GSR 800

Some detailing work, upgrading, patching and painting was done this week. The ornate window frames on the station building were added. These were made from toothpicks! Quite interesting to see how far this area has come.

Next up was the water tower in front of the signal box. Mullingar had three water towers at the station, plus a water crane on the island. Only the one on the Galway side is left these days, unfortunately.

Both water towers are Peco, though the new one has a considerably shortened tank and stack. This was achieved with a blade run a few times along a convenient score line, then breaking it off.

After this, I added some roping around the base. I cannot for the life of me remember what this is called. I knew once. At any rate, the rope is for hanging paintings steeped in tea. It looks quite overscale, but I don't mind.

Interestingly it doesn't appear in the 1957 photo above but does in other photos. The other tower is similarly inconsistent. While doing this, the roof on the main station building has been replaced with a simple piece of framers card. The previous roof was strips of plastic roofing, but I wasn't happy with how it looked. I think it makes a big difference without taking away from the building.

Back to the 50s and 60s...

Looking much cleaner than A1, A30 is on similar goods duties in 1957

A15 is running light engine toward Dublin as a 141 slows with a passenger train from Dublin. A15 will split the train and move it to the Sligo side of the station

A Plethora of Diesels at dusk! 

B141 is on the Galway Mail train 

 Meadbh takes on water as she prepares to take her express onto Dublin. The PW gang are joking that they've lifted some of the track on the Sligo side to prevent her from going any further in that direction!

Thanks for looking

3 hours ago, DJ Dangerous said:

 

That must be some whopper of a spider!

 

 

Own up, what idiot crashed their delivery truck into the coach???

Like many an Irish rail vehicle, its quite possible it had an altercation with a cow...

There was an IRRS journal that showed the cow after such an incident, I don't think anyone will be modelling such a scene any time soon!

All Fleadh'd out: 1963

The railwaymen and women at the station and yard can finally take a bit of a break the week after the Fleadh. A great success, though the Bishop is apparently not too happy with some of the carry-on during...

B141, the first of her class, brings her Dublin-bound train to a stop.

J 15 162 trundles past, en route to the shed. She is soon for withdrawal, likely joining dozens of other locomotives at the gantry for scrapping. The Craven is being trialled...lucky passengers

.....

Hello friends, my apologies for the hiatus. Mullingar is currently undergoing an overhaul and that dreaded word...' rationalisation'.

One of the main issues I had with Mullingar was fitting it into my available space. The original layout was end-to-end, but this was not particularly satisfying and prevented any ability to operate the Sligo side other than as sidings. I've also wanted to model a terminus, hence Amiens Street. But now there were two models. What to do with them?

After various attempts, the idea came with a 10x6-ish board. This gives just about enough room to loop a line back for Sligo. Mullingar's platforms were shortened somewhat to fit within this, with the shed and yard to be placed on the other side. An offshoot board will serve for Amiens street, the 'scenic fiddle yard' for the layout. So far so good, I will update as it progresses. The island platform structures will be interesting, the canopy is very ornate and intricate. Perhaps a job for the 3d printer..time shall tell.

Thanks for looking.

Simply wonderful stuff. Detail on the backhead is excellent.

Absolutely fantastic. The little Peckett is a favourite of mine.

Can't wait for more!

DMToys is very good

12 hours ago, Irishswissernie said:

Ex SLNCR 'Lough Erne' as 27 in UTA days at Belfast Docks. I'm wondering if the crew had nicked one of the Tarpaulins from the containers to cover a leaky roof Later 1950's

An unidentified B2 4-6-0 on a mail & passenger train probably on the Dublin - Cork Main line ca 1955. The shelter on the platform may give a clue to the location.

Cork, J15 195 on probably a Youghal excursion and also probably from July 1955.

 

 

Likely 401. You can just about make out the top of the 1 on the bufferbeam, and she was kept around with 402 for a good while.

2 hours ago, Mayner said:

The "Maynooth Loop" is a very old proposal, I have a sneaking suspicion the the Dublin and Meath was originally planned to connect with the GSWR near Clondalkin before falling under MGWR control, more recently the GSR planned to connect the ex-GSWR and MGWR lines in the Lucan-Maynooth area and divert ex-MGWR line trains to run to and from Kingsbridge. 

While its encouraging to see Arup recommending building lines on new alignments to reduce congestion increase speed, its difficult to see the Irish or UK Governments approving investment in new lines because of the level of borrowing required to construct the lines and the level of operating subsidy.

Its much simpler to fund road-schemes on a users-pay basis, through road tolls, road taxes, vehicle registration fees, and excise on fuel, these taxes can be adjusted to minimise the level of Government funding required to build and maintain the roads, pay carbon taxes due and the road user both private motorists, and commercial operators take on the risk of buying and financing the vehicles/rolling stock. "Fines" for Ireland failing to stay within its emission targets are simply recovered through higher carbon taxes (fuel duty) on the road user.

It will be interesting to see how governments recover from the loss in fuel excise duty with the switch to electric, bio-powered and hydrogen vehicles, increased VAT on electricity?

 

road usage tolls are being considered (Though I'm sure they would be quite unpopular)

more reasonable proposals include replacing the tax system based on emissions with one based on the weight of the car. (Bad news for those who have bought some of the massive electric cars!)

Increasingly, however, there's admission Evs aren't the be-all and end-all, so it's very possible for rail to make inroads (no pun intended).

31 minutes ago, Horsetan said:

I thought the whole point of a greenway was to ensure the railway never came back.

I'll get out my shovel and do it myself if they wont...madness it was ever closed in the first place.

An interesting one is the 'Maynooth loop'. It seems to be to allow Sligo-bound trains to utilise the quad track from Heuston to get around Dart + services as far as Maynooth.

15 minutes ago, derek said:

Hi Denis, just wondering where you got the name for your layout? Are you a fan of Steven King,s son, Joe Hill ( also a horror writer) or did the name come from some other source.?

13 hours ago, Horsetan said:

If there is no recording in existence, we'll never know what the original sounded like

Run up to Cultra and hook up a compressor to Maedb's whistle

Park Royals have been announced 

https://irishrailwaymodels.com/blogs/announcements/irish-royalty-park-royal-coach-next-for-irm

11 minutes ago, BosKonay said:

https://irishrailwaymodels.com/blogs/announcements

 

Only 3 days and 17 hours to find out what

jaysus it was 1 day 18 hours earlier this morning

47 minutes ago, Broithe said:

There'll be another two along in a minute.

Broithe must have some serious dirt on the lads to be on the direct line..

2 hours ago, Westcorkrailway said:

Sneak peek! It may have had an error while printing. But rivet counters will be well chuffed with this finish 

photo: Owen O Niell

7 minutes ago, owen said:

Thanks Cathal for putting this up here I really do appreciate it. Yes unfortunately the printer threw an error code five and a half hours in to a seven hour-ish print. I won't lie I was fuming, but such is life eh. Design time on CAD took me around 12 hours all in. I checked the USB for errors and windows cleared them as there was an error present so I have another print of the Bandon Tank 464 going as I type in the same printer and I am hoping that it does not stop at the same point as the last print because that means either the USB drive is on the way out or the .FDG file for the printer is somehow corrupted, or worse still its the printer. Fingers crossed and I will keep you posted. Thank you, regards Owen O' Neill.

The detail looks excellent, top-notch; shame about the glitch.

On the upside, you might be able to do a wee diorama of some of the inchicore sidings with a loco on the wrong end of a cutters torch 

4 hours ago, hurricanemk1c said:

February 2023 was reasonably quite, with a trip to the UK at the beginning of the month, the new Track Recording Vehicle on trial and more more ICR B2 car deliveries

 

All photos - https://flickr.com/photos/hurricanemk1c/albums/72177720307588624

Regards,

Kieran

Looks like work may be beginning to clear the lineside for platform 11

Interestingly (though perhaps unsurprisingly) it seems the trend will continue with the 'Heuston West' Station for Dart Southwest, which will have a platform 11 adjacent to 10.

55 minutes ago, Broithe said:

This suggests there may never have been a Platform 9.

https://web.archive.org/web/20171031104916/http://www.irrs.ie/Journal148/148 Stations.htm

Maybe there was felt to be a possibility of one at some point?

Perhaps the 'far end' of Platform 8, or something like that?

I'd say this is the most likely answer, having the slot open if/when Heuston needs additional capacity 

On 9/4/2023 at 8:28 PM, DJ Dangerous said:

Free tickets to Tara Junction with every purchase?

You mean if the countdown was a windup?

We're nearly at the halfway mark now, wonder if we'll get any hints at all..

3 hours ago, Branchline121 said:

It seems consideration was given to a CIÉ standard fleet of steam locos (perhaps similar to the BR Standards?), but full-on dieselisation was chosen instead, probably not that smart considering the reliability of the A & C engines…

Milne advocated for exactly that, along with shorter, more regular train schedules based around 2-6-0 and 0-6-0 designs, along with ending inchicores boiler renewal policy and standardising around fewer boilers, but CIE went diesel. In hindsight, this was a better choice, though the adoption of Milne's other proposals could have been beneficial (and may have saved some of the branch lines)

5 hours ago, Irishswissernie said:

Mallow Shed, 715 June 1957.

Cavan & Leitrim, Drumshanbo 3L June 1957.

Belturbet, ca 1959 4T on the goods yard headshunt, whilst an ex CB&P 2-4-2T on the lower level line from Ballinamore on the right. Poor neg unfortunately but a bit different! 

I like the first photo. The J15b's were quite nice looking locos, though not with the best reputation. Still an improvement over the J15As with their extremely conservative design. Neither class could beat the original J15, it seemed.

I seem to recall someone, perhaps Milne calling for locomotives similar to the cattle engines to be built as a standard locomotive, presumably to replace the J15s. Perhaps their high maintenance (a feature of the wider MGWR fleet, apparently) put Inchicore off replicating the design.

I think it was Nock who er...knocked the MGWR in comparison to the BCDR, noting that while the BCDR used its steam locomotives efficiently, it was not unusual to see dozens of locomotives sitting around Broadstone in the middle of the day!

4 hours ago, Ironroad said:

I should apologise. after more research it would appear the footbridge in Connolly Stn was only truncated in the early '80s. From photos posted by Irishwissernie it looks like the section spanning the terminal side of the station may have only been removed as late as 1995. 

Footbridge was truncated over the old CIE lines when the old platform canopy on the CIE side went.

Footbridge over the main terminus was not removed until 1997 (by which stage it looked quite sorry for itself) from pictures I have seen when work was being done to the front of the train shed 

10 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

Don't forget the 6-pack set of three-wheeled steam-era sugar beet & magnesite tanker wagons............

that'll be for the ICR multiple-purpose diesels to haul

I've heard IRM will be producing the 800s...in black n tan only.

Apparently, it will only be available in a pack with a Crossley A class which doesn't work, for the kettle to rescue...

12 minutes ago, Mayner said:

By all accounts 'drag all" was considered the only D&M loco to be in reasonable working order.

 

Fitting name then...

3 hours ago, David Holman said:

 With the WL&WR stock now AJ'd, attention turns to GS&WR vehicles. My F6 2-4-2T recently got the best loco award at the club competition, so this seems a good place to start. Worth mentioning that one reason the AJs are such a protracted process, is that I first need to remove the Dinghams and in most cases refit screw or three link couplings as well...

 Anyway, have always thought the F6 were pretty little engines; built for the Kerry branches. My reasoning is that they were also tried out on the [fictitious] Belmullet line. The model is built from an Alphagraphix etched brass kit. Mostly conventional, but a bit more complex because of the curved footplate. The lined black livery looks very smart to my eyes - not a million miles from the lined BR black I remember at the end of steam.

 Number 42 has a short train made up of two six wheel coaches. The first class one is another AlphaG etched brass kit, while the brake third is plastic card and strip on an AlphaG etched chassis. The combination is the ideal train length for Northport Quay. The photos also show how lighting affects colour - look at the final picture. Both coaches are the same colour and in daylight look like the rear one!

A very nice engine indeed. Will have to get one myself from alphagraphix sometime...

1 hour ago, Darrman said:

https://www.irishtimes.com/transport/2023/03/22/application-lodged-for-extension-of-dart-to-celbridge-and-hazelhatch/

The Dart+ Southwest railway order application has been made. In other news, An Bord Pleanala "need more time" to approve extending to Maynooth.

Can't say I'm surprised, considering how horrendously understaffed An Bord Pleanala are.....