Mayner

Arnold is exclusively N Gauge

The Plough Vans were introduced in 1904 for use with the new ballast hopper trains Padraic O'Cuimin notes in Wagon Stock of the MGWR that 4 Ballast Vans 42,43,46&48 were introduced in 1883 one of which 232A was in Departmental service in 1970. A number of GSWR Ballast Brakes from the same period survived into the 1960s in use of lifting trains, they were long wheelbase outside framed vehicles with a birdcage look out at one end and a large compartment for accommodating the men and their tools, possibly doubling as a mess and sleeping van. The 1883 Ballast Vans are not listed in POC's list of MGWR GAs drawings and diagrams and do not appear in the IRRS Compendium of MGWR Goods Vehicle Drawings. Intriguingly his schedule of drawings includes a Diagram which he prepared of a 1874 ballast wagon with "Guards Compartment" in . It might be worth asking Richard McLaughlin whether POCs personal MGWR archive was bequeated to the IRRS. Richard Chowan's No 11 may be a model of one of the Incline Brake Vans built by Metropolitan for the MGW in 1883, POC had no particulars of their appearance but they were listed as 1 compartment 4 wheel vehicles.

If you intend to solder SSM whitemetal wagon kits, you will need a low melting point 70°C or 100°C solder, a suitable flux & a temperature controlled soldering iron https://eileensemporium.com/index.php?option=com_hikashop&ctrl=category&task=listing&cid=1125&name=brass-3&Itemid=189, as there is a real risk of melting the castings. 145°C from Eileenn's, Carrs or DCC Concepts in conjunction with a phosphoric flux is the best option for soldering brass or nickle silver I would recommend Carrs or DCC Concepts 100°C solder as its less hazardous than 70°C which usually contains cadmium which is more dangerous than lead, 100°C also has advantages in soldering whitemetal to brass, however you solder make sure that you have good ventilation as solder and flux fumes are quite hazardous to health it possible to set up an ordinary soldering iron to solder whitemetal by wrapping thick copper wire around the element and establishing the length of the new tip by trial and error A less risk alternative until you have mastered soldering is to use superglue or a 5minute epoxy. Whether you glue or solder of the great advantages of whitemetal is that its very easy to dismantle the kit if you are not happy with the result. You can dismantle a soldered kit by placing it in boiling water and paint stripper has a similar effect on superglue or epoxy.

I think Mike is referring to this one The vents or whatever their purpose were a standard detail on MGWR Standard Covered Wagons and would have been very small for unloading grain. Its just about possible bulk grain was carried in these wagons and discharged through the doors, just as boxcars were used in the States & Canada up to the widespread introduction of grain hoppers in the 1980s. http://catalogue.nli.ie/Search/Results?lookfor=ballysadare+mill&type=AllFields&submit=FIND&filter[]=authorStr%3A"French%2C+Robert%2C+1841-1917+photographer"&filter[]=format%3A"Photo"&filter[]=digitised%3A"Digitised" The overhead gantry above the sidings at Ballysadare opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities.

Although the traffic was fish rather than coal Richies Plan reminds me of Iain Rice's Gairloch plan in Light Railway design, though it also reminds me of Torpoint, Craig and Madder Port all great examples of railway and harbour modelling. While there is nothing really similar within an Irish context of shipping coal by sea, there were a couple of might have-beens to ship iron ore and coal from small harbours in County Antrim including a steeply graded line involving loops and switch backs from the Antrim Plateau to a pier in Redbay near Cushendun. The Antrim mining railways were narrow gauge, but who is to say they could have been to a broader gauge and worked as self contained systems like the slate railways in North Wales. Although O Gauge PGHs Rm Web thread "MOVING COAL" a Colliery Layout contains practical solutions for loading and unloading coal on a model railway and might even inspire you to even try O Gauge https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/76110-moving-coal-a-colliery-layout-in-0-gauge/page/9/

Richard Chown modelled Castlerackrent as WLWR rather than the MGWR railway apparently because of the availability of British builders drawings from museums and societies like the HMRS. The GSWR & MGWR built most of their locos and stock from the 1870s onwards while the smaller companies like the W&L and CBSCR bought most of their locos and stock from British builders.

David sent me some some photos which I have somewhere but cannot find, not much progress on the layout in recent years just an open frame baseboard with a raised trackbed, some track laid, a Sligo Road station building and a signal box. The buildings appear in one of the MRD articles.

The MGWR covered cattle wagons were quite different in design to other companies cattle wagons and made up a relatively small proportion of the livestock carrying fleet with over 1613 Convertible & 450 Covered cattle wagons in service in 1924. Some of the cattle wagons were vacuum piped and later fitted with vacuum brake gear which indicates that they are likely to have been used for urgent traffic running in passenger and mail trains. The Midland tended to go through phases of rebuilding open cattle wagons as standard covered wagons, eliminating the type by 1885 then building small batches between 1885 & 1895. Unfortunately I have been unable to find a good close up photos of the MGWR covered cattle wagons or find a drawing or photo of the open cattle wagons. Upper photo un-credited, lower photo ©L&GRP 22486 Loco No133 "Titian" both photos appear to have been taken at the same location on the same day. Jack Kennedy's photo of 129 "Celtic" one of the MGWRs largest and most prestigious main line passenger loco on a cattle train at Athenry illustrates the relative importance of cattle traffic on the Midland compared to other Irish railways, as Jack once commented the MGWR would not have been interested in "The High Speed Train" (IC125) unless it was capable of hauling a cattle train. The Midlands express passenger locos had relatively small 6'3" driving wheels compared to similar GSWR & GNR locos to improve their ability to haul mail and cattle trains, the D & K Class 2-4-0s & F Class 0-6-0s were true mixed traffic engines with 5'8" driving wheels similar in concept to the Scottish "Intermediate" 4-4-0s similar to the North British "Glen Class" & Highland "Loch" Class. Nice to see the photo of the 1898 MGWR Guinness Wagon, these were basically a lengthened hard topped version of the Standard Covered Wagon or convertible. Some of the more modern 10T covered wagons introduced for Guinness traffic in 1915 may have carried Guinness labelling, these wagons were similar in appearance to the Irish Railway Clearing House standard covered wagons used by the GNR(I) & SLNCR and the Provincial Wagons kits.

Using loose coal would be become increasingly dusty and dirty and may lead to problems with poor reliability, on one exhibition layout that used real coal, the coal turned to dust as the exhibition went and the operators started to look like miners coming off shift in need of a bath. I once had a layout with working overhead iron ore loading bins, the ore( a Woodlands Scenics coarse ballast)started to break up and jam the mechanism, in the end we had to use small hand held scoops to load the wagons, unloading was off scene! One common dodge on layouts with coal mines or power stations is to have one train of loaded and one train of empty wagons running in opposite directions with the mine and covered unloading building on opposite sides of a view-blocker or backscene.

There is an interesting account of the incident in the July 2019 IRRS Journal and in N J Spink's "The Sligo Leitrim and Northern Counties" book, the train which ran as a special from Enniskillen to Greenore was made up of 4 SLNCR & 2 GSWR 3rd class coaches and a GNR van from Enniskillen. At the time the SLNCR braking system was incompatible with the automatic vacuum brake system used by the GNR & GSWR. Interestingly no brake tests were carried out when locomotive changes were carried out at Enniskillen and Dundalk not unlike the recent "Caledonian Sleeper" incident when the train ran away on the approach to Edinburgh Waverley Station.

Completed well nearly! a second OO gauge 2-4-0 No33 Arrow in late MGWR condition. I originally assembled the locos as one of the final test builds for the kit in Oct 18 and decided to motorise the loco in OO. Hopefully I will get around to motorising the second test build as 663 and assemble a 21mm gauge chassis for Arrow at some stage. Before the arrival of larger locomotive the 2-4-0s usually double headed the "Mails" between Broadstone and Mullingar and regularly double headed heavy excursion trains in GSR & CIE days. I think I prefer grey to black for steam locos!

Nohab was the major European supplier of EMD powered locos in the 50s and 60s. The double cabbed Nohab like the NSB Di3 was basically the European equivalent of the EMD F7, Clyde Engineering produced similar locos in Australia. Interestingly Nohab tendered to supply diesel locomotives to the GNR(B) and possibly CIE, but would have been too heavy and too expensive at the time. The Victorian Railways B Class are probably close to what a Nohab loco could have looked at in GNR(B) colours https://www.victorianrailways.net/motive power/bdiesel/bdie.html

Paul Greene is a member of this newsgroup. Try sending him a personal message or ask Alan O'Rourke New Irish Lines https://newirishlines.org/contact/ editor to forward a message. Paul is the former owner of Studio Scale Models and the builder of the Kilbrandon S Scale Irish Layout http://www.s-scale.org.uk/gallery15.htm

There were plans at different stages to extend the Ballaghaderreen branch to Ballyhaunis on the Mayo Line which probabably explains the back-to front track layout. A number of MGWR branch line terminals besides Ballaghadrerreen had single road engine sheds including Cavan, Clara, Kingscourt and Killeshandra . There are several good quality photos of Midland section branch line terminals, loco sheds and trains in "Great Southern Railways" an Irish Railway Pictorial by Donal Murray published by Ian Allen 2006.

NZ turned towards towards US practice mainly because locos were more suited to local conditions and the US builders delivered their locos on time an to spec. The tipping point towards US practice arose when Baldwin quickly supplied an order of standard DRG 60 Class 2-8-0s to ease a locomotive crisis, which arose as a result of the late delivery of an order of similar 2-8-0s from Nasmyth Wilson. The British locos were substantially heavier than specified, the builders attempts to reduce the weight contributed to the delay in delivery and problems in service. The American locos were more suited to NZ "frontier conditions" with cheaply built lines to open up country to settlement and very basic workshop facilities.

David Malone's Cliffony does not seem to have got beyond the baseboard and structures phase, his modelling in recent years appears to have shifted towards modelling locos and rolling stock of the 60s and 70s era, colour photos of his work including re-gauged MM diesels, a G611 & 4w heating and luggage vans can be viewed in the new Irish Lines Archive.

In true Blue Peter fashion here is one that was pulled from the Oreti River in Southland and restored earlier !!!!!!!!!!!!! Rogers K 88 "Washington' Several steam locomotives have been recovered from the Oreti River including K88 & K 94https://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/travel/resurrecting-railway-magic-mandeville The recovery and restoration is usually carried out by local vintage groups and individuals including farmers and business people than conventional railway enthusiast groups.

After the opening of the Sligo & Cavan lines the Midland tended to get local companies or the government to promote or build branch lines to be worked by the Midland. These worked branches were built to meet Midland construction and civil engineering standards although some of the Western Branches were technically Light Railways they were built to the main line standards of the 1890s. The Light Railway Western branches of the Midland, Achill, Ballinrobe, Clifden, Killala and Loughrea were substantially built with realatively easy grades, substantial brick or stone buildings, usually with a standard MGWR 2 road engine shed, water tower and coal store at terminals, these branches only became light in terms of axle load, when the main lines were re-laid with heavier rails and bridges upgraded to accommodate the heavier locos of the 20th Century. The small E Class tanks appear to have been introduced in the 1890s as a standard locomotive to work the Western lines and short feeder branches, but tender locos like the D Class 2-4-0s, L,Lm,Ln 0-6-0s worked goods and passenger trains on branch lines often working cattle specials from the big fairs in the West through to the Dublin Yards. There are photos and details of train consists on the Ballinrobe and Loughrea branches in the "Baronial Lines" E Class 0-6-0T were generally used on passenger and mixed trains from opening until replaced by tender locos from the late 1930s onwards, there is a photo of a D Class 2-4-0 at Ballinrobe shortly before the loco was withdrawn in 1922. The branch train was usually made up of 3 6 wheel coaches a 3rd, a Composite and Brake 3rd, 2nd Class accommodation was provided on the Midland until withdrawn in 1912. Apart from the Limited Mail Stock of 1901-2 the Midland only had a handful of bogie stock on the 1900-1906 era a quartet of tri-composite coaches with a center luggage compartment introduced in the late 1890s, possibly for through working of tourist traffic from the main line to the Clifden and Achill Branches. Someone once remarked that the Midland was a Patrician rather than a Proletarian Railway with a high proportion of 1st and 2nd class Bogie stock. Train frequency seems to have been 3-4 trains daily including a mixed in each direction on most branch lines from opening until services were cut back during the Emergency, with 1-2 trains daily on surviving lines with passenger services until closure except for a brief revival in the 60s on the Loughrea Branch and the survival of the Ballina Branch as a feeder line with main line connections. The reduction in train services from 3-4 to 1-2 trains daily in CIE days may have driven the need to replace the E Class with more powerful tender locos as goods traffic appears to have held up although passenger traffic continued to decrease. The L,Lm,Ln Standard Goods classes worked cattle specials from the opening of the lines, with the loco working through from the main line with the empties and working the laden train through to Liffey Junction or the North Wall Yards in Dublin for shipping, traffic from the large seasonal fair in the West could be heavy with stations like Loughrea, Ballinrobe dispatching 3-4 trains of 25-30 wagons during a large fair. In pre-Amalgamation days goods traffic appears to have been carried mainly in the MGWR standard convertible wagons, open box wagons and timber on twin bolster wagons, hardwood timber for export to Great Britain from the large estates was am inportant traffic in the pre-WW1 era, the Midland used gravel ballast in low sided open wagons from local pits with a pit at Dunsandle on the Loughrea Branch before the introduction of hopper wagons in 1905 and a change to limestone ballast with the opening of Lecarrow Quarry on the Mayo Line. Track was flatbottom approx 80lb yd, usually spiked down to sleepers on branch lines, with bolt fixing and sole plates at joints, half round sleepers were used on the Loughrea and Ballinrobe Branches when opened and both branches were re-laid with material cascaded from the main line during the 1920s. There may be a photo of this type of track in David Malone's Model Rail Digest article on modelling Irish broad gauge trackwork. A branch line from Ballinasloe to Mount Bellew or Moylough built by an independent company and worked by the Midland appears to be reasonably plausible large villages in excellent cattle country though the WLWR or GSWR would probably object.

The new Zealand DFT Class a close relative of the 071s experienced problems with cracked frames & engine mounts apparently as a result of vibration in the higher power notches after the power units were uprated from 1800-2400Hp. The Irish and New Zealand locos are variations of the same Standard EMD 22 export model. The NZR locos were originally supplied with a 1 non turbo charged 645 engine used in the 071 for use on drag freight work and later uprated to 2400hp for fast freight work, the export locos may have lighter frames than those supplied to the US market

The 071s developed cracks in their bogie frames at some stage in the early 1980s. There appear to have been sufficient locos in service at the time to cover the 071 Class rosters, CIE had something of surplus of main locos following the ending of loose coupled goods working in the late 70s and the electrification of the Howth-Bray Suburban services. Some 001 Class were out of service from the early 1980s and were never re-instated, 141, 181 Class took over Dublin outer suburban services from the (B)201 Class around the same time as electric services were introduced on the Howth Bray line, a (B)201 was used on the Bray-Greystones shuttle until replaced by a 121. After the (B)201 class was phased out of main line service a small number continued on pilot duties mainly in the North Wall Yards, all the Sulzers were out of service by the late 1970s and were never re-instated.

The photos are 3D renderings rather than the actual models and are likely to require considerable work to achieve a reasonable surface finish in 4mm scale. The 1:76 scale models only appear to be available in White Natural Versatile Plastic which has a coarse surface finish not unlike cement render. There tends to be a trade off between cost, surface finish and the level of detail that can be re-produced between the various 3D printing materials Most designers select a versatile plastic for 1:76/OO because the materials recommended for scale replicas are more expensive, fragile and have a layered effect not unlike the face in a limestone quarry. Brassmasters http://www.brassmasters.co.uk/cleminson_underframe.htm produce a good 6w underframe kit suitable for OO. Kirley built a rake of passable Midland 6wheelers using Alphagraphix card bodies on his own chassis https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/93496-kirleys-workbench/page/29/, another alternative is to use the Alphagraphix card parts as a template for producing a scratchbuilt body in plasticard as practiced by David Holman on his Arigna Town thread.

I worked in an office in the area for a year or two before departing for New Zealand and explored the area between Grand Canal Dock and Pearse Station during lunch time walks, the residential side streets between Pearse Street & Grand Canal Street tended to be eerily quiet with little pedestrian traffic during the daytime almost like todays lockdown. The authentic street signs, street furniture and billboards cry out Dublin City in the early 21st Century

Iain Rice and the late Bob Barlow modelled a 4mm Martello tower on their Orford Haven layout in the 1980s. As far as I recall the tower was turned from a piece of mahogany and modelled in a derelict condition with the lead partially stripped of the roof exposing the roof structure, the back story was that the tower was used as a lock up by Customs after the Napoleonic wars.

I might as well post a photo of the original 4mm version, I did not have a 5p or $0.20 coin handy when I took the photos, . Angus did very well to solder the tiny T strapping & door latches to the Meat/Fish Van, I struggled with them.

The 201 or J11 Class was basically a tank engine version of the J15 both classes shared the same boiler and motion and appear to have been considered the "maid of all work" in terms of GSWR tank engines. Bill McDonnell wrote about their work in the Cork Region in "In a Decade of Steam", although built as goods locos some incl 201, 207-209 were fitted with steam heating apparatus for working passenger trains. They were built as shunting and transfer locos and seem to have been mainly used on the Cork Area, including passenger trains between Cork and Bantry, in addition to shunting, trip working (Glanmire Rd-Albert Quay & the "run of goods" Glanmire Rd-Rathpeacon) and banking heavy goods trains from Cork through the tunnel to Rathpeacon Marshalling Yard. I haven't seen any mention of them working in the Dublin area.