Mayner

I built a whitemetal MIR 141 in Supertrain livery in the mid 90s. Solder assembly with added detail on a simple brass chassis with shortened Athearn GP35 drive, would pull any train with the combination of all metal body and all wheel drive. I also built a pair of 121s in IE livery but whimped out and used Athearn SW1500 Chassis, the 121s were let down by my crude attempt at the IE Tippex stripes. I sold them before heading South, would make an interesting time capsule I wonder are they still about? Before the days of DCC or sound! my attempt at 132 assembled from a whitemetal MIR kit a little worse for wear and crude Tippex stripes.

The 23 & 72 goodness gracious David! As a kid in the 1960s my mother used to take the 23 to visit her elderly aunts in North Richmond Street and the 72 to visit her sister off the Oxmontown Road usually R or RA busses, for me the highlight of the 23 was a brief glimpse of the railway at Island Bridge Junction though I didn't get to travel upstairs unless my father came along.

The Christmas bottle of whiskey or brandy to important clients and customers was pretty much an expectation in the construction industry in Ireland and to a lesser degree the UK. Quite a different culture in New Zealand where there is no similar expectation and clients appeared genuinely surprised to receive a Christmas present.

A classical historical/heritage building dilemma, no income stream to offset the cost of owning/maintaining the building. A Civil Damages claim would probably cost a lot less than restoring/renovating the old station. Perhaps Kilkenny City Council or a local historical group could take over responsibility for maintaining the old station if CIE are unable to find a tenant.

1100 & 1101 later B113 & 114 were built with oil fired steam heating boilers similar to British Railways diesels. The boilers were removed at some stage after the "Tin Vans" were introduced in the mid 1950s. The UTA heating van looks like a shortened version of the self-propelled armored trollies built by the NCC during WWII. The trollies were disguised as bulk cement wagons and fitted with a Leyland engine, gearbox and transmission and were intended to patrol the NCC lines to detect sabotage.

The brake van roofs are slightly lower than the H Vans a distinctive feature of the prototype. The decorated sample was to test whether the printers could achieve the required standard before producing the more complex post 1963 scheme with CIE roundels and ducket wasp stripes. 23580 Grey Post 1963 B23586 Red Oxide late 1960s Unfortunately the project experienced a set back this week, our printer received notice to vacate their premises in February which is likely to have a knock on effect on production. I hope to make an announcement once I have clarity on the printing situation.

P J Flannigan's theory for "The King" retaining its nameplate was that the loco seldom left Ballinamore Works yard as the loco tended to spread the track on the curves. No 8 is supposed to have 'lost' her nameplates at some remote spot on the Arigna Tramway. I wonder did the GSR melt down or sell the plates.

The Heritage Officers main role appears to have been protecting IEs interests in connection with maintenance, alterations to or demolition of Protected or Listed buildings and structures. A lot of his work was tied up covering off the "Heritage" aspects of major rail projects during the late 90s early 20s. Such as the Kildare Route Project, Heuston Station re-modelling and improvements to stations like Kilkenny, Mullingar and Dromod where existing heritage buildings were retained in the new station design rather than being demolished and replaced with more utilitarian buildings.

We received the decorated sample of the van in the CIE Flying Snail scheme today, so could not resist doing an update this evening! Working with an Auckland based pad printing business & SSM to produce the graphic design was the final piece in the jigsaw to produce the Brake Van as a rtr model as opposed to a kit. We have finalised the 3D CAD work for the model including a re-designed roof and removable NEM coupler pockets to allow modellers to fit their personal choice of couplers. The van will be supplied in OO with either Markits or NorthYard NMRA 110 profile wheels and tension lock couplers, the van is designed to be re-gauged to 21mm either by pushing out the stock wheels on their axles or replacing with EM or P4 wheelsets. The brake shoes are a push fit into rebates in the chassis. The production version will be 3D printed in resin using SLA technology as the numbers did not stack up for a plastic injection moulded model and resin casting was not an available option. There are a few issues related to the limitations of the 3D printing process which we hope to resolve including those little dimples visible in one balcony end. We expect to start marketing the model through on-line media and the Model Press during the first quarter of 2021 for potential release in Mid-Late 2021

B125 & 126s arrived this afternoon 7 days after shipment from IRM in Dublin & just a day late for my birthday.! Meanwhile B131 is on its way from Rails wonder when it will turn up? B121 was fine after its journey 126s with a broken leading vacuum pipe and damaged snatcher on the 2nd mans side. The big question is whether they are re-gaugable to 21mm and to find a space in the display case for them along with my other Murphy Models diesels

There are several photos of B121 Class in as delivered condition in the IRRS flickr album The B121 appear to have been delivered with twin marker lights on both sides same as the Metrovicks and B101 Class Sulzers. The G611 & B141 Classes appear to have been delivered with the 2+1 arrangement. In practice locos seldom ran with the marker lights illuminated (in day light hours anyway). On CIE/IE loco head lights were not used in daylight hours until an instruction went out in the 1990s to run with headlights illuminated in daylight hours. Light locos would have carried a separate tail lamp to indicate the train is complete rather than depend on a single red marker lamp.

New Ross must have been an interesting place to shunt in loose coupled days and an interesting model especially if you like corrugated iron buildings. A single long siding served the goods shed loading dock and cattle bank accessed by the pair of crossovers outside the goods shed all movements to and from the main line to cattle bank out of the photo on the right would have involved a reversal. The 'head hunts' to the right appear to have served the turntable and loco shed in DWWR/DSER days.

The instruction to operate the B121 Class cab first and the cutting of louvers in the cab doors arose as a result of an incident involving a p.w. trolley at Straffan shortly after the class were introduced. Restricted visibility running long hood first and an insulated cab contributed to the incident, the driver apparently did not hear the detonators the p.w. gang had placed on the line exploding when the train entered the possession. Apparently drivers really liked the comfortable sound insulated cab with American AAR style control stands when the locos were first introduced, some apparently preferred to run long hood first and for a short while ran their locos accordingly. Drivers were less happy about the drafts and increased noise levels after the levers were cut in the doors.

The paint shops were busy in recent weeks with the RSL saddle tank. After considering a number of different liveries including Black, Dark Blue and Crimson Lake the workshops settled on red (from a Ford aerosol) to match the companies Austerity 0-6-0ST and the preserved example Isabella https://www.eorailway.co.uk/enthusiasts/rolling-stock/isabel/ though with a less complex (cheaper version) of the livery. The main components laid out for assembly, one set of driving wheels swaddled in masking tape. I first spray painted the loco in maroon and left of a week for the paint to cure before masking with Tayima tape before spray painting the running plate, and other components black. I then gave everything a coat of clear laquer and left to cure for a day before starting the final assembly. Chassis with most of the wheels fitted, showing inside valve gear and compensating beam. I usually build sprung/compensated locos with all axles running in removable horn blocks, but assembled this loco in the traditional manner for a compensated loco with a fixed rear axle. Chassis with cylinder crossheads and motion bracket & lower boiler sub assemblies fitted. Everything is designed to slot in place, though I seem to have mislaid the brake gear during the 16 years the loco has spent in storage1. Loco with cab running plate and saddle tank test fitted. There are a number of dings and dents in the tank as I over annealed the saddle tank wrapper when I initially assembled the loco. The handrail needs to be straightened on one side as I managed to damage it while removing the masking tape. The kit was designed for the cab, running plate and saddle tank to be assembled as a single unit, I am planning to modify this to bolt the saddle tank to the cab with some form of latch fixing in the smokebox. I managed to destroy the original coupling rods by boring out the holes oversize during the initial assembly and had to make a replacement set of rods which will be fitted at the next stage of the assembly.

I didn't have time to do anything on the modelling front during the past three weeks, but made some time to do some work on the 52 Class this afternoon. The kit is based on a locomotive with a raised round topped firebox, which adds a number of challenges to both the design and assembly. The boiler and firebox is designed as a sub assembly, with a bayonet fitting of the firebox into the cab and a bolt fixing to the smokebox, so that the whole sub assembly can be removed for painting. The firebox and boiler sections are joined by a cast brass step ring. The step ring was cast from a 3D printed pattern. I used a tool makers clamps to secure the step ring to the firebox during soldering. I used phosphoric flux (home mix) 145° solder and soldering iron (55watt)with a chisel tip to solder the casting and sheet parts together. One of the challenges of building Victorian locos with large wheels and small low pitched boilers in OO! I basically offered up the boiler and firebox to the running board checked that everything was level then scribed the splasher outline on the boiler wrapper and cut away the metal that would foul on the driving wheels using a fine toothed piercing saw. I soldered the step ring to the boiler once I cut away the surplus metal from the wrapper, I again used a toolmakers clamp to align and secure the boiler to the firebox while Soldering, the step between the boiler and firebox is approx .5mm and used a piece of metal cut from the boiler wrapper as a packing shim during soldering. While the cut outs in the boiler worked reasonably well I need to remove more metal from the firebox wrapper to achieve sufficient running clearance for the wheels. Thankfully the large cut outs in the boiler are not really noticeable of the partially assembled model thanks to the combination of large splashers and low pitched boiler. The circumference of the boiler wrapper and diameter of the boiler front former needs to be increased to eliminate the gap between the two sections.

The Cavan and Leitrim built a pair of Milk Vans No 1&2 in 1902 & 1902 and appear to have considered building another two in 1917 but built a pair of Timber Trucks instead. The vans were set up as passenger brake vans and had end doors but no end platforms for accessing the coaches. The milk vans were quite different in outline from the standard C&L passenger brakes with outside framing similar to a hard roofed van. They originally appear to have been painted in dark blue with "Milk Van" lettering on the door, later one was apparently painted grey and the other brown and both were painted green in CIE days, apparently the vans were also used for fish traffic in the early 1900s The "Milk Vans" appear to have been mainly used as passenger brakes on the Main Line in CIE days.

Some BR vans & TPO stock were fitted with through pipes for working with the air braked 62'9" container flats on the Galway Liner Mail & possibly the Cork Night Mail. The Dublin-Galway Night Mail and North Wall-Galway Liner was combined into a single Liner Mail in the late 80s when the mail lost its passenger accommodation until mail trains ceased to operate in the early 1990s. The 62'9" wagons were converted to carry timber traffic in the mid 1990s, Galway Liner traffic was carried on an out and back trip working from Galway that connected into the North Wall-Claremorris Liner at Athlone.

Useful stuff David especially as I am planning to build a MGWR 4-4-0 most likely a C Class at some stage. The large bogie wheels and lack of frame cut outs are significant challenges especially if the loco is expected to run on anything less than prototypical curves, GSWR 4-4-0s with their smaller bogie wheels and frame cut outs are a lot simpler! I used to crank the leading end of the frames on 4-4-0s inwards to improve clearance and avoid shorting on curves, but the plastcicard overlays look like a good solution to the problem.

Excellent find. Traditional scratchbuilding techniques and extremely steady hands!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! These days I would struggle to scribe a line against a straight edge let alone use a piercing saw There is an excellent article in Model Railway Journal 279 on building a GNR(I) U Class in 3mm scale with working inside motion using basic hand tools.

The difference in speed between Alan's 121 may become less noticeable as the locos are run in and it may be a better option to operate on DC or leave the decoders at their default setting. I found that it was more trouble than it was worth attempting to speed match consists of locos with different speed characteristics on an American layout, and ended up only consisting locos with the same characteristics usually with the decoder at its default setting. I generally ran 3-5 loco consists, but ended up keeping Atlas, Bachmann and Kato locos in separate consists in order to reliably operate 20-30 car freights. Funnily enough speed matching was less of an issue when I operated the layout on DC the main limitation was the 1 AMP rating of the H&M transformer.

Thanks for pointing that out the address is no longer active. Try info@jmdesignmr.co.nz

Its possible a timetabled Athlone-Lisduff ballast train was included following the closure of Lecarrow Quarry on the Mayo Line to allow the Athlone Division ballast trains to run through to Lisduff. The Athlone Division would have been responsible for track maintenance on the lines West of Athlone and possibly the Portarlington Branch. A timetabled working may have been introduced to avoid pathing difficulties on the single line Portarlington-Athlone line particularly if the train ran more that two or three times a week. Not sure if Train Control would have been exactly happy with reversing a ballast train at Portarlington and sending it down the main line at one of the busier times of day with a flotilla of East Bound Liner trains and South and Westbound Intercity passenger services. Port was barely in the Commuter belt at the time with a single early morning Athlone-Heuston and Cork-Heuston passenger services.

Interesting one passengers joining train at a station that had closed to passenger traffic several years earlier, first coach appears to be ex-GSWR/early GSR complete with footboards.

Connolly-Sligo and Connolly-Rosslare passenger diagrams were almost exclusively operated by pairs of 121 Class from the late 1970s until replaced by 071 Class in the mid 1990s. At least one Heuston-Westport diagram was regularly worked by pairs of 121 Class during the same time period, pairs of 121s even appeared on Connolly-Belfast Enterprise workings into the early 1990s.

I had an interesting experience buying a large scale loco on e-bay from the States a couple of years ago. The seller in a remote part of the Pacific North West was unable to ship by GPS & complete the sale due to some glitch in the E-Bay system, despite both of use contacting e-bay customer services. Somehow or other we managed to get around the system contact each other by phone and complete the transaction. The seller ended up shipping the loco by the UPS which involved a long drive to the nearest post office, as opposed to printing out a GPS label at home and leaving out the parcel for pick up by a courier.