jhb171achill

Warb, I am speechless. How has this one remained secret! Your layout is among the top masterpieces I've ever seen. An urban setting is rarely done with convincing scenery. Everything about that - the setting, proportions, atmosphere and accuracy is absolutely top class. Well done! Maybe more about your locos and stock?

I've been to the doctor, Noel. There's good news - if you have an infestation of bogies, the antidote is a pair of filthy J15s and a green "C" class. They'll shunt them into a shed, allowing proper four-wheeled goods stock to take their place.

Damn!! Todd Andrews at his work again......! He'll be shutting the West Cork and the Harcourt Street lines next!

Very promising type of layout - and that track looks so much better than older types.

Yes, the NCC cabins were very distinctive with their large roof overhangs. NCC and GNR cabins would be quite incompatible with layouts based on the other company; indeed, NCC cabins in particular, being unique in design, would fit in nowhere else, like DSER ones.

I'd be interested in it, PaulC.

Ahhh sure they're philistines, Eoin. See what it looks like in Translink "red bull" for the craic.......

Wowww!!! (Just needs lined blue paint now, and a big "G N"!)

They look it, yes. The 201s always seemed a slight shade lighter, but I never compared them up close. The difference is probably exaggerated a bit in the photo, as 084 is straight out of the paint pot, while 218 is a bit worn.

That's the one! And a mighty good condition one too, by the look of it. Snap it up, it's a rare gem!

'Tis true indeed, prototypically, but in this case the contrast is too great; the rest of the loco looks to clean to match the way the smokebox is.

Excellent.... and if you look at the wheels in the lower pic, you can see what it looks like when oily. The upper pic shows a rare thing - what it looked like when clean in working days! Note the smokebox. It looks much darker, and it is - but this is far from prototypical. The RPSI correctly painted it grey like the rest of the loco, but because some volunteers simply thought it "didn't look right" (always a fatal mistake in historical accuracy in preservation), they "allowed" it to darken through not polishing it clean.

That book was Fayle's "Narrow Gauge Railways of Ireland", published in 1947. A very rare beast indeed, with many rare photos. I have a much-prized copy in my catacomb-like archive......

Very many thanks for that, Noel....I couldnt agree more. As a regular user of Galway (and other) stations nowadays, I see absolutely nothing of what inspired me in the past. Progress, no doubt, as many will say - a modernised railway is better than none at all. Doesn't make much consolation for oul fossils like me who remember steam, flying snails, green things, and the black'n'tan era from birth to death.......! Didn't get pm, by the way....maybe resend?

Amazing the amount of growth round GVS now. I remember how barren it looked when it opened over twenty years ago.

"Well, I was standing on the platform - it was a sunny evening" What was happening? "A goods engine was shunting cattle wagons, and there were a lot of them in the station, as there was a fair somewhere the next day" I thought you used to go fishing at that time of year? Would it not have been in the evening? "I had an early start the next day, so I watched the shunting for a while and went home" Where was home? "Up the Chanterhill Road - the railway owned the house. The Sligo Leitrim's traffic manager lived next door, but I doubt if the Sligo Leitrim owned the place. It was at the top of the hill behind the station and you could hear the early morning shunting" So what happened? "Well, the engine stuck a few Sligo Leitrim wagons onto the front of the train, making it up to maybe forty wagons. The rest were Great Northern, maybe a couple of CIE, because on fair days they'd borrow them now and again. The van was on the end. He coupled up to the lot and got the road - that was a shunt signal, of course. When he opened the regulator, off went the engine with the coupling off the leading wagon dragging behind it. The wagons stayed put!" What happened? Did the guard have the brakes on? "Not at all! The train was ready to move. The leading few wagons were Sligo ones and I had noticed were as rotten as anything I'd seen. They were falling to bits!" So what happened? "They just took it off, and had a good look at the other Sligo ones, and told Manorhamilton to come and take it away!" .......... This story was told to me years ago by jhb171 senior, and is almost a mirror image of what had happened to a sand train in Lisburn some ten years earlier!

She's in Whitehead museum. Available to visit at any time (well, during the odd hours the place is actually open to the public!).... Sorry, excuse my ignorance, but that's the way it was described to me!

He told me he much preferred steam, not these diseasel things. He has a soft spot for J15s on Kerry branch lines, Donegal tanks in the Barnesmore Gap, and big Midland 4.4.0s thundering through Knockcroghery........

Yes.... if you try to cram too much into a layout, there's no room for scenery! Looks just about right the way it is.

An absolute beauty! Looks well made.

Looking good, Tony!

I'm actually looking at one of the earlier photos, Tony, which had a turntable at what I think is the narrower end. If I'm correct, the track to its right divides into two lines. If you were to run a loco from one track forward, then change points to make it back onto the adjacent line, it needs extra space if it will be transferring wagons attached to it, from one track to the other. I'm looking at the photo following the one showing the signal cabin. A suggestion: in between the two turnouts left of the turntable, you might bring the furthest one away back towards the nearer one by swopping it with the short hit of straight track in between. This will lengthen the headshunt, which is the name for the section of track beyond the points, leading towards the wall. This enables more trucks to be moved across at a time.

Is the headshunt beside the turntable long enough for a loco and one or two wagons?

It's BS18 BS29 Raven, I'm reliably informed. This is what is on 186 currently, and when painted this way all eye witnesses who saw her, and who remembered the original, agreed that it looked correct.

They were long-wheelbase four wheelers.