Irishrailwayman

Like the jazz and the train of course!

As part of the Wexford Festival Opera Fringe, Wexford Model Railway Club are hosting an Open Day at their club-rooms at St Joseph's Community Centre, Newline Road, Wexford on Monday 31st October from Noon to 5pm. The event is free but donations will be accepted! Model railway items and light refreshments (including yummy home-made cakes) will be on sale in aid of the club building fund. Layouts on display will be Bushville (HO USA outline), Rathmichael (OO Irish), Llangollen (N gauge UK), Thomas (OO) and Sandown Valley (O/16.5 UK). Additionally, we will have trains running on the extensive test tracks in N, OO and O gauge. We get a great turnout from our loyal Wexford public to this event. Any IRM.comers who have not maxed out at the South Dublin Show might like to make the (less than) 2 hour car journey down and all would be most welcome.

Looking forward to attending on behalf of Wexford Model Railway Club with my Cynwyd (Welsh pronounced Kin-wid!) layout. Any IRM.comers attending come along and say hello. Gerry Byrne.

Sounds excellent!

A purchase from Wrenneire:

Thanks guys for your nice comments on Llangollen and great to put some faces to the names. I enjoyed the show - well organised and friendly -thanks to all the folks there for their sterling efforts. I took a few shots from around the halls as time allowed. A good variety of gauges and subjects with a number of vintage layouts also. Will be returning next year with another layout...

Die piggy bank, die!

I look forward to seeing this as I am starting to collect some O-gauge GWR stock...

Looking forward to this show (a first time for me) and meeting any IRMers attending!

Don't forget about the Wexford Model Railway Exhibitions held at Easter each year since 2009!

Is there a listing of layouts and traders published yet?

A recent visit to Llanuwchllyn Station to meet some of the folks there from the Bala Model Railway Exhibition allowed me take a few photos to inform my modelling. Great to meet David, John, Bernard and Barbara again! The station has been preserved as a narrow gauge line with some additions made to the station building itself.

Complete with the star spangled banner!

Over 1,000 visitors came to the show and good interest was shown in the model railways on display. Thanks to all including organisers for their hospitality.

Looks great EM and looking forward to seeing it in Cork. Pity about the burning house though - did the emergency services manage to save any of it?

Eniscorthyman is coming with his new layout:

The roof can always be left removable to show the interiour to visitors at exhibitions! I have done this for the signal cabins on Ballybeg and get a good reaction from visitors.

Good idea to show photographs of the prototype with the model. I have a few photos of Llangollen station enlarged and laminated for display also.

Looking forward to presenting Llangollen in N-gauge at this show on behalf of Wexford Model Railway Club.

The Garrison Model Show 3 is scheduled for 27th August 2017 12 to 5 pm at Camden Fort Meagher, Crosshaven, Cork Harbour (see http://www.camdenfortmeagher.ie/event/garrison-model-show-3/). Wexford Model Railway Club plan to attend with Rathmichael (OO Irish outline), Llangollen (N-gauge UK outline), Slaney Valley (OO anything goes) and Bramwich (N-gauge layout for sale). Enniscorthyman plans to attend also with his new OO Irish outline layout.

Rail lengths cut to size ready for pinning down and then to the wiring which should be interesting: 4-pole Double throw switch to alternate between manual and automatic shuttle/passing loop operation including synchronised turnout change; reed switches for passing loop operation including wiring in to fiddle-yards being shared with Cynwyd; two frogs to change with two turnout operations along with alternating direct and linked power source to diamond centre rails; not to mention manual control to separate the power to the two fiddle-yards...

Fantastic layout that featured over three issues of Railway Modeller in December 2002, January and February 2003. Very generous of Chester MRC to donate it on permanent loan to the Kerry Model Railway Association.

All going well, I hope to show Llangollen at Enniskillen (30th September) and Cynwyd at SDMRC (I'll be there on the Saturday only).

The idea behind restricting this to one board is to enable shelf storage/easy transport and rapid set-up for home/exhibition use but clearly additional boards could be added. The electrics on Cynwyd look more daunting than they are in reality e.g. I included front and back access to controls when only back access is strictly necessary, and I included a Peco uncoupling system (which I have yet to commission). The Heathcote Electronics unit on Cynwyd is an SA1.1 which has a slow-down/acceleration feature which is quite realistic. It is not too hard to set up once the instructions are studied. It works by placing miniature reed switches between the track sleepers at specific points and linking these back with wires to specific nodes on the board. Miniature magnets are fitted to the front/back of rolling stock to be used which activate the appropriate reed switch as they pass over them. It works a treat once set up and I can revert to manual operation at the flick of a switch. A similar but different system is being used for Llanuwchllyn (SA3) which enables the trains to enter their individual passing loop and cross over in prototypical manner. This also includes the slow-down/acceleration feature, switching power between the fiddle-yards and activating two points at each end of the passing loop. No rocket science - I happy to demonstrate any time (I am with the Wexford Model Railway Club) if that would be any help.