patrick

The Waterford County Museum website has a wonderful collection of railway photos. Just go to the image gallery and type in "railways".

I agree with you totally Dave. As I gained experience my earlier attempts were modofied upgraded or recycled, with increasingly better results. My own philosophy is that while I strive to build models as accurate as I can within the confines of my budget and skills, if I'm already compromising using a guage of a little over four foot, if it looks right and captures the atmosphere of the prototype it works for me. Your timber wagons look great and I look forward to seeing more of your work.

The 12 ton ex GN van's are from Parkside Dundas. These kits come with two different ends and I use the end with the smaller sprung buffers. The other ends with the larger hydraulic buffers are then used with the Parkside Dundas palvan kit to make the sliding door vans. According to "The Locomotives of CIE and NIR" these wagons were built with three different ends but I dont ever recall seeing ends similar to those supplied with the kit. I dont know for sure but from the photos I'v seen the corrugated ends seemed most common. A little carving on the lower inside of the corrugated ends is needed to make it work. The H van and bulleid open's are scratch built on Dapol meat van underftames with the brake gear modified to represent the simpler Irish arrangement. The brake van is scratch built on a shortened Hornby underframe. The Guiness and fertiliser wagons are scratch built on Dapol Prestwin underframes and the tank wagon which is for the moment is masquerading as a tar wagon is a combination of a shortened Dapol tank wagon with prestwin sideframes. This was built to see if a more typical irish 20 foot tank wagon could be produced with the correct wheelbase. Speaking of tar wagons, does anybody know if CIE had any similar to the 12 foot wheelbase vacume braked oil tanks?

A few more pictures.

Recent progress on the layout involved fine tuning track and wagons and backdrop painting. Operation is much improved making shunting much more fun. This is my first effort at backdrop painting but I may redo it having acquired some experience.

In the mid seventies my family would spend a week at Butlin's Mosney every summer. My favourite attraction there was not the rides or swimming pools but the view of the Dublin Belfast main line from the comfortable first floor lounge near the billiard room. There was a lot of freight in those days, bulk and bagged cement, mostly behind B class Metro-Vics, Guiness liners and loose coupled goods. One day an A class and some coaches all painted black and lettered SNCF passed by. I later learned it was used in filming a Pink Panther movie on the Kingscourt branch. The highlight was always the NIR Enterprise in maroon livery and Hunslet's fore and aft. That will always be my favourite Enteprise.

Glad to see you back. Look forward to seeing more photos.

I love your work John, it always inspires me. I considered using 21mm guage for a while but having a big intrest in operation , I decided to use OO guage in order to get a reliable running railway in a short period of time. Building the layout as close to eye level as possible helps make the narrow guage a litltle less apperant. When the present layout has run its course and I have more scratchbuilding and scenery skills it will no doubt be up for consideration again. One question, how do you weather and ballast your track?

Your out of luck, she has three younger brothers, none railway modellers! While house hunting last year we had a definate idea of what we wanted in a home, space for a layout was one factor. I am very fortunate that Maureen is very supportive of my hobby.

Progress photos.

Here is some information about my layout. In my previous house I was attempting to model Conrail in western Pennsylvania in HO scale in the 1980's in a 10foot by 20 foot basement room. The layout never got beyond baseboards and track mainly because the basement was damp and uninviting and having grown up in Tralee in the sixties and seventies I really didn't have any first hand experience of what I was trying to model. There is a lot to be said for modelling what you know. When Maureen and I moved in January this year, the space available for a layout was a finished windowless room fifteen and a half by nine feet at the foot of the stairs on the bottom level of our split level condo. The room opens off of the hall and doesn't have a door and it was agreed that the layout could spill out into the hall provided the finish was neat and tidy. Thought was given to continue modelling Conrail but it was clear that instead of 20 car freights I would have to settle for a switching layout or a coal branch. I had being checking out the Irish Railway Modellers site for some time and had acquired a Murphy Models 141 and 181 when I realized that an Irish cross country line set in the late sixties to mid seventies, with shorter more frequent trains would be a good option. I considered the North Kerry Line, of which I have fond memories of having traveled on the Listowel goods and beet specials in its last years. I even drawing up a plan for a double deck layout featuring Ardfert and Abbeydorney connected by a helix but reluctantly dismissed this due to the meger traffic. The western rail corridor was also considered but eventually settled on an imaginary link between Youghal and Dungarvin. This would allow me to run oil, manganese and Bell Ferry trains between Cork and Waterford in addition to passenger and mixed freight. The layout is end to end, with one main station with passing loop, a halt with a goods siding and an intermediate siding used for beet loading. The setting will be fall at the start of the beet season. It is planned to run a beet special from Mallow to the main station picking up loads and dropping off empty's along the way. Track level is 54 inches high and designed for walk around operation. It would have been nice to use code 83 track but I have a load of code 100 from my previous layout and enough demands on my hobby budget. When viewing the layout left is West and right is East. A valance hides the lighting overhead, the intention being to give a diorama effect. Maximum train length is 4 foot, enough for a loco and 4 passenger cars or 10-11 wagons. Control is at present DC using 2 walk around controller's wired for twin cab control using SPDT switches. Ideally the layout will be operated by three operators, one signalman, who will control all movements and two drivers operating trains over the line. Eventually I would like to have wireless DCC with sound! So far track extends from the East (Waterford) fiddle yard to the viaduct west of the main station. Construction of the peninsula will begin shortly. The photos show the extent of the progress. Since starting this project I'm having more fun than ever railway modelling and making more progress.

The layout will represent a section of line between Dungarvan and Youghal from the late sixties to the mid seventies. The intention is to replace the buildings with models of protypes from the Mallow Waterford, possibly Kilmacthomas, line at some point. For now the Bachmann models are so much nicer than the slightly modofied Dapol models on styrofoam platforms which they replace.

Thanks, my favourite layouts represent the common or mundane railway scene and that is what I strive for.

Thanks, me and technology are not always on the best of terms! The crossing boards are cut from the sheet of planking from the Wills level crossing kit.

Help, can anyone help me reduce the size of the photos?

Here are some pictures of progress on the layout. On a trip to Ireland recently I picked up the Bachmann Irish station building and signal box which I got me around to build platforms. Thanks to Mayners photo of Tralee tar depot I also built a representation of it.

Thanks for the information guys. The photo is extremely helpful. I want to build representations of these wagons on Dapol prestwin underframes and hopefully can now estimate demensions.

Does anyone have any photos or drawings of manganese wagons? The only information I have is from "Locomotives And Rolling Stock Of CIE and NIR". Top and end views would be espically helpful. Thanks.

I remember these containers in Tralee in the mid/late seventies. They were transfered to lorries in the North Kerry yard but I dont remember where they were loaded. I believe they they were used for barley for Guiness.

I forgot to add that the stamp is made from steryne sheet and half round section and the fertelizer wagon underframe is from the dapol Prestwin.

Thanks for all the posotive feedback guys. It is espically appreciated from modellers who understand what I'm trying to achieve. Here are some photos of the "back to back" fertilizer wagons for FrankS.(I didn't know that is what they were called.) Also are a few of the Bulleid opens and the home made stamp used in their construction. The material used is 40 guage copper found at a craft store placed between the stamp and a piece of pine. A hammer is then used to form the corrugations. It can be cut with a sharp sissors or knife. I use the type with the extendable blade which can be broken off at the soint when it gets dull. These are some of the first of these wagons I have made but I have already improvements in mind. The lip around the top edge is too large for a start but it seems more apperant in photos. The under frames are modofied from Dapol meat vans. I also use these for H vans. If anyone is intrested I can post som more photos of the opens under construction.

That is a representation of a fertilizer wagon which were flats mounted on 4 wheel container wagons. The demensions were guesstimated from photos which did not show them very clearly but I remember them from the days before the bogies were introduced. I doubt if many photos were taken of these wagons. A train of them can be seen in "Rails Through the West" on page 53 but they also ran in loose coupled goods trains.

Thanks for the kind remarks. Here are a few more photos.

Hi, I have been a member for some time but this is my first post. Here are a few pictures of my new layout which has been under construction for the last few months. My intrest is in CIE from the late sixties to the mid seventies and the theme for the layout is an imagined connection between Dungarvan and Youghal. This will allow me to run loose coupled goods as well as manganese, oil and Bell ferry trains behind black and tan diesels. The rolling stock is Murphy Models, Silver Fox and amixture of modofied Parkside and scratch built wagons on Dapol underframes. I was hoping to post more photos but I am having trouble doing so. I will post some more when I figure it out.