jhb171achill

Thanks to my Learned Friend, expert in all things electronickal, massive progress was made today with the Dugort Harbour - Castletown West branch laid, plus all of Castletown station bar a couple of cattle sidings. Got started on formwork for the scenery too.

Shows the benefit of good scenery. Fair specials on the extension under construction don’t look quite as well as with scenic accompaniment!

Interesting, spudfan..... the 08s have around since neolithic times, probably deserve a rest! I wonder how many are still in normal daily use (as opposed to preservation)?

Found these in my old photos.........

Excellent stuff. The rumour mill will now abound of IRM Hunslets! Serious point, though. You correctly mention the growing interest in NIR, and I would also suggest the UTA. This has often been dismissed before as too small a market, but it’s barely yesterday that the ENTIRE Irish market would have been described such, and anyone proposing to set up a Murphy Models or IRM type business would have been dismissed as a nutcase. The market has grown and is growing by the look of it - interest CERTAINLY is - largely fed by this website. Congrats are due to those who set it up! Long may it last - but to go back to the growing NIR market, I’ve been saying for yonks that I believe a RTR NCC “WT” 2.6.4T would sell. I suggest that now, this is even more the case? An AEC railcar set is an absolute no-brainer too, as they monopolised main line CIE services throughout the 1950s, even in Tramore and Bantry - as WELL as the GNR main lines, which fed into the UTA and NIR too.

They had nothing at all. Had the traffic materialised, the initial solution would probably to have borrowed Irish Rail’s beet wagons and installed a tippler, before buying either new ones, something 2nd-hand from Irish Rail, or re-gauging something second-hand from brexitstan. The unstable UTA spoil hoppers were almost all gone by then, but would have been completely unsuitable anyway.

That’s an interesting flat that the CDR railcar is towing. Maybe Airfixfan might be able to identify it?

“Come out ya black’n’tans….!”

Hmmmm. Could be GSWR. Panelling suggests that but roof and possibly chassis suggest DSER…… I will delve. DSER six-wheelers were early casualties of the late 1940s clearout of old stock.

Looks like a DSER 6-wheeler (?) beyond 462....

Yes. The idea was that this traffic would probably require three locomotives if fully developed, with one spare and another couple for shunting and PW work. Sadly it never materialised, though had it done so, the environmental lobby would kill it stone dead today!

Absolute realism at its best! Superb!

088 was in Connolly today…..

It's too bright even for post-1955 green, to be honest..... but certainly nowhere close to the 1945-55 rail, and 1945-63 bus version.

No, that’s only got three wheels. The greenway people stole the other one….

Serious!!? Where?

https://www.merg.org.uk/ My colleague who got them for me advises that he got them from MERG, as above. Evidently you have to be a member of it first (he would be).

They came from MERG; https://www.merg.org.uk/

The next stage progresses. Dugort Harbour is a Valentia-like extension of a long straggling line, like Cork - Bantry or the South Kerry line, which ends after a meandering two-hour journey from Cork at the fictitious large town of Castletown West. Once the entire layout is complete, it will be the existing Dugort branch terminus to C West, then on by the “main line” to Cork (or maybe Mallow) - in reality, a fiddle yard. Work proceeded today, courtesy of my Learned Friend in all matters DCC, and track laying between Dugort & Castletown has now started. The following pics give an idea. The train will be a typical “main line” Cork train; in this case about 1968….

Looks superb!

You’d have seen it about for some years afterwards, though none of those type of wagons lasted until IE days. The “Set of points” logo only appeared in 1987. The old CIE roundel would have been on some locomotives, though, well into the 1990s.

Years ago I made a few buildings out of card and just painted them with matt paint. There was slight warping on the first one I did, so I ensured that the next had more rigid framing (wooden bars), and that turned out ok. The card was even thinner than what you’re using, so your own should be more than satisfactory with paint.

From my own observations at the time, I think that things like this started appearing about 1973/4.

A GSWR 4.4.0 of some sort is definitely needed as a RTR loco!

If you mean the lamp housings permanently attached to guards vans, the body colour. Grey van, grey mountings.