jhb171achill

Is my "O" gauge DCC'd Fintona horse kit ready yet?

2751 almost ended up in Downpatrick! There's a story behind it............................... (but it wouln't have had that livery for long it it had gone....)

Looking V E R Y nice, Owen!

That is an abolute masterpiece.

Yes, if its route was more or less a straight line - direct - it would make more sense. I don't think it will ever make economic sense as it is, unless they get Boris to dig a tunnel under the Black Mountain.

Most of them did. The last few sets only received it last year, but they've been doing a few at a time for quite a few years now.

Me too!

Amazing - I especially like the G class!

Exceptional work, Darius - I very much enjoy seeing this collection grow!

Off with their heads! The Spanish Inquisition has been informed….

On a bitterly cold morning, with a scattering of snow and a very heavy frost, B141 crosses Carrowmore Bog with the 07:35 empty stock for the morning branch train from Dugort Harbour in January 1965….. Looks like there’s more snow in the sky….

These have GOT to be the best pics of any model locomotive I've ever seen. Superb models, please build hundreds more!

Bbb

Zooming in on our DSER 6-wheeler, on trial (successfully) on a friend's layout the other day. Yes, it's still 1935, but the Bell containers in the background appeared via a time machine (hauled by a DSER 0.6.0, of course).

Dunno what all the fuss is about. All they have to do is tell the passengers to sit closer together.....

I’d love to see the Guinness loco at Whitehead restored to this, its original livery! They were a dark olive green, a bit darker than what Stradbally has, but not massively different.

Ex-DSER stock didn’t wander much, bar one dining car and a few other instances. I can’t state this as fact, but I suspect the reason that so much DSER stock was withdrawn earlier was that many vehicles were of non-standard lengths. DSER coaches (older 6-wheelers anyway) has different types of door lock mechanisms, but also the older DSER thirds were very cramped and uncomfortable. Senior’s recollections were the only detailed direct eye-witness accounts of travelling in DSER stock that I was ever aware of.

Well, threads are his business….

A few more pics I took at Brookhall Mill the other day, these ones mostly showing locos and rolling stock. Those GNR coaches look excellent, as does the inevitable (Leslie's) UTA Brown Van. After 1958 they started infiltrating the ex-GNR bits of the UTA's declining rail network, and were to be seen alongside silver, green and eventually black'n'tan CIE "tin vans" on both the Dundalk - Gt. Victoria St. stretch, and the Derry Road.

Sorry I missed the event! (Though I did see it on Saturday...!) A really excellent little set-up. I was familiar with several of these linen mills in the past, and this model really captures the atmosphere of the likes of Barbour Threads or the Island Mill in Lisburn......

This is looking very promising!

This was tested today at a friend's layout. It runs perfectly. Westcork, for a short whelbase vehicle these coaches were 28ft long rather than the normal 30ft, favoured by most Irish railway companies. The DSER also had some 31ft 6ins six-wheelers too. They, the BCDR and the CBSCR seem to be the odd ones out in design - with all sorts of variations of six-wheelers from 26ft to 37ft......... Carriages such as the above would have run on the main line to Wexford when new, from both Westland Row and Harcourt Street. When jhb171Senior commuted on the Harcourt St line in the late 1920s and early 30s, most of the remaining vehicles of this type had graduated to suburban trains on that line, along with some elderly non-corridor bogies and various older MGWR and GSWR six-wheelers which were brought onto the DSER in quite some numbers after the amalgamation; but they would almost certainly still have been seen on Macmine Junction - Waterford and the Woodenbridge-Shillelagh branches. Truly EXCELLENT model, and perfect (in green) to go behind a silver or green IRM "A". Awaiting the 1st class, 2nd class and brake 3rd versions eagerly!

The last uses of these vans - I.E. loose-coupled goods trains in general - was, I believe, either 1976 or 1977.

I was delighted and privileged to be invited to Brookhall Mill today, and meet the formidable Mr Weaver, who told me off for trespassing round the mill doorways…… Photos don’t even begin to do justice to this layout - the level of minute and highly accurate detail in it is phenomenal. Very many thanks, Patrick - and of course also for the good company and choccy bikkies…. Classic W H Mills architecture, all hand-made. Locos and rolling stock