jhb171achill

Very true - the signals were installed by a colleague who built this bit of the layout. It's the wrong colour, ladder was the wrong way round, etc etc... I may remove it, actually, as Dugort Harbour is based on somewhere like Valentia Harbour or Westport Quay, neither of which had signals, latterly anyway; they tended to be worked "one engine in steam" from "town"! Locally, there was just a ground frame. I'd have to say it's low down the priority list, but it's ON that list anyway!

Hi TimO The coaches you mention haven't appeared lately as they are in a storage box which is currently hidden on a lower shelf in behind an avalanche of my daughter's stuff, currently in storage here since she moved home for a while. What they are - one is a kit - SSM I think, but it's a long time ago. This is a brake standard of the type used on the Loughrea branch (and later Ballina) with a storage heater so it didn't need a genny van. There were two such; 1910 and 1904. The latter replaced the former after a rough shunt at Loughrea damaged 1910 about 1973. On the layout, it can form the branch train, but as with prototypes and lines of the type that Dugort would be if it were real, now and again it has to go away to "town" for maintenance, so the branch will have a coach of some other type along with a genny van while it's away - and it will disappear, no doubt, tagged onto the back of a main line train at the junction. A vehicle like this is a perfect fit for a CIE branch line 1960-ish to late 70s. (Pre 1963 in green, of course, as 1910 was). The next one ytou mention is a Silverfox laminate. Very adequate in black'n'tan, and weathered (like most of my stuff) by Dempsey of our community here. I've several Park Royals in green and black'n'tan, and plan to get more when the IRM mainline ones are out. While rare on branch lines, they did appear, and as Dugort Harbour meets the main line terminus of Castletown West end-on, PRs will appear in Castletown on main line trains, and also summer excursions will bring these into Dugort. I await any type of RTR Bredins or GSWR wooden-bodues, plus, of course, the Hattons Genesis CIE six-wheelers, with interest. The other stock I currently have are four old Triang / Bachmann British wooden-bodied stock, two of which bear a reasonable ("two foot rule") resemblance to two ex-WLWR brake thirds which survived to the mid-1950s. These will operate alongside several SSM GSWR six-wheelers, which are currently under construction chez a friend of mine, and the Hattons stuff, when operating with some six or seven steam locos I have (mostly J15s, as would befit West Kerry, boy). Tin vans - about 4 in all three liveries - complete this picture. This covers the 1950s. Moving into the 1960s, I have but two Cravens. I could have bought more, but in the type of scenario I'm trying to replicate, they would have been rare visitors. A main line train into C astletown West might have had one, but would mostly be a mixture of various types of laminates, Bredins and Park Royals. Appearances on the branch would have happened, but been rarer still - probably only on a summer Saturday excursion from Tralee or Cork, or maybe fair day (or an IRRS special!).

He sure did! Plus a lot of my other stuff, and more to come. I’ve about a dozen Provincial Wagons still to make up and I’m hovering back in the “provincial” direction right now, and I’ve IRM Bullied opens ordered….

This stuff is among the very top “star performers” on this entire forum. The DWWR / DSER has, despite very unique and interesting locos and rolling stock, and among the most spectacular scenery in Ireland, been inexplicably ignored by modellers over the years. Your efforts make this balance up - and with bells and whistles. Great to see so much more. The carriages, too, and wagons, are amazing!

Woohoo!! 800 in the S & C! Where can I sign up! What a thought! Yes, as you say, deep ballasting etc throws a spanner in the works. When I wrote my initial answer above, I was conscious that it could come across itself as pure doom-mongering. But this particular one is, in reality, a non-starter for the reasons shown. Some could be got around, but even after delivery of a fully restored loco, unlike the S & C, and indeed Britain in general, there simply is nowhere on our rail network it could operate, and beyond Inchicore nowhere it could be stabled and maintained…. I forgot to mention turntables. One would have to be installed in Dublin and Cork (where in Cork…?) big enough for it. That’s doable, but the rest sadly isn’t….

This, unfortunately, is and has been the reality. For some twenty years, before the Santas reached their maximum effectiveness (or even existed) the May Tour was the raft the RPSI floated on. My annual RPSI budget calculations, and those of my predecessor, were largely determined by what profit it made. At most, enthusiasts from all 32 counties would have filled one coach - ANY year - meaning that without the English market this annual outing would not have been able to run. Some years the entire Irish contingent might have only filled half a coach. ”It’s too expensive!”, we used to hear. Yup, it wasn’t cheap. But the English, whose basic level of disposable income wasn’t HUGELY above ours, came in their droves, not just paying the fares, but paying for hotels, flights and ferries, on top of that. We’d do a raffle. The English folks would buy ten tickets and throw a fiver on top as a donation. Not so our own good folks here - we would buy one, or none, or look out the window! Such, boys and girls, is life; we are grateful to our neighbours from GB - without you over the years, it’s very possible the RPSI might no longer exist, such was your level of support!

Yes, you're talking about impossible zillions. First things first; the locomotive is believed not to be in the best condition, but no restoration is impossible - look at some of the Barry wrecks, now running on preserved railways in Brexitland; in truth, having been rebuilt from a single bolt, a number plate and the smell of an oil rag, many are effectively new-builds. So, apart from perhaps a decade of time and a very big lot of money, restoration is theoretically possible. That was the easy bit. It is not certain that it would fit under ANY bridge anywhere now, as track levels have risen significantly since it operated, on the ONE line it was able to operate on. I would forget about Belfast too. At this point, it's almost certainly end of story, puff puff back to Cultra. But, let's say that it WOULD fit on the Cork line again (it wouldn't, but imagine).... 1. It will be so long away from the rails, that it will be treated for certification purposes as a new build (gawd help the RPSI when 105 rolls out). This means an absolutely colossal amount of paperwork, testing, and trial runs. The cost of this alone will run into five or six figures before papers are signed to say it can operate. And - who will operate it? 2. Crew training - once the engine is certified it would need a very intensive and sustained period of crew training with load, and driver familiarity. This simply is not practical on a Cork line with increasing local trains at eiother end and an hourly service. This, again, is a point in the process, where the big "N O" raises its head. But let's assume the tooth fairy is still on our side! 3. It can be looked after in Dublin now - but if a metro tunnel ever appears, or Inchicore is sold off or modernised too much, that won't be possible. As it is, there is no likely means of adequately servicing it in Cork, as far as I know. So, if Inchicore goes, that's the final nail in the coffin - nowhere to keep it! 4. The market? People forget this is not Britain. If this WAS Britain, the lineside would be crammed with people with cameras from Kingsbridge to Glanmire Road, and they'd need an army of security at Inchicore while steam was being raised. Once operating, you'd stick 15 carriages behind it and sell every seat for a £100+ fare. Not here ye won't! The cost of operating a Dublin-Cork return trip with this locomotive would be astronomical. What's left of my treasurer's thoughts as I age suggest a fare per adult of €150 - €200 a head. Given what I know of the Irish railway enthusiast psyche and commercial market, even the tooth fairy won't crack that one. And even if every enthusiast on this island was inspired with generosity towards steam travel, will Irish Rail permit a train long enough to hold the necessary number of people to make a trip behind it financially viable? 800 will remain in Cultra, as 36 will in Cork. The best hope - and this IS possible - is that as AI develops to ever more realistic levels, a "virtual" video can be made of it visiting the entire Irish railway network. Actual operation of 800, quite simply, isn't going to be an option, ever. Mind you; a separate issue, I know - a friend of mine is in the earkly stages of constructing a live steam 7 1/4 inch gauge version! Now THAT will be a sight to see, but that's entirely another story. And - come and see Fry's "0" gauge model of it in the Malahide Model Railway Museum!

Yes, it was 2ft gauge - but also, a small number of the mostly-now-defunct BnM lines were also 2ft, though the majority were 3ft; I travelled in the 1980s on the 2ft gauge one at Ardara, Co Donegal.

Wow! Looks impressive. Sadly I'm not anywhere near your area but I'll be interested in seeing it develop! Irish prototype or what would it be?

Not "Enterprise"; but the jhb171 family all decamped to rural Co Galway over Christmas for a family gathering chez one of us who lives down there among the green fields and stone walls. Upon planning today's return to the Smoke, one of our number looked up the Ironroad Erin website last night to book a tocket for today Athenry - Kingsbridge. The website said 9last night) that there were no trains at all on the Galway line today, but there was zero mention of any engineering works, or perhaps trees down on the line, ICR-killing leaves on the line, or other such disturbances. Had we wanted to book Dublin - Sligo, or Cork - Thurles, etc etc, no probs. Westport, no probs. But nothing to Galway. So this morning we looked it up again. In two minutes flat, Relative had booked and paid for the 13:05 ex-Galway (Athenry 13:20). No probs. And she travelled on it, and the wifi worked.... What was wrong with that website last night?

Indeed; an interesting discussion, and one which I'll bring back to B134! Galteemore's dad, referred to above, for those who don't know, was RPSI Treasurer for, I think, 27 years. This period spanned from when the society was only a few years old, until the late 1990s when I took over. At this time the RPSI was truly an amatuer organisation; today it must, of necessity, be semi-professional in function and fully porfessional in standards. Galteemore Senior, let's call him JR, saqw the society take its earliest financial steps, and presided over its finances through not only its financially delicate early years, but this aganist the background of the "Troubles". Keeping a voluntary body stable and afloat throughout a thirty year long, slow-burning civil war is not exactly a walk in the park, especially when the domestic market, north AND south, was in almost constant recession. People simply did not have the disposable income in the 1960s, 70s and 80s that they have now. Nothing close. Despite JR's best efforts, the best treasurer on the planet can't get people off settees on Saturday afternoons and into trains; but boy, did JR try. As (pre-treasurer days) I well knew, on-train sales were but part of widespread and imaginative efforts top raise money. Along with a very youthful Galteemore, his brother, a couple of friends (Mike, I know you're reading this!) and members of my own family, we visited agricultural shows, selling books about tractors, we sold "Britains" toy balers and much spreaders to persons of a rural disposition at such events, we sold books on and off trains, and at every station we got off the train and flogged badges, posters, gawwd knows what, soft toys (and, yes, toy tractors) to the unsuspecting public on station platforns who were either waiting for the 14:25 to Woodlawn, Glarryford or Thomastown, or in the station to rubberneck at a steam train. JR and a couple of other members compiled a book about Belfast trams which I hawked about bookshops, convenience shops and newsagents in Belfast, while JR did the same in Carrickfergus and many another place, I am sure. Plus, there was the shop at Whitehead; a portakabin with a leaky roof which was the nerve centre of the Giant Teddy Bear Raffle; the ancestor of today's "Everyone's a Winner" raffle on board trains. Why sell teddy bears and toy tractors if ye are a railway organisation? - I hear you ask. Before continuing, the following answer is not for the faint-hearted, is X-rated, and parental advice and smelling salts may be necessary. The answer is, quite bluntly put, that Irish railway enthusiasts, north and south alike, will not buy railway books and specifically railway-orientated stuff on board trains. In contrast, English enthusiasts (yes, and Scottish!) will, do and did! The May Tour (90% English bookings) always sold more railway books than every single other sales outles source, in any year. And I don't mean 10% more: probably 95% of the sales of railway books and RPSI-branded merchandise was sold on the forst weekend in May! So, JR (quite rightly) took an early view to flog what people would buy - on Portrush Flyers and Mullingar excursions (there were no Santas back then). This meant plastic "train whistles" for three-year-olds, "Thomas" flags, furry toys, colouring books. With attendances at agricultural shows busy all summer from as far afield as Newtowncunningham, Co Donegal, Upton, Co Cork, Fenagh, Co Carlow, and all sorts of other places, the toy tractors, balers and all things haulage-truck-and-tracxtor related, were the only show in town. With a very respectable differential between what the RPSI paid for them and what we sold them for - what we found we COULD sell them for, the money rolled in and went directly to steam locos and the RPSI's newly-acquired coaching fleet of ex-CIE and ex-UTA / NIR steam stock. I took over as Treasurer in 1988, and would continue in this role until 2000, whenh pressures of family life and a million other things made me ralise I hadn't the time to devote to do this effectively. I remained on the finance committee for probably another twelve years. The challenges mounted financially all the time, as the society went through its growing pains from a relatively inexperienced amateur group of people to the necessarily hardcore professional body it must be today. All the while, JR was somewhere to be found in the background, chipping away at the ever mounting challenges of balancing the books as railway and engineering prices exploded through one roof after another. But JR wasn't the only one. At an early stage in my own financial career with the RPSI, a cheque for £1000 sterling arrived in my letterbox one day. No, it was not for me to buy IRM goodies, or even to buy Provincial Wagons goodies; it was FROM our own mr. Provincial Wagons himself, but in his alter ego as the cheque-writer for the small band of London-based railway enthusiasts called "The Syndicate". I was delighted to accept it and respond accordingly. This, i was to learn, was not the first such donation, nor would it be the last. In addition, any time an appeal went out for a new loco restoration project or the like, another cheque would arrive. These illustrious gentlemen carried oput their own equally relentless fund raising activities in the London area, where Irish ex-pat railway enthusiasts are a fantastic lot - most being members of the RPSI and the IRRS. The purpose of the "Syndicate" was to simply raise money for "good causes" in railway preservation in Ireland. I had known Leslie before that, but from now, I looked forward to receiving these donations from the "Syndicate". Folks, when you see JR on board trains, or his sidekicks, or you are invited to divert your inciome stream in some way towards the "Syndicate" at RPSI / IRRS / other events in London or that general neck'o'the woods, PLEASE do so. There are many railway preservation projects, but the "big" ones like the RPSI lead the way - and don't forget Downpatrick either. RPSI & DCDR are the only 5'3" steam operators on this island, and both - in their own ways - face ever-mounting expense. The RPSI has lost its northern market now, with the sad and untimely death of NIR's only steam driver. With Dublin being several times the size of Belfast, and statistical evidence many decades old showing that people in the greater Dublin area in general spend a higher proportion of their disposable income on days out than their counterparts in the north, it stands to reason that the Dublin market - and commercial profit - is way bigger than that the RPSI has had on NIR metals - but - any income is valuable, and any loss of income results in something worthy of restoration languishing on a siding, until the elements take it to its rest. Downpatrick, meanwhile, is facing damage caused by a flood which Noah would have been proud of. Hope that ark didn't have traction motors; such would have made a nice Chapter VIIIIIIIIXXVVIII of 1st, 2nd & 3rd Deuteromonosis. I digress; why earn money, why donate money? Because locomotive restoration costs zillions. We see, all the time, amongst the uneducated press in local papers, "Why don't they reopen the XXX line for tourists and steam tyrains? Sure it'd make a fortune!" No, it most certainly would not. Even if the tooth fairy waved a wand, and built it, plus ten new-build steam locos for it, someone has to maintain them, replace boilers when necessary, etc etc etc etc. DCDR and RPSI already HAVE operational steam engines - but not only that. They now also have carriages, premises and colossal insurance bills. The meter's running. JR, the Syndicate, and others who have made often substantial private gifts to the various societies over the years (one of whom will also be reading this), are all too well aware of this. And so to B134; WITHOUT the efforts of the aforementioned, B134 would now either be under a tarpaulin in a yard, almost certainly never to run again, or already scrapped. And that's it; we owe the aforementioned a great deal of gratitude, and may the Syndicate keep syndicating away, and JR continue raffling, for many many years to come; we should support them as much as we can. Phew.

2ft wide will just give enough room, I think, for a curve in N gauge; thus N or 009 track to represent 3ft gauge, so maybe a build scale of about 3mm-ish to the foot, if you7 want a circuit. Anything bigger in scale, it'll be an end-to-end layout.

Finescale, I’m thinking….

Is this poetry O or OO scale?

Only seeing this now. I can get all of these details - am I too late?

Same idea as the sort of trans-ship goods sheds you’d have got at Dromod, Belturbet or Strabane….

What scale will you use?

Great work, coming on well!

Recalls teenage ideas I had about a layout based on an imaginary narrow gauge line on Achill Island…. That’s the thing about a fantasy layout - you can have the Flying Scotsman hauling Festiniog stock with a De Dietrich driving trailer on 7ft gauge track, and no-one can say it’s wrong….. but IF such an island had existed, and IF it had a railway, it’s reasonable to assume a branch off the West Clare….. Now, THAT would be nice, and very easy to operate; a single Walker railcar, for example…. and a loco and few wagons for the goods….

The Holy Stone thing I can see, but sure the airport at Knock would be a bit far-fetched…..

It’s the best I’ve seen. I’m aware if several good G scale models having been made using these. Always thought the Wisht Clare stock, from locos to carriages and wagons, was of very attractive / interesting designs.

Stunningly good!!!

In my case, mulled wine, then wine (my daughter ran out of mulls) and now multiple Guinnii.

You too!

Indeed; apart from the well known pair of GSWR Plough Vans which lasted well into Irish Rail days, there was still a MGWR bogie flat in use in the mid 1970s. I saw it at North Wall one afternoon….