Sean

Right so, 

I have gone off the deep end altogether!

it was decided that i need a simplex, I just have to have one,  however any 3d models of such are not of the type I need!

so ive set out in making one, and in a further bout of insanity as soon as the chassis was designed i said, hey lets see if we can motorise this thing before proceeding with the rest of it LOL

the design has progressed a little bit and the 4x8mm motor that @LNERW1 introduced me to on the other thread seems to be the only one i can make fit in comfortably.

Now initial designs had the motor mounted where the bottom pulleys are and a direct belt (O ring) connection to the wheels 

The issue there is that the largest pulley i can fit onto the wheelset would be 4mm and the smallest pulley i can comfortably fit is also 4mm so this would lead to some fun gearing. 

Moving the motor up in the housing and adding a lay shaft  where i previously had the motor seems to be the answer. as soon as i did this i realised that i can change the motor pulley out for a set of gears to drive the layshaft with a proper ratio, the layshaft to wheels will still remain belt drive however.

Presumably I am going to have to rework this a few times and i dont actually have any motors yet so thats kind of it for now. but looks very promising.

I need to find printable gears!

Unfortunately not,  I was thinking about it when I was looking at the first BNM site but i dont think I could justify going up there for what little is left.

There are also private property no right of way signs up going into the yard, so any such visits would probabaly have to be mandated by klassman themselves also!

I have done similar levels of obsessive research into the locos and will be doing a similar deep dive on those here soon.

After that i will be focusing on working on the layout, I actually havent got any sort of a plan at all yet, mostly cos of the wild goose chase i had been undertaking to find the railway

I have also become highly addicted to the 3d printing side of things,so this has taken loads of my time.I think it is going to be a big change in the hobby for me!

Here are the known photos of the permenant way that i have.

I have spent far too many nights on this, so to be able to match all of the images to locations on a map has been a big thing for me heh.

So this is where the confusion begins.

The Lansdale yard branch of the system is the most documented part, and along with that, the most interesting part, however in the available photography the location is credited as being at the works. There a permenant way documented that is around a mile long  however with some sources saying there no rail link to the works.

a little contradictory!

Having searched the works area many times and coming up blank, as well as the area around smiths bog for any trace of anything  I FINALLY had a breakthrough.

A long time was spent trying to geolocate any trace the elevator in this photo around the works and I just could not make sense of it being anywhere on or near the main plant.

After another while of searching I focused my attention on smiths bog. still after another few evenings of looking i could find no trace of anything, then by chance i set the map imagery to 2024 over a random area and FINALLY I managed to spot  a set of rails which were not  visible on any other map and sure enough I was able to follow these back to a fairly nondescript yard,

set street view to 2009 .... AND 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/YNqCSkfhH1pabVCV6

THIS is lansdale yard.

THIS is the proof! the 2 tracks are still embedded just like in the flickr photo above!

https://maps.app.goo.gl/VCSP532Zt194LtAZA

from What i can make out, this is  a surviving level crossing. you can follow the tracks down to smiths bog and back into that yard  but you can see where it breaks up at one point, it is said that this branch line flooded and this was the final nail in the coffin for the railway here.

On 21/10/2025 at 11:18 AM, Mayner said:

Midland Irish Peat (Klasmann and Deilmann) had a (possibly 2) 60cm (2') Gauge systems 

 

This particular trope has been really annoying me as i have struggled to geolocate some of the photos whilst others were fitting into place perfectly.

There are infact 2 systems and possibly even a third that isnt documented online but thats speculation untill I see proof. 

the locos and rolling stock were moved from site to site as needed

I Initially had been misled as railmap online lists the system  as existing northeast of rathowen but once i found out how to get historical google street view working it quickly became obvious that this was a BNM system.

The second piece of misinformation in my brain was that there was a rail connection directly from the peat works out to smiths bog and that lansdale yard existed close to or inside the peat works at killinagh to nessesitate this link

https://www.drehscheibe-online.de/foren/read.php?017,5203442,5203442 this 1993 visit lists the 2 sites as not being connected but this was the only real reference to this i could find. everything else was fairly ambiguous.

Last night I was able to locate landsdale on the map and absolutely everything clicked into place regarding the geolocating.

The first system was at the works and there is absolutely no trace of it but the wagons and some track can be seen on the historical imagery  and it has allowed me to piece together the layout.

in this 1996 photo you can see the outline of the plastic sheeting they used to lay under the track. there is a line running down the left side of the works which is where they had some sidings and I think the maintenance area adjacent to the road around a sharp bend. the tippler and run around loop are not really visible in this photo. once track goes into the bog it becomes a temporary thing until they work the area and lift the track so no 2 aerials are really the same.

the 2006 photo shows us a bit more. the run around loop at the tippler is full of wagons and there is a separate rake of wagons on the other side of the loop,  this is a really crude run around loop that is not symmetrical and this compares well on the photos.

the line that runs down the side of the plant and around the bend now leads into a little shed that wasnt present in the 1996 shot. the trackwork itself is greened over.

This was basically the whole system at the works except for the temporary layinga out accross the bog which would have changed semi often.

Spent far too many hours altering this last night to suit the chassis, glad with the overall fit though and it should be easier the next time i need to do such a thing!

This is printed with the 0.2 and otherwise default settings, took about an hour so not much longer than the 0.4 settings I had been using.

the most obvious thing is with the roof and the top of the radiator, the stepping on those curved layers iis much less noticable now

another print was done on finer settings which took around 5 hours, but honestly I did not see much if any improvement to that except for a smoother roof and the radiators didnt work on that either.

very happy with this overall, the front grille looks great and the one to the side of the radiators is not reproducing all that ell yet.

Do any of ye know how to actually control the camera in this? 

its manageable but i find it a bit all over the place and sometimes if i go way off ill end up refreshing the page to get myself back to where i want to be.

Ive been at the same lol.

this is about the only cad program i can wrap my head around so far.

ruston has needed a load of adjustments to fit my chassis but its good now

the turf tippler, fine tuned for symmetry LOL

2009 vs Today, Health and safety have come a long way! 

ahh my apologies, i hadnt checked your links.

the second one looks exactly like the motor in the busch chassis except the busch motor is 6x15mm so a bit bigger.

micromotor.eu exist as a firm that manufactures 12v replacements  for busch.

I dont see any small enough for t but maybe the x12 could be fitted with some fettling 

they look like a great upgrade for the busch system that reallly improves running

15 minutes ago, LNERW1 said:

Would any of the Tgauge.com motors be of use in HOf?

Nah, h0f is on z gauge track, i couldnt imagine working with T  

25 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

How ON EARTH do they get working motors into stuff that tiny?

If extremely small scales like this, or Z, gain much traction, what about a 5mm gauge track to represent 5'3", and Irish models at a scale of 1mm = 1ft!

what I’m working with at the moment!

This is absolutely crazy to me  but its my kinda crazy 

Having watched that peco 200 video recently, ill certainly entertain the idea since the space advantages are clear and i love a good micro.

I know nothing about T scale I will admit but i did investigate Z recently  and i dont think I could go much smaller than 6.5mm gauge track and mechanisms.

If Z gauge was feasible. you can easily get points and set track as well as flexitrack. the cheapest running mechanism costs 30 euro or so from rokuhan

Dont let this deter you, people said the same things about N gauge for years.

one thing is, ive been told to expect a lot more track and wheel cleaning with this h0f scale,  logically this will intensify further if we go down to T.

And a little while later we can finally add some wagons

pretty happy with the curves too despite how narrow they may be 

certainly in this case it has been beneficial to begin with the loop of set track.

this system is a little unorthodox in that there’s a magnet on the bottom of the loco and the black strip is steel that is used to pull the loco onto the track for adhesion!

my own track will have somthing similar hidden in the scenery however it was certainly mind boggling trying to see how it worked without actually having some on hand to play with!

the loco is running in and I am assembling 4 wagons on the Busch kits. This way I can get a feel for how the couplings work before I try to add them to my prints! 

36 minutes ago, Flying Snail said:

Its very impressive to see the level of detail you're getting with FDM printing

It has certainly surpassed my needs and expectations.

this was a bit of a torture test last night!

sadly the white filament ran out and the last little bit had to go black

ive ordered a 0.2mm nozzle which should actually increase resolute detail even further but the print times will double and this little guy took 3 hours as it is! 
 

still not too bad once your patient. 

my own first self design is this very tiny  turf tippler to sit ontop of the h0f chassis. 

I need to order different filament before proceeding as this black stuff doesn’t feel as clean as the white stuff that came in the sample box.

overall I’m delighted with my results 

finally the larger delivery came in from Germany and I can start to have some fun.

decided to buy a starter set as it was almost the same price as buying the loco and controller and few wagons outright. The track is also slightly non standard so I wanted to see how this system worked for when I am building up my own

z gauge wheels fitted to my printed chassis. Rolls decently.

i also bought a few Busch wagon kits before I pulled the trigger on the printing as I wanted to be able to compare the two. There’s very little difference in it really.

Have been using this little ruston as a practice piece, Scaled it down and this time its to match the proportions of the prototype converted to h0 scale so this should be the most realistic variation.

Hopefully wont change it again although im still waiting on the chassis im going to run it on which might dictate change, Actually very pleased with some of the detail I am getting, particularly around the radiator and coupler holes.

maybe a lick of paint tomorrow.

have been considering the practicality’s of running a full rake

Ruston bucyrus rb10 which I’ve been needing for another layout I’m secretly planning 

First attempt at a ruston 13DL. scaled down from 00 to h0,  bit rough around the skirt, alas i think redoing it with supports with take care of that, 

3 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

Please let us know how you get on. 
I have one of their laser cutters which I have been very pleased with. 

I think it’s safe to say I have made the right decision  

However I am now questioning my decision in going with this scale upon seeing the size of it

track looks great too 

this was either a great decision or a terrible one. 
 

let’s give it a few hours before deciding

I really wish i had a layout big enough for these trains