richrua

marvellous stuff. love the buildings and the loco project is a pipe dream of mine !!!!

i have it here. A really nice feature. Stunning layout

v atmospheric photography. Sad yes but also a true gritty piece of history

that could be the next one Kirley !

Headin back north on the train after the all ireland. Train is stuffed but comfy. it beats driving all the way

Hi gsr800. The first one is based on my great aunt and uncles house in North Galway , my mum and gran also grew up there. You are not far off !!!

Built another one. Enjoying this. It is a little personal but they will also fit well in my layout.

indeed i will

managed a bit more on the cottage. If I make another I think i will try a double layer of card to attempt a more realistic wall width. The back wall of my Great Aunt Mary's house was about 4 ft thick. Nobody knew how old it was. The front wall was rebuilt in the 'newer' style sometime after 1911. I have gone for this version. I might try the older version next but the thatch would be tricky. The windows dont match up either, a rather haphazard design back then. have a really old pic somewhere.

thats great advice thank you

hi Kirley. It will have a slate roof. hi Sulzer, I would consider myself a novice really or not that past it! I only got back into the hobby of my youth a couple of years ago. I just try things - best way to learn - and I pester these guys with questions too!! Undercoat:

jeepers. dear yoke that.

Ok, ok, I know these type of cottage can be considered a little "Oirish" as it were. However, they really are an element of the Irish rural landscape .Also i spent a large amount of my youth staying with my great Aunty in Galway in a cottage like this. great memories. So, why not build one ? I have a few wills windows that will suit nicely.

thanks for that dhu varren . I watched the plastic strip carefully while changing the point and you are right. It actually comes under considerable pressure/force when about to change. I ll grab a nice bit of brass when i get a chance . thanks for the advice!

had a problemo with point motors. I picked up a load of the SEEP type gaugemaster motors. Only afterwards I realised that by bad luck some of my points are directly over the battons, making them impossible to fit below the baseboard. So I will need to fit three surface mounted. I decided for reasons of cost I was not happy to buy three more of the hornby surface type motors. instead, I decided to use the gaugemaster point motor and mount it on the surface. Required a little thought. I clipped off the bar, used a thick piece of plastic strip to operate the point. Then i mounted the motor upside down atop a couple of pieces of Balsa. It works!!! I will cover it with a signal box i think.

I have been messing about with adding a cheapish Digitrax sound chip and speaker to my 141. The sound chip i chose has the sounds of an american SD38 loco preloaded . This loco has the same innards as some irish locos - an EMD 645 i think. not perfect but i hope to get a digitrax decoder programmer and try building a more accurate sound with correct horn etc. I forgot to fit a baffle so i will do that before i upload a recording. Here is a short vid of how i fitted the decoder anyways : Fitting Digitrax sound to Murphy Models: https://youtu.be/wTZ7SxqlZr8

hi doods. I fixed some hornby points as Eoin suggested. I used those otherwise useless tiny cable ties to extend and improve the point frogging. Thanks for the advice .

Ironically, up north , the nearest line to Belfast international was mothballed a few years ago in order to improve the other line North . Every now and then a letter appears in the paper about how daft it is to not have a railway link. I find it insane that there has been no concrete plan to connect our airports to the rail system . North or South. It is almost deliberate. I wouldn't knock a rail connection to Shannon either. If you consider that visitors to our island generally come from bigger countries than ours, many would consider flying to Shannon, then an extra two hours on a train to dublin or cork on the train to be of no consequence whatsoever. A two our train ride in Russia is minute in distance, for example. I actually think there is a real need for more passenger rail, subsidised or not. Population trends indicate it.

I love the cobbles and the different paving between the rails. Looks really atmospheric.

Both irish thump and Glenderg thank both for the advice. Glenderg, the bit about the scanger on the quays ? Poetry. I was born and brought up in Dublin and there are some things I miss. The wit is one. I am no where near as sharp as I once was.

Folks, if any of you shop with sterling, this is a serious bargain from Marks Models: DCC ready new railroad version. I always wanted a Scotsman and the boy in me won hands down at this price: http://www.marksmodels.com/?pid=22368

You will find lots of help here.welcome

Ok, so it may be awkward and slightly infringe on the no politics rule, however, it is part of our Island's railway history. I remember being at a debate in the early '90s , feelings ran high about the peace train people, and I indeed was rather more opinionated myself back then, but it was indeed part of a wider desire to move forward and show some sort of willingness to shake off the past. I don't remember there being many actual trains. Here is a photo I pinched from the web:

Thanks k and thump. How do you make a wash ? Is it just diluted acrylic?