage and Transportation Systems with the railway responsible for maintaining the wagons & NET the tank/pressure vessel. ESSO Teo owned the tank wagons used on the North Wall-Claremorris & Sligo oil trains, the wagons were re-gauged ESSO Class A & B from the British mainland. There are advantages for both the railway and shipper in using private owner wagons and private sidings for train load traffic. The railway was relieved of the capital cost of providing the wagons and the rail terminal and the potential loss of the traffic if the railway cannot obtain funding. The traffic from the Lisheen and Galmoy zinc mines were lost to road when the Government turned down IEs funding application presumably for wagons and a siding during the 1990s. In the traditional "loose coupled wagon load" era the oil companies owned their own branded tank wagons with ESSO Teo the final company to own its own wagons, the GSR built 8 bulk grain hoppers for Ranks Ireland in addition to 12 GSR owned wagons of the same design these

Sounds familiar a group of volunteer friends from the WHR "64 Company" used to visit Ireland in the early 90s regularly visiting Westrails operations including riding on the train and chasing the train from Athenry to Tuam. They came back after one of the later visits with news that the Limerick-Claremorris section was due to re-open with a daily Liner train carrying coal, oil, container and steel traffic. Some of the group were professional railwaymen who at the time held Irish Rail in high regard as things were tough for BR staff in the run up to privatisation. The news of a daily Liner & steel traffic on the Limerick Claremorris section left me gob-smacked as there had been very little regular traffic on the line apart from the Asahi Coal & Oil since the early 1980s