jhb171achill

Greetings, all. The final frantic work is in progress now at the Malahide Fry museum for the “soft” opening on Saturday. It’s likely that finishing touches will still be required before the main public opening, which is planned to be in January. Finishing me coffee for another 13-hour day there! Dave & team are doing a stupendous job on the 00 gauge layout. Everyone else is running about looking after different aspects of it. It’s looking good! If I get time I’ll post a few pics later.

Absolutely superb stuff, gentlemen - very many thanks!

Many thanks!

Vaguely related to modelling... Once "Dugort harbour" is up and running, I am considering ideas for something else. I have tended to grow an interest in the railways of some countries I've visited over the years, especially South Africa, India and Indonesia. Just being back from South America I have seen that there's a huge amount there that isn't hugely known of here. For inspirational purposes, does anyone know of any decent books about the history of the railways of Brazil, Peru, Argentina or Chile?

If you can find one under the graffiti.....

And these tubes are "trains"...... gawd 'elp us.....! Gimme a leaky-window, unheated Park Royal any day!

Wow!!! I thought that was a real photo!

Narrow gauge steam, if Irish, and if the preference is actual accuracy (it may not be; different opinions rule), would require everything from station paintwork bro anything running on rails to be very heavily weathered! Again, since you ask, for me the preference is realistic weathering on everything, but each to their own.

This was indeed standard in Ireland, or possibly “standard”! I’m unaware of any exceptions though I won’t swear there weren’t any!

Left to right. The train is of laminate type (late 1950s) carriages, although the middle one might possibly be one of the 1937 Bredins. Thd vehicle parked in front of the loco shed is a standard MGWR 6-wheeler, but with a re-panelled end in non-standard style and foot boards removed. This means it’s in departmental use. The grounded coach body is probably a DSER suburban third class 6-wheeler.

Irish railways carried them to an extent but there was never a huge interest outside Belfast and Dublin. They went in wicker baskets in the guard’s vans of passenger trains usually.

Very much so, David!

That’s a great thing to have. I travelled round India with James Boyd and his wife, Kenneth Westcott-Jones and the American railway historian, author and preservationist Edgar T Mead III in 1978 or 9. Boyd was notoriously hard to get to know, But I hit it off with him straight away and corresponded with him for a good while later. We had a shared interest in the Tralee & Dingle and he told me many anecdotes about it, plus one about the Schull & Skib which I won’t repeat here! A great intellect and depth, and an encyclopaedic knowledge (as you’d expect) on another massive interest of mine, the Isle of Man railway.

Possibly a slight overlap but I’m not sure, as one seems to have more or less replaced the other.

I was thinking that Leslie and other worthies must have been on it! Leslie - which one are you in the picture?

That top one is the famous “Inst” trip, or “outing” as the IRRS even yet still quaintly calls trips like this - as if it’s the loonies being let out if their padded cells for the day! Belfast Inst ran several such trips and these became the genesis of the RPSI......

Indeed I do, Edo, indeed I do...... I need to tread carefully, as I have tentatively submitted an application to the Dept. of Domestic Matters for outline planning permission for a slight layout extension..... Softly softly catchee monkey, as they say in the Shtix.......

Anyone know why some of those Bell containers had white tops and some didn’t? A few actual containers were white too, but I presume they might have been ventilated ones......?

Go Harvey go....... away from model shops!

Out of curiosity when I was a teenager (many, many, many moons ago, when the world was black'n'tan and steam was just about dying) I gathered some very small stone gravel from a beach, with the intention of putting it through Senior's old sand sieve, to extract the smallest pieces. The intention was to select small stones to build a stone wall on my (first) layout out of the natural materials. As you will guess, it was an exceptionally tedious and lengthy process, and matching up the right-looking tiny little bits would have tried the patience of ten saints. However, while I never progressed further than the scale equivalent of a ten-foot-long length of wall, it looked well, and no artificial thing can come close. But it certainly knocked my next proposed projects straight on the head, which would have been to build a small stone cottage to put in a field at the corner of the layout. I'd still be at it...... I have been thinking more about that lately, perhaps to make a derelict stone gable wall of something like an old famine ruin in one of the fields near "Dugort Harbour". Maybe, if I've nothing better to do some winter. There used to be some firm who made little plastic bricks and coping stones and stuff like that - is this still about, does anyone know?

Close enough, yes, a pale yellowish straw colour, but not actual yellow. Nothing was yellow. So - cream/yellow/straw unlined numerals, eau-de-nil (light green) snails, lined in gold.

Ooohhhhhhh!!!! How come I missed this? Perfect! It was posted nearly a year ago, when I was footplating a seriously clapped-out "preserved" Burma Railways 2.8.2 across darkest Myanmar..... And I'm off to Brazil and Argentina tomorrow (insufferable show-off....). No railways this time, though. However; those CIE coach linings and snails are properly accurate, and very timely. Just wait till I get all my six-wheelers..... Yes, it did. But not on ends, which were black.

You could try the Irish Railway Record Society in Dublin, but I'm unaware of any there, I have to say. That's not to say they're NOT there! Alternatively, try the Donegal Railway Museum Heritage Centre, or whatever it's called, in Donegal town. Beyond that, I don't know.

Pricewise, it's about normal. These are very high quality scale models, not toys!

If it wasn't their property, do you know whose it was? I did think it was theirs to scrap (unfortunately).