Irishrailwayman

A couple of shots showing the inspection pits and two Kadee magnets fitted to the board. Also shown is an outline of the track layout. Note the use of a double-slip as a space-saver enabling locomotives to trundle between 6 sections of track.

A couple of shots showing progress with baseboards including painting and backscene. Note the cut-outs for inspection pits for inside the engine shed and point control. Cut-outs also needed for Kadee magnets to be hidden below the ballast...

Outstanding scratch building work

Over decades the towns on the line between Wexford and Waterford should have been developed as it provided a perfect commute in either direction particularly when the road between both towns was very poor. An iconic and special bridge - hopefully any greenway will use it and see it properly preserved?

My 6th layout is designed to be a compact/shelfie exhibition standard layout to show off mainly Irish locomotives of a variety of liveries. It will be sufficiently versatile to allow diesels locomotives of CIE, Supertrain, IR, IE or even UK/BR liveries to be shown. The size will be my usual 4.5 feet by 9 inch dimensions with a 2 foot fiddle-yard at one end which easily and accurately attaches/detaches with snap toggles. It will be controlled by DCC with sound in most locos. It will fit neatly into the boot of my car for easy transportation to exhibitions. I intend to allow for shunting of oil wagons. I have already built the base-boards using techniques trialled by Wexford Model Railway Club for their innovative new O gauge layout.This involves accurately cut 6 mm X 100 mm high-quality birch ply-wood sections (available from www.woodworkers.ie). The appropriate lengths of ply are hot-glued to the base-board and 15 mm sections used for face pieces. Metal connecting dowels are hammered into these pieces to align the fiddle-yard. Lengths of fibre-glass webbing are glued in place with PVA at each interface of the ply-wood elements beneath the board. Sections of wood are also glued/screwed in place to support the back-scene and side-boards. A couple of pictures: the ba

I suppose the line is being made ready for conversion to another Greenway?

Llanuwchllyn makes its Exhibition debut at Bala Model Railway Show, North Wales.

Just be aware also that card structures should not be exposed to prolonged sunlight as they can fade over time. I keep the blinds down when the sun is shining into my model railway room. Many of my buildings on Ballybeg are of card construction and still look good after 10 years!

Metcalfe building cards are fine (I used them in 2mm for my Llangollen layout) but if you want relief then the Wills sheets look good in 4mm (I have used them on my 2mm Llanuwchllyn layout). Wills are thick plastic sheets which are more difficult to cut then Metcalfe which can be cut with a scissors.

Nice job Eoin.

The MM 141/181s were also DCC-ready and had a space for a speaker. What about the Lima 201s - they were a breakthrough as the first RTR Irish loco before MM?

GNRi1959: Llanuwchllyn in N is booked to appear at the Ulster MRC Exhibition in Belfast on Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th August 2018.

Currently getting Llanuwchllyn in N ready for its Exhibition Debut at Bala Model Railway Exhibition in North Wales at end of May:

Shear volume of production? (the UK-outline market is several times greater than that for Irish-outline I would imagine)

Any plans to show all your hard work at Exhibitions?

I think the main thing is to avoid "daylight" between each coach to give the impression of a train rather than a string of coaches...

Why not aim to bring it down to the Wexford Easter Exhibition 2019 and show it as a work-in-progress?

Recently I have developed a 2 foot "tuning fork" fiddle-yard for this layout to better enable shunting and to bring passenger rail-cars and auto-coach on and off scene. The top of the fiddle-yard may be removed for operations from the front or replaced for exhibition operation from behind the layout:

For anyone who missed the Exhibition, a few photos and a big thanks to the exhibitors, traders, WMRC volunteers and all our 637 visitors for making this the most successful exhibition here to date!

And the winners are: John Izzard Best O Gauge Layout Award: Brendan Butler and John O'Toole Garrison Model Club: Best N Gauge (Stephen McNally Memorial) Award South Dublin Model Railway Club took two prizes away Best OO Gauge Layout and Best Layout Scenery Awards! and, as noted above, Fran Burke with the amazing new Tara Wagons won the Best Model Award:

'pun my word, we are treading on egg-shells here.

What kind of yolk will they come up with? Will we have to shell out a lot to pay for them?

Looking forward to seeing these in the flesh at the Wexford Model Railway Exhibition!

Richard at marsh.lane@outlook.com does a magnetic shunter's pole (for 4 mm or 7 mm) costing £14 with payment by Paypal. These work well on Dapol O gauge couplings which can be purchased separately and the third link of any wagon can be changed to work with the magnet. You can see these here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/50279-o-gauge-auto-couplings/page-13

Modern era? This is now vintage gold!