patrick

1 hour ago, irishthump said:

Grip it from above with a needle nose pliers. Then apply gentle pressure and lift it straight up.

That has worked well for me also.

Sixties action recently posted on You Tube

134 hasn't turned a wheel on the layout yet, I'm still waiting for the decoder to arrive from IRM. Meanwhile I'm having fun posing her for photos.

Its finally here! A sound decoder is due any day now, a first for the South Waterford Line.

Much the same scene as the previous photos but with an A class and signals.

That is a Silver Fox C class. Let's hope IRM  will do one, but first hopefully a Birmingham Sulzer!

The immement arrival of a grey 121 inspired the. construction of a grey palvan, this time with different doors and ends. It may be time to build that SSM brake van kit and finish it in grey

Loose coupled goods train runs through Glen More.

Yesterday I spent a couple of pleasurable hours tiding up the East side of Glen More which involved touching up some parts of the backscene and valance and adding some scatter material to bare spots of scenery. The offending screw on the backscene proved immovable so it got covered with a tree!  Looking back on this thread I was surprised to learn that the rebuild of Glen More goods yard began two and a half years ago and only now is now basically complete although much more detail could be added. A search through my parts boxes did not reveal the SSM  ground signals which were removed from the layout for safe keeping prior to the rebuilding!                                                                                                                          MOGUL's comments regarding the North Kerry line are correct. Not only was there a similar crane in Rathkeale but also in the North Kerry yard in Tralee. The tar depot is also based on the one which was also there. 

https://www.iascaled.com/protothrottle/        Have you seen this Noel. There are also some demo videos on You Tube.

My first footplate ride was on a 141 in B & T livery from Tralee station over to the North Kerry yard and back some time around 1970. When the MM models came out I just had to have one. This eventually led to the South Waterford line which has given me so much satisfaction over the last nine years. Thank you PM!

I have often thought that an N scale model of the Ballinacourty line during the Quigley magnasite  era would make an interesting model railway. Between the many viaducts and the Quigley plant OO scale would require a huge space. It would still require a large space in N scale but it may even be possible to incorporate the Suit bridge. A double deck railway may be the way to go. A big disadvantage is the limited variety of traffic but one can scheme and dream.

Here is a mockup of the Glen More goods store which I built in order to establish its dimensions. First impressions are that it should be a bit deeper and the roof pitch seems a bit steep.

A tractor and trailer arrives at Glen More with another load of beet after a rain shower in early October in 1974. In reality the wet surface is due to the fact that the glue has not yet dried after applying Woodland Scenics fine ballast to the bank.

A little detail has been added to the tanks. Hopefully I can find a prototype industrial building to base a low relief model on to scratch build at some point but for now this will do nicely. I'm considering adding a sign or graphics reading Glen More Coop.

More progress on scenery. I have decided to go with the printed factory at least for now. Three storage tanks which were fashioned from a piece of plastic pipe which was lying around in the garage hides the fact that it has no dept on one end and some bushes and a tree do the same on the other. The tanks still need tops and some detail.

3 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

The GNR wagon behind it is a long way from home! 

Leslie does a GN van that looks similar if not the same. All it would need is a flying snail decal and an n after he number. I wouldn't like to be the poor soul who had to service those signal lamps. The ladder alone looks precarious not to mention being located on the bridge. 

 Fascinating photos there John, I'm hoping we will get to see many more from the Dillon collection. Two questions, when we're the last CiE 20 and 30 ton brake vans to be seen in grey? I have the impression they were repainted Into brown rather quickly. Also were any green coaches still running when the yellow panel was introduced on the A and C class?

The beet bank surface is a Scalescenes concrete download which unfortunately looks like it could pass for the marble floor of an OO scale cathedral. It will probably get the same treatment as the yard if I can figure out a way to deal with it in order to prevent an unholy mess when glue and isopropyl alcohol are applied. As with the yard area the bank has given me much grief over the years while trying to compose the scene. It has been longer, shorter, higher and on a curve and has had several different surfaces. I'm hoping to make peace with it soon! As for the back scene, the sky and clouds were done blending light blue paint applied with a paint roller and white paint blended in with a brush while the blue was still wet. This technique was learned from a Model Railroader DVD and gave wonderful results. Unfortunately my first attempt at painting hills was not so successful. They were too high and I tried to incorporate too much detail. Painting over them destroyed the silky smooth texture the sky backdrop had, and yes that screw has to go! 

A laminate a tin van and a Park Royal would go a long way considering the longevity of the prototypes and different paint schemes they sported. 

The South Waterford Line is primarily intended as operating model railway which captures the atmosphere of CIE in 1974. While I am delighted to be able to acquire the superb models made available from MM and IRM I will gleefully use any model which passes the two foot rule if it will help me achieve my goal without scratch building. Example, a passenger train  composed of a MM Craven, an Irish Freight Models laminate brake and a Park Royal all flanked by a Silver Fox tin van and heating van. No two vehicles  are alike and in my opinion a good representation of a typical passenger train on a secondary line from the early to mid seventies. While the SF and IFM models are nowhere up to the standard of the MM Craven in the big pictre of things the whole train is a far better representation than the solid train of Cravens I ran before the other models were aquired.

Truth be told the attempt to use a downloaded surface for the hard standing was laziness on my part. Ultimately dissatisfaction with the results led me to do what I should have done from the very start and put down Woodland Scenics fine ballast. It was applied over diluted white glue and the whole thing was then sprayed with isopropyl alcohol. Before the whole mess had dried lightly poking random spots with a finger gave the impression of potholes which broke up the uniform appearance of the surface. Hopefully I can now finally achieve closure and move on!

Lovely model, when was the prototype in service?

Here are a couple of Dapol Esso tank wagons which were the first rolling stock I built about 8 years ago to run with the MM baby GM's before the current layout was started. They were unmodified since at the time I had very little information about the prototypes. They were painted using brown auto body primer for the underframe and grey primer for the tanks. Some day I might get around to extend the tanks however due to the affordability of the kits starting from scratch is probably a better option.