jhb171achill

Most interesting photo, Tony! Never seen a decent shot of the actual end of the branch before.

A three-way turnout is useful in these circumstances. Without meaning to plug, if you look at the picture of Polloxfen's Mills Siding near Ballysodare, Co. Sligo, on Page 90 of "Rails through the West" you'll see how much can be crammed into a very small space by this method. If you like "H" vans, a layout populated with little else but a couple of black'n'tan 141s and a few "H"s would be well served by a model of Polloxfen's Mills. A fictitious layout with a short passenger platform, perhaps out of use for years (Ardee, Castleisland), but a decent goods yard including a couple of three-way points would provide scope for quite complicated shunting prodcedures in a small space.

Inside keys were a GNR feature. I never got the chance to ask Senior - why!!

I always thought a layout based on either Fintona or Westport Quay would make an ideal small shunting terminus.

Basic question: why do my locos sometimes stop running? Maybe it's Christmas spirit guiding me, but I'm SO tempted to say "because there's a signal against it!" (or the driver's PTS has expired...) I'll just get my coat now.

This is what I'm always banging on about, livery-wise. The right logo, right type of lettering / numerals and above all the right background colour are what makes a model railway or even an individual piece of rolling stock not just an accurate model, or a well built model, but something which really captures the atmosphere of what it's meant to be representing. For years we had no choice but to repaint BR wagons. The livery might be right, but the model wasn't. Then, we got good Irish models. For the 1950-78 period, a large enough stretch of time, the "H" van was something that simply couldn't be done without, as was the corrugated open wagon. Now we have both, plus a multitude of other stuff; the container flat cannot be done without for a 1970s-onwards system. And carriages - we have everything from kits of GSWR six-wheelers (the MGWR one is a glaring omission, though, as most of the later survivors were of Midland origin) to "tin vans", Bredins, laminates, Park Royals and Cravens, including ready-to-run. The sheer variety would have been absolutely unthinkable even a few years ago. And locomotives! RTR GNR 4.4.0, Murphy Models products.....and "Maedhbh" 800! Excellent! Congratulations to both model makers and modellers all round. As others have said, Irish modelling is going through a golden age. Long may it last.

Good tactics, Tony!

I absolutely love this layout. Seeing the scenes on it makes me think that there's a photo in there somewhere that Barry and I forgot to put in the last book!!!!!

Ah! Interesting stuff, thanks Tony.

Carriage door open? UTA livery on coach.....enthusiast trip??

You mean made available, Tony? Here is an excellent place. There is much here in the way of modellers resources. Scan, put in here, and retain originals?

Excellent, Tony, many thanks! A treat for those of us who like to just browse photos! But also of great benefit to modellers. Various views down the Market branch would be interesting.

aAAARRRGGGHHH I'll just have to help myself.

Stick a pint on for me there, Roxy.

Happy Christmas and New Year to all here! Here's to 2017 and beyond....!

Click seemed to follow Bullied wherever he went, though I think I heard one time that officially, strictly speaking, he wasn't actually an assistant! When I was researching in the National Railway Museum (UK) in York a few years ago, I came across a treasure trove of his photos of blow-by-blow step-by-step construction of the turf burner. A fascinating archive, showing every stage if its construction and good close ups of many of its internal gubbins, and the bogies, before it was all put together to create the greatest white elephant ever to run on Irish rails! I heard one time that Bullied did not take kindly to criticism, and when it was pointed out to him that the completed thing did not perform as expected - as he claimed it would - his retort to the men in Inchicore was "Well, FIX it!"

Reminds me of Ronnie Barker's "four candles" / "fork handles"!

Generally, the UTA applied a single line along the waist of one inch straw coloured line thinly edged both sides in red to loco hauled coaches. No railcars ever had this lining. They were plain green. But a few loco hauled coaches didn't have lining either. Incidentally, this is not to be confused with the yellow (not straw) and separate red lines used by the RPSI. This was purposely designed (by meself, if truth be told) to look UTA-esque but not be exact, as none of the RPSI's Whitehead set ever ran in UTA livery.

Hahahahaha!!!! Excellent! The late Sullivan Boomer, of the RPSI, and I used to have a great laugh about something that happened some years ago with a computer auto-correct. At the time, he and I were directors of the RPSI and as such we were in constant contact. I got a new computer and went to email him. The computer told me that his name was Sultan Bomber.....

Welcome, modelrailwayman!

Fascinating as always! Happy Christmas to all drivers, maintenance men, fitters, and station staff at Tara Junction!

I love the BR blue era.

Watching that.......wow. I could watch it for ever. Superb layout, so realistic!

Worth going just to see that, irishrailwayman. Though I'm sure there will be other amazing stuff there too. The way technology is going, in a few years we'll be able to have the whole range of stuf that we can get in 00, only in N. And 3D printing will facilitate a lot of it. Someone of my vintage will remember times not that long ago when it looked as if the writing was on the wall for model railways as a hobby, just like stamp and matchbox collecting has all but vanished. Modern technology has brought about a very welcome growing interest. Look at the numbers of people who read tis forum, even if they haven't got layouts. In all reality, when I moved here all my old 00 stuff was sold. I retain a single MM 141, but it's in its box. I have a lot of 009 continental stuff awaiting a time when I can get it all put together again, but to be honest when I see some of the recent releases, I've been doodling to see if there's ANY way I could fit even a terminus / fiddle yard into a modern town house. Doing the lot in N gauge would change the goalposts completely and the 009 would be up for sale and swopped for Provincial N gauge "H" vans, N gauge MM 141s, and N gauge Cravens! Sorry, leslie, not trying to give you attacks of the Screaming Fits, Multiple Conniptions and Heeby Geebys.... I look forward to whatever appears on your layout in Irish outline! What's Irish for Cynwyd?

En route to limerick, by the looks of it..... and is 143 on the evening Rosslare after that?