GSR 800

And now for something a bit different. the G2 class were a regular at Mullingar and indeed some members of the class lingered on until the end of steam. The G2 class have returned it seems, mass produced from New Zealand! Having made landfall yesterday, I set to work. Chassis is a straightforward job, fold up and make sure it's square. Some prefabrication greatly speeded up the construction of the body! Dry fitting shows what needs to be tidied and squared!

We've a selection of chocolate digestives and Maryland cookies to choose between.. Signal box has been started, with a mockup dry fitted to see what she'll look like and if anything else needs to be done. Plenty of card around, might as well use it! The planking for the signal box is guaranteed to be an interesting ordeal..

I recently came across a photo of King Tutankhamen sitting just outside the refreshment room...had drawn somewhat of a crowd too! A biscuit to anyone who knows why a pharaoh was so far from Egypt...

Throughout the construction of the layout I've faced two major issues. The down side of the stations rear facade is completely overgrown, and there's no photographs to my knowledge of it that are of use. The other is the roadside facade of the railway terrace, which while more visible, is in many ways a mess of windows, porches and lots of swearing regarding said windows and porches. The answer therefore is simple, basically flip the layout so that both of these troubling facades are facing a wall and out of view. This also opens up more room both for the station and the yard, and so I had little hesitation. Having completed the switch I turned my attention towards the railway terraces. Plenty of photographic evidence both past and present to go off, and so far less of a headache to deal with. The station signal box is next on the construction list, the first of three! And the only one still standing in good condition. Another stood next to the engine shed, and was likely removed in the 1960s, the last was close to the gantry and the lower half survives to this day. For modelling in general, the Athlone line has a lot to offer, large stations like Mullingar and Athlone, to small halts such a Streamstown. Indeed there are quite impressive banks just before castletown and streamstown, along with plenty of bridges and tunnels to provide scenic breaks. Alas I will stick to modelling one station for the timebeing....

Few more pics today, some more progress on the station building too. Obviously there's still much to be done, the last picture shows that quite clearly! The curved roof of the station is proving to be an...interesting...task and the rear facade for the Galway side building is non existent as I've no idea what it'd have looked like! Quite the conundrum.. What else is to be done, finishing up the engine shed and railway terrace, at least two of the three signal boxes, water tank, water tower....

As dusk approaches, one of the J15s, no.162, brings goods from the Galway direction through the station towards Dublin.

The station is within 5k of myself so easy access. The Sligo side won't be modeled, don't have the space for it. G2 will hopefully arrive from NZ once international shipping is back on the regular, the idea is generally realistic running, moguls, J15s, cattle engines, G2s along with some of the D's but 800 and 402 weren't built to not be run! I'm well aware of the murder of Thomas Anketell, and the reasons behind it.. No plan on the track layer Currently have two boards 10x2 foot, nothing is set in stone yet but overall idea is a somewhat simplified track plan for the yard

Mullingar is one of the more unusual stations in Ireland, and offers plenty of modelling opportunity, a junction station at the heart of the MGWR, with a large cattle bank, goods shed, engine shed, a large gantry, the list is long to say the least. My focus is on the Athlone side, although both sides of the station have a lot to offer, the engine shed, goods shed and cattle sidings were all on the Athlone side of the station. Progress has been slow, but it's finally starting to have a vague resemblance. Maedbh makes a visit to Mullingar en route to Galway. The Civil Engineer was on holiday at the time apparently. WIP of the station building on the Dublin side of the station Engine shed and railway terrace under construction, slate roof is dry fitted. Far from finished clearly!

Seconded re resin here. There's a company currently trying to make a game for Titanic, Titanic Honour & Glory with a completely accurate interior and exterior 3D model for said game. I've followed with much interest, and they've released model 3D printed liners in 1/1000. They are currently using the more conventional version, but are now experimenting with resin printing, and well the results speak for themselves.

Does anyone have any pictures of Dunlavin pre closure? Some excellent photos on Eiretrains of the present day buildings, but I'm looking for it in its "heyday" although it seemingly never had much regular traffic. Any help greatly appreciated

Jinty would be far too large, as said a P class is probably the best bet. Terrier would be closer to a J26, coincidentally I've been meaning to get a terrier so comparisons between the two can be made in proper and decent order!

Had their own livery too, maroon and white for E428, with cream for the coaches.

Didn't they have a few rather...lopsided carriages?

The Tom Ferris videos surely would have some audio, not the best quality perhaps but I digress.

Some test runs done today, front bogie kept derailing so it was replaced with something a bit heavier. Seemed to do the trick Thanks for looking

Wee update. Frames added, dome modified and buffer beam fixed. she looks very foreign with the smoke deflectors anyway, somewhat bizarre what the GSR was doing at the time.

Hi Mike, Firebox had been made from a piece of brass. So got to it a few hours ago Firebox Reformed She'll need to be painted soon! Onto the more general subject of conversions, I think southern locomotives are as close a donor for irish locos. The likes of the S and H classes would be close enough to a 500. The larger southern 4-4-0s are close to the V and VS class. The T9 class could probably be a donor for a multitude of Irish mid and small 4-4-0s Even the Lord Nelson has some features of the 800s that the Jubilees and Scots lack (namely the huuuge looking boiler) but was ruled out for a possible 800 conversion for the several major differences. Obviously some LMS locomotives are good substitutes Even the LNER has some very close locomotives, namely their D16s and D11, though the cab and Firebox would have to be modified The odd one of the big four for possible conversions is the GWR. Utterly useless for the most part, the tapered boiler on GWR locomotives is pretty much entirely absent from any Irish one. Galteemore it seems the GSR was up to some shenanigans with their 4-6-0s, one of the 500s looked quite bizarre for a period of time.

Finished up on the tender today along with some other work. I doubt the tank tops are the same but that might be for another time. Firebox looked a bit too log so it was a cut and shut job. Still a good bit to do but starting to look like a 400 methinks. Bogies wheels need to be painted you can barely see them!

Hi lads, thanks for the replies Popeye, tis indeed a pretty big job, especially compared to something like 309, that I didn't do much work on. Nonetheless I hope the end product will be decent looking David it can be very satisfying (if it actually works!) And of course dead accuracy isn't usually achieved but if it looks pretty close to it, close to same proportions, looks and certain features then I'm happy. Paint often covers a multitude of issues! Pretty much everything par the J15 is either built or kitbashed. Bit more work was done today. My original plan had been, similar to Scots Mac, use a B12 tender for the 400. However this was...tiny The King Arthur came with a large double bogie tender. Its much bigger and not too far off the 400s tender with a bit of modification. I also had an old Stanier tender base. Bogies removed and some ripping apart was done Loose Fitted together Valances will have to be extended back, ladders added etc. Next thing to do was fix the cab front. Apologies for the blurry pic, but hopefully you can see the front was pretty much gutted.

I was about halfway through this project when I saw Eoins excellent thread on repairing an O gauge 400 (hopefully I'lt get somewhat close to what that model looks like) that reminded me I should probably take some bloody photos. Anyway. About three years ago I embarked on an attempt to kitbash a 400 from a hornby sir dinaden, the inspiration having been Scots Macs conversions. My modelling skills were slightly worse back then, hopefully havin improved since then. You'll note a lack of any chassis, it is merely the body of the locomotive. This will be a bit of a theme in this series. The Sir Dinaden did have a chassis but it didn't work very well. Looking back I have several issues with the conversion. The Sir Dinaden model had small driving wheels that would be undersized for a 400 and I especially disliked the Belpaire Firebox. Next attempt was with a King Arthur I was far happier with this conversion( the firebox looks soooo much better than the other one imo) but again ran into the issue of not having a decent chassis for it, so it remained semi complete Recently I came across a chassis I had that I was sure didn't work before but works perfectly now for some bizarre reason. So I decided one 400 was better than one and began hacking. After some consideration I figured the footplate of the first conversion would be better while the boiler and smokebox of the new one would hopefully combine to make a decent thing. So are there any issues? Firstly it's a Bachmann split chassis so an ass to work with, and lacks a bogie. Seconditions problem, it's a bit tall. So trimming the top will be necessary. Will try and get around to that tomorrow. In what I can only describe as a brutal murder the first locomotive body was basically torn apart to leave only the footplate and cab. Loose Fitted on the chassis Next the boiler and smokebox of the other body were removed, modified a bit and also loose fitted You can sort of see what I mean. The smokebox boiler and Firebox seem to be sitting a little high. Also need a new dome and a fair bit of filler so the finish line is more far away than small. Definitely needs to be lowered. Thanks for looking

Speaking of dicks, the father of a family friend was known as Richard Taite, but better known as Dick taite. He was apparently quite an unpleasant man to be around which certainly didn't help matters and allowed the jokes to fester One can only imagine some parents were definitely having a laugh when they named their kids.

So in conclusion it has the same function as one of these. It all makes sense now.

Some more work done today on no.309, which was painted, numbered and then rapidly made to look filthy Other things going on at the works included Macha getting lined. A slow and painful process for myself, tea was needed! body removed As few things need to be done to finish Macha, cabut windows and a bit of paint along the running plate. I seriously wonder how the hell people do this in N gauge. Feck it, rest will be done by tomorrow!

I was wondering if anyone had old pictures of Mullingar station, mainly the athlone side, the yard and locomotive shed. I've looked online and found a few pics on Eiretrains, O'dea collection etc but there seems to be very little at all from the 50s and 60s. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Something arrived from OO works today.. numbered her 162, very impressed with the locomotive overall, many thanks to OO work, they've done a great job. The lineup shows how surprisingly small the locomotive is. Nonetheless she is of a good weight, and quite solid. Time to buy some cattle wagons to put her to work! If I'm feeling brave I'l modify the springs. Looks far too clean too..