patrick

Condolences to you and your family JHB.

1. How did you get interested in Railway Modelling? I have been facinated by trains and railways both real and model as long as I remember. My mother told me that a guaranteed way to keep me quiet as a baby was to park my pram on the railway bridge at Patrickswell station in the early sixties before the family moved to Tralee. 2.What do you enjoy most about your hobby? Just about everything although I am not fond of anything involving paint. I am not a rivet counter, my main goal is capturing the atmosphere and operations of Irish railways in the the late sixties to the mid seventies. During this period I spent a lot of time hanging out around Tralee station and was fortunate to get to ride on the goods trains to Listowel and Castleisland and beet trains to Fenit and Abbeydorney and railway modelling is a way to keep these memories alive. Research, scheming and planning are all very enjoyable aspects of the hobby but the greatest satisfaction is when everything comes togeather in an atmospheric believable scene. 3. Do you go to events and if so how often and where? About one train show a year in the Cleveland Ohio area. I used to attend more when I modelled US railroads but very little is available here for the Irish modeller. 4.How much do you spend per annum on railway modelling? All told about $40 a month. All the track on the layout except for a few curved points is recycled from a previous layout. I am not a collector. Anything aquired must support the theme of the layout and this keps cost down.

Does anybody know what colours the ex GN 12 ton vans wore on CIE in the 60's and 70's? I remember them painted brown with the CIE roundal but wonder if any were grey or had the flying snail.

Maybe not of publishable quality but invaluable to the historic record and as a resource for modellers of the era. Do please post more. The photo of the brown H van with the grey doors is interesting for another reason. The sliding door palvan next to it has a combination x bracing/corrugated end. They were built with three different ends. From the photos I have seen most were either one or the other.

I recall reading in Irish Railfan News that A class were tried on the dolomite trains but had difficulty starting loaded trains on grades after stopping at the then unmaned level crossings on the Waterford-Ballinacourty line. Great photo. Is that the line to Dungarvan on the right?

Wexford-Waterford goods at Bridgetown.

Wishing everybody a happy Christmas.

According to the April 1973 working timetable the Wexford -Waterford goods arrived in Waterford at 16:15. It ran Monday to Friday. There is no sign of it in the November 1975 WTT which is the next one in my collection.

I remember seeing these wagons being unloaded into tanker lorries in the North Kerry yard in Tralee in the early seventies still sporting their Esso logos. I painted a couple of Dapol tank wagon kits to represent them.

Ran some trains and took some photos this morning.

Establishing maximum train length and minimum radius were the first steps in the design prosess of my layout. A secondary cross country line theme was chosen because of shorter passenger trains. Most tracks in the fiddle yards (the layout is end to end) will accommodate a locomotive and four bogie coaches or eleven to twelve four wheel wagons. I agree with SteveB's point about using four wheel wagons. Eleven four wheel container flats look much more impressive than five or six 42' bogie flats. Longer freight trains would be nice but overall its an acceptable compromise.

A track cleaning rubber like this is the best method I have found. http://www.ehattons.com/7537/Peco_Products_PL_41_Rail_Cleaning_Rubber/StockDetail.aspx

I got this test print of what will probabily be the final design for the Bulleid open body this morning. There are issues with the finish which Bob attributes to his printer but we are hopeful that we can outsource the printing at a cost not much greater than doing it ourselves. The floor has been ommited to save on material and reduce warping. On the model Plastistruct T section will be applied on each side of the doors and to the bottom of the underframe and door stops will be made from brass strip. A steryne floor will be fitted with the idea of covering it with photo shopped weathered planking.

Here are a few more without the local scenery.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]14697A few weeks ago our friend and neighbor Bruce announced that his friend Bob had a 3D printer and would help producing Bulleid open wagons. My previous method produced good results but was way too time consuming and lacked consistency and since I wanted 25 to 30 wagons for the layout which is set in October at the start of the beet season a better way of producing them was needed. The photo shows the results so far. The clipboard for paper work is on the wrong side and will be corrected.

I got one from a family friend who worked for CIE in Tralee and later Cork in the mid seventies. Wish I still had it. Thanks for the memory.

Beautiful work as always Nelson. I'm just hoping you will build a CIE H van and show us how its done.

http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/showthread.php/3378-Fenit-Pier?p=52934#post52934 Thanks for sharing John. Your plan depicts the track layout on the pier before rebuilding. Above is a link showing the layout as I remember it in the 60's and 70's.

Being unable to post a picture in reply to Mayners Fenit layout plan blog on the site I have opened a new thread to show the track layout on Fenit pier as I remember it. Several plans have been published in recent years in the IRRS journal and Alan O' Rourke's "North Kerry Line" but all show the track arrangement prior to rebuilding in the 1950's. The siding between the warehouses was used to park the steam cranes. All the track was inset on the pier except the curved tracks around the back of the warehouse which was regular ballasted track.

Cork Waterford Bell liner passing through Glen More.

I havn't done anything on the layout in weeks but today a portion of the platform at Glen More which had warped was repaired and afterwards a few trains were run and a few photos taken.

Three trains were run in each direction, a passenger, goods, and Bell liner.

All the photos in the previous post were taken by my neighoour Bruce, one showing me adding wagons to the goods train to stage for the photos. It gives a good impression of how the layout appears in person.