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The photo of Woodenbridge was taken on the RPSI special to Arklow. The loco has just been turned and will work tender first to Arklow before heading back to Dublin. I was on that trip as a young 13 year old schoolboy. Not a high vis in sight! We just wandered around wherever we could. Most of the track was still in place even though the branch was long closed. The special also called into Wicklow Murrough. I don't think it called into Shelton Abbey which was a pity.

During the 80's and early 90's Richard produced a photocopied newsletter called Faugh a Ballagh He used it to keep in contact with the group that helped him operate the layout and others who were interested in Irish Railways at the time. He used to send it out once or twice a year. I was lucky enough to be included so I still have copies from 1981 to 1992 It included information on the layout, riviews of model railway exhibitions, drawings of Irish railway interest and sometimes a polemic from Richard on the state of the hobby or his job with BR. I loved it, though at the time I had three young kids, a large mortgage and a stressful job so had no time for modelling. I still treasure them.

Pallet vans sold others still available

Castlerackrent featured as the railway of the month in February 1978 Railway modeller. At the time he worked as a civil engineer for BR in Scotland hence the availability of the storage area in Waverly station. I went over the one of the Ceiledh's around 1981 where the whole layout had been set up and the inspiration has stayed with me to this day. Another Inspiration that I never saw was The Yaxbury branch with some beautiful black and white photos in MRJ.

I have the following wagon Packs for sale €100.00 per pack plus postage. All are as new. The hoppers were run for a short while on the layout, the others were hardly removed form the packaging. I am based in the Dublin area so can arrange pickup if that suits better IRM1003 Ballast Hopper wagons - The origionals , for some reason I have two of these sets so happy to let one go IRM1270 H Vans CIE Brown - I ordered two sets but can only justify one on the layout IRM 1292 Pallet vans CIE Brown - Again I ordered two sets but the advantage here is that I have replaced one of the wagons with no. 26070 with the different end pressing. These are now sold Please PM if interested.

I really think you are on the right track here (forgive the pun) Get some track down and run some trains. You don't need much scenery just a few buildings and maybe a platform. For years I didn't have even a basic layout. I have had so much fun running trains on the bare baseboards of my own layout in the last few months.

@GSR800 where did you get the frames for the station overall roof?

Thanks for the advice David, I will certainly take it on board

The D&WJR is primarly designed for operation using hand held trottles and manually operated points. 1270mm height was chosen for this reason. What I am actually thinking about is building a completely seperate layout above the D&WJR using the "air rights" so to speak. I have lots of american rolling stock sitting in boxes in my daughters attic and am under pressure to use them or loose them. Operationally it would be very simple but there would be the space to run some decent length trains.

Keep us posted Paul Even I might be interested to try and build an unpowered pair or four to run as a push pull set behind the new IRM re-engined C class

MOL’s comments above about his Swiss layout got me thinking. Before Murphy Models and IRM seduced me I bought a lot of American rolling stock and built a 10’ long shunting layout, but longed for something bigger. I still have a large amount of it including a model of the Rio Grande Zeypher passenger train and many locos and wagons. One option would be to periodically take all the Irish stock off the D&WJR, put the American stock on and rename it the Denver Terminal Railroad. But then what to do about the Irish scenery when I ever get around to building it? While out hillwalking in Wicklow today I had a brainwave, Why not build above the existing layout? I had always considered double deck layouts too complex to build because of the gradients and or helixes required to connect the two levels. But what if I built a separate layout above the D&WJR? Baseboard height of the D&WJR is 1270mm and height to the top of the backscene is 1570mm. A baseboard above this would be about 1650mm which is close to my eye level. I am approximately 1800mm high, Roof height of my shed is 2100mm so I could stand on a 250mm high stool or bench to operate the layout. My thinking is that while the upper level would mimic the lower level it would be a lot simpler and narrower and would not need complex supports.

I held the first operating session last Saturday with my cousin who is an engineer with the transit authority in Washington. I took about 2 hours to run through a sequence where we ran every train except the container wagons. It was great fun and a huge learning experience. I had spent an hour the previous night setting up the trains in staging and transferring the full dolomite wagons to the mine and empties to the magnesite plant. I have two handheld controllers. One operator looked after the passenger station, yard area and staging. The other looked after the branch terminus, junction and mine. In general the operator drove the train into the area where they were operating rather than following the train all the way round the layout and trying to squeeze past the other operator. Main takeouts: I could do with a few more locos. As there are no runarounds in the staging yard, I need an extra loco if I want to run a train back out of staging during an operating session. I need to assemble the turntable and get it working so I can turn the 121 class locos after arrival at the passenger station. Some stock runs better than others on my trackwork, which is all Peco. All the carriages run fine, two axle wagons and the Taras run great but I need to do some work to get the ferts and container flats running smoothly without derailing somewhere on the layout. I need to improve coupling and uncoupling. Tension lock couplings are not great but I can’t afford to fit Kadees. Most trains run in fixed rakes so we were mainly just running round or dropping off a cut of wagons. We were using a plastic spoon as a manual uncoupler which wasn’t great. I have now fitted home made ramps to the staging yard and also have a new manual uncoupler made from an angle bracket covered in insulating tape. Both seem to work ok but probably can be refined further. We didn’t get direction right all the time. With DCC forward is always the fan end, not right or left. I need to program my CV’s better, some locos have too much momentum and others have none. Only one loco runs less than perfectly. All points are manually controlled. The theory is that the driver sets the points and walks around with the train. We had derailments due to not remembering to set all the points correctly before running the train. This will improve with experience. Looking at the photos everything is very brown without any scenery. I think I will paint the backscene sky blue. My wife is doing an art course so the long term plan is for her to paint appropriate scenes on it.

This photo shows the branch terminus on the left with the magnesite plant in the middle distance and the junction station on the right. The staging yard is behind the backscene on the left. Southbound trains come out of the staging yard behind the curved backscene in the left distance. The view of the exit is masked by the high silo. This photo shows the yard and station throat with the loco sidings and turntable pit in the left distance. In the right distance 086 is poking its head out of the passenger station while on the right is the nine track staging yard.

John Allen was considered a pioneer in his day particularly in the development in scenery and photography. The layout was mainly a stage for him to take beautiful photographs. John died in 1972 and the layout was destroyed in a fire shortly after. A more modern emphasis in layout design is an American track planner called Bill Beranek. Among the principals he espouses are: Walk Along Mainlines Narrow Shelves Long Mainline or Branch-line Runs Trains Traveling Through Scenes Once View Blocking Peninsulas Staging Yards (both hidden & open) Prototypical Operations It’s worth watching him on YouTube, you will learn a lot. Even if you have a lot of space it does make sense to start with something smaller and incorporate into a larger later. It has taken a year for me to get my layout to get to the operational stage, i.e. baseboard built, track laid and wired but no scenery yet. I retired a few years ago but would never have found the time to get that far while I was working.

From what I have seen on Youtube and from being a suscriber to Model Railroader in the past is that the americans either have huge layouts in their basements operated by a gang of people or short lines but still with operating potential. Here Dugort Harbour and Patricks layout before he had to dismantle it are closest to that concept. A single track branch with multiple stations. Scenic developement on both are way above anything I hope to achieve. The initial Castle Rackrent terminus was small but every siding and every spot had a purpose so at exhibitions the passenger train didn't just shunt back and forward. Wagons were spotted at the dock, the mill the good siding etc. He used home made Jackson couplings. The big advantage of a smaller layout is that you can change era just by changing the rolling stock. From 1900 up to the mid 1970's the railway infastructure hardly changed at all. Track layouts, signalling, buildings in a station could be set in 1900 or 1970 or even 1980, when a branch line closed the junction track layout hardly changed and often the stub was used for storing old rolling stock. The only thing that was substantially different was the rolling stock. From the mid 70's on things did change substantially with CTC, Railplan 80 etc. Before Paddy and IRM arrived on the scene I bough a large amount of american HO equipment as I was not happy with the running qualities or Hornby or Lima. It would be a huge job to change but maybe some time in the future the W&DJR will become the Denver Terminal and I can watch my Californial Zeypher leave Union station and head up the front range. Rule number one!