GSR 800

Looks great Darius, glad to see someone restoring workbench thread photos on RMweb. Countless great locos and layouts and I can't see them! I always find it strange that when they are doubled up into 6 car sets (2x3) NIR seemingly throw the wipers across to the couple gap, makes them look very bizarre!

Hi Jim, wonderful story, many thanks for sharing. I believe the refreshment room was the 'Newbrook refreshment room'. There were photos in the O'Dea collection on platform 2 that showed the advertisement for the Newbrook refreshment room, but alas, I cannot find them now.

Thanks Galteemore, hopefully I'll have a MGWR 4-4-0 at Mullingar in the future!

Aha! That makes a lot of sense. Back in the day, Mullingar Station had quite an array of bushes, trees, flowers, and the like, all of which kept looking very trim and proper. I wonder if they used this manure as fertiliser for it?

What a mighty beast! The detail is fabulous, excellent work.

Hi Darius, You won't believe, I only caught that earlier myself! One can only imagine some of the lads must have had a bit of revolutionary zeal going on...maybe the painting was of Boston Harbour... Also, LAGGING was what I was trying to think of!

MGWR erasure strikes again. On somewhat of a tangent, I don't think a single railway in the country as large as the Midland has been as effectively vanquished. Broadstone was shut, the Galway main line was cut and diverted to the GSWR line, and not a single MGWR loco survives. The lads at Maam Cross are doing good work to return some Midland glory!

A wee bit more has been done... I've mainly focused on detailing work on the station model itself. I have a new baseboard cut and ready for assembly, so Mullingar will be relocated and linked up to Abbey Street. Truly a glacial pace...

Just to add, actual loco + tender shell would cost around 55 euro

John, Your plans and advice have been invaluable, I'm happy to have one of your 650s, and my plans would stay plans without Killian's wizardry! The talent lies with him, and he puts up with my mad ideas! I'm hoping my 650 will be complete shortly. Markits seem to be on hiatus. Other sources seem to be drying up also, quite difficult getting wheels for the 650. D16/3 is indeed Hornby. The B1 drivers slot straight in, and have the same bearings and gear. The only thing that needs to be changed out is the crankpin, the geared set on the B1s has crankpins for walschearts, so Killian had the idea to pop them out and the ones from the old wheels were popped in. Pickups were persuaded into place easily, was just a matter of trimming length off the brake shoes and the sand pipe. Will have to change out that C for an A!

And then the 2-4-0s outlasted a lot of the 4-4-0s...Atock would have been delighted.

Evening all, I've been considering commissioning an MGWR design from Killian following the completion of the 800 project. The 'flagship' locos of the MGWR were the class A 4-4-0s, the largest express passenger locomotives in Ireland when built. They've a long lifespan, interesting variations and liveries to boot! To my eye the locos in their CIE guise were some of the most handsome engines on the system. Aesthetics aside, we come to our first major hurdle. Almost every rtr 4-4-0 on the market has 6'8 or 6'9 driving wheels, compared to the MGWRs big 4-4-0s with 6'3 drivers. Here I began some experimentation. I purchased a D16/3 alongside some B1 driving wheels and black five bogie wheels off peters spares. Out went one wheelset, the crankpins were swapped, and in went the new set. Ditto with the bogie wheels. Drawbar was adjusted slightly to accommodate. Brake shoes and sand pipe were cut back slightly to avoid fouling the track. Pickups were gently persauded to align with the smaller wheels. The patient is at full health following her operation, runs smoothly. Quote for designing the loco and tender is roughly 400-500 euros, which I believe is more than fair for the time and effort Killian puts into it, and the attention to detail. If there are other customers I am told the design price could be brought down. This is a gauge of interest. Obviously a bit more work in terms of the chassis compared to the 800s. New wheelsets have to be bought, etc. Took under an hour to swap everything out and make the necessary adjustments. If anyone is interested let us know.

Eamonn Ryan, the Green transport minister, not Michael Martin FFs leader and Tanaiste. Greens got obliterated at the election. Won't cry for them, but they were a good voice for rail. Maybe the other half of the country will show up to vote next time.. While US passenger rail definitely got the short end of the stick, its not as feasible in terms of long-range journeys across the continent. Aircraft can just get there significantly faster. Where there is a slowly growing market is intercity travel within larger states such as Florida or Texas, with multiple large cities within a few hundred miles of each other

I wouldn't count much on the bufferbeam, considering the front end of the loco is in shadow, as can be seen on the ground. Detail on the smokebox door barely visible. She looks very black indeed, although the 'orange' hue of the number may indicate she's been cleaned with oily rags, hence her black but clean appearance. She's near spotless though.. The 400s green looks thoroughly dirty, sun bleached and faded. The lining is long gone!

Well the cattlebank has the canal right behind it so its possible that's what its referring too. Hardly 'watertank'? This photo is taken at the far end of Mullingar yard, near the gantry, where there was a kind of island dock adjacent the cattlebank, presumably used to wash out and lime cattle wagons. Perhaps being for cleaning purposes, this was the 'waterbank'? Would make sense to have a manure wagon there where they're cleaning out cattle wagons, after all.