Colin R

An old guy from the Festiniog Railway once told me the secret of success for any heritage railway is to get bums on seats the enthusiast will only provide less than 5% of your passengers were as Mum Dad and 2.5kids will make or break you railway. Cater for them and you will be here next year, the three things you need are clean loos for mum a clean tea shop for Mum and Dad and a gift shop not just for the kids but for mum to take stuff back to her folks at home, soft drinks, ice cream and sweets for everyone, Thomas the tank is always popular with just about everyone, Tee shirts, hats, sweatshirts with the railway site details will also sell. Don't forget a steam gala once a year for members and then if you have an important national day make that also a high light of the year with something special.

I am glad I found this rant, yes been there read the book brought the tee shirt and the rest, for years the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway Association lost its way in trying to reopen the Railway in Devon. https://www.lynton-rail.co.uk/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwl_SHBhCQARIsAFIFRVWTjglhA4uJCxPYLtsjNK_NTur741mwzSzxYJh6Ln_hj4Ak5Z6sKXEaAsM4EALw_wcB At almost every turn the council at the time said no to the project. Finally we got our act together and set up the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway Trust, following this we then set up a Community Interest Origination (A CIO) based Company, it is basically a charity but run on a commercial basis see the UK charity commission website for more details about the structure. So what we have in North Devon is a Trust which owns all the assets like locos trackbed etc and a separate company that runs the whole thing on behalf of the Trust, sounds simple doesn't it! The membership in turn elects 1/3 of the both the trustee and the company directors every year, but as no one stand up for election the same old faces carry on from one year to another. How this works is very simple we have about five or six people who have this railway at the heart of just about everything they do, what happens is they contact the people who have the skills to keep the group together on a profession basis, IE company secretaries, accountants, civil engineers mechanical engineers etc the list is endless. Most of these people live with in a reasonable distance of the project and so they all meet up say once a month to discuss the progress of the project and make proposals which then go back to the membership to act upon and help raise the money required. So my suggestion would be to seek out a person with the drive to set up such project in Ireland and to allow them to bring in the expertise that would be required to make this happen, there must be a number of people in Ireland who have retired and could give a day or so a month from the retirement to help get such a group off the ground, this could be the way forward to set up a National Railway Museum and Collection point, I know we have the Irish Railway Record Society and number of Irish railway heritage groups, but it would be a start. The biggest problem as I see it is convincing those in politics that you are serious enough to make something happen and to prove you can make it a successful commercial venture as well. The big trouble with railway enthusiast's are we are too big hearted and don't always have that commercial killer feel you need to make a success of a heritage project, for those that know the Donegal Railway we would need a modern day Mr Forbes for such a project I am sure living where I do that it is possible and if we could set up a new group to own 5T then so be it, you would be looking at around £100,00 pounds for a rebuild so you have sponsorship, donations and lottery funding (all specialist fund raising opportunities that need experts involved to get the results you need).

That is a big WOW, Fantastic

Wow I would love to see some photos when it is possible.

If i could go back in time with a load of cash we would have the best Railway/Tram collection going, I am sure I would try and save one of those big 4-8-0 beasties from the Swilly.

It looks like to me as if all the excursions trains where over printed on a standard background poster, they would have to be cheap enough to do something like that, I suspect that a run of say 500 posters was the normal thing. Where as the colour tourist poster would have been printer on a better paper so it lasted a bit longer say from April to September may be? The whole issue of how long a poster was up for depends on how busy the station was, I can't speak for how things where done over in Ireland but it was a common practice that posters where pasted over an old one until they fell off. After the war the quality of the wall poster decreased and it was common for after say 6 or 7 posters than the whole lot would just fall off the wall having been made wet so many times (the rain manly) which formed a pulp, in the 60's and 70's fly posting became a massive problem over here (and still is) so posters where made as cheap as possible since they only needed to stay up a few days at the most.

Thanks guys for identify both of them. I am sure there must be other Irish based posters, I might have to start a search on the interwebby thing to see if i can find any more. Colin

Hi one and all, The attached photo on the Cavan and Leitrim Mohill station shows a CIE Poster, my request is who might have one and if so can you post a colour version and the size of the poster, there is a second poster which I cannot make out to much detail of but again it is a CIE poster. Is anyone aware of anyone who has produced all of these CIE posters in 4mm / OO scale? Regards Colin Rainsbury

While some paints may have disappeared, it might be worth looking at one of the colour charts on-line such as this one https://www.paint4models.com/download.html I have to admit I prefer to use acrylics for washes and most of my painting as it gives a better base coat finish. Try looking at the citidal paint range for war games role play some very interesting shades on there. Colin R

Was it my imagination but didn't NIR buy some class A locos a few years ago or was it a different class I am thinking about Colin

Hi John To bring you up to date, sadly the Nine Lines kits are not available at present but there are moves to get them into production again (I hope), there has been a suggestion that other Donegal vans could be made from a laser cut in 3 mm ply with brass etched over lays stuck on with superglue. The chassis could be either a 3D print or a brass etch, I think the days of multi media items of rolling stock are approaching fast. Nothing new here, something similar was tried out years ago with some early Graham Farish wagon kits I believe. I understand the concept behind this and for some reason those promoting this think the look and feel is far better, I have yet to see any prototypes but I am looking forward to seeing how this will develop.

Hi Eoin the class five has interest as does the rail car, depending on which one if the seller would like to contact me off list I can have a chat with him about them, the wagons sound good as well. Colin

Hi Eoin I know it might be a bit late as he may have already sold them, but if you know the guy I might have some one interested in the Donegal kits if he still has them. Colin

West Clare tank kits tell me more I didn't think anyone had done any West Clare locos Colin

Just spoken to Neville about the class 5 he is having an issue about the wheels and motors so their could be a delay with these. If you wanted to go down the Worsley works route then you could contact Branchlines about motor and wheels for these kits, it will however leave you to try and find suitable castings, you could always ask Neville for sets of casting from the class 5 kits as I understand he had had them done and may be willing to sell them to you, I have asked him if I can do that for the Worsley Works Class 4 and 5A kits and I think he is OK with that. Colin

That's good to hear about her, at least she didn't have sea water getting anywhere near her. Colin

You will need some of those Worsley works West Clare coaches to go with them or some 3D print WCR vans, I am wonder what else came from the model train fair today. Colin

A great model Eoin, I still have three to build, you need a Swilly 4-8-0 Tender loco to go with that one now Colin

For most heritage railways when they take on an old steam locos, the things which need to either be replaced on have a lot of work on tend to be the Boiler and any sheet steel, mostly Cabs and tanks will get replaced with replicas (as I understand it most of the tanks on the class 5's where rotten anyway while they where still working back in the 1950's), some boiler fittings will also need to be replaced due to the current EU wide pressure vessel regulations, you will be lucky if any of the brass/gun metal fitting are still about and the same will go for the brass wheel bearings.,basically anything which could be stolen for scrap and would have been worth a few bob would have gone by now. Iron or steel castings and the frames, tend to be OK as they have the rest of the loco above to protect them, smoke box, the door and chimney should also be reusable as well, but it will depend on how it has been stored, sometimes the smoke box has also rusted away due to corrosion and what used to go on inside when working. Most heritage locos end up with a new boiler at some point, but at least it should be OK for another 50 years plus, depending on the grade of steel used in its construction, it would be worth getting someone who knows about boilers to give anyone the advice they are looking for on this. When the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway build a new Baldwin 2-4-2T the design team produced a list of every part of the new loco, they then produced a sponsorship list with every part having been given a value in Sterling, the idea took off and it was not long before the sponsorship money was coming in. From start to finish it took 8 years to build, normally such a project could last up to 20 years. This is not a how to restore a steam loco, but just pointing out the things I have come across on the locos I have had the privilege to be able to work on. Colin

Hi J Mo, sorry for the delay I have problem with the old steam driven computer, I fear I shall be needing a new electronic one very soon. As to designing the chassis I understand that one exists already from Dr Alan Gee, so I need to contact him first to see how he produced his one and who he got to do it. I see the 12inches to the ft scale model is coming on very nicely

For your information in Modelling the Irish Narrow Gauge the late David Lloyd managed to borrow the drawings of these locos from the late Sam Carse so a drawing of them has appeared in print, if you would like me to send you a copy pm me off group as a private message with your email address and I will send it back to you. Recently Sam's two sons have donated all of his life time collections of Donegal notes to the heritage center in Donegal, I can't wait to find out just what is in there, I am hoping airfixfan will seriously sit down and think about putting all of Sam's notes into a book format for the rest of us to drool over. I like the above body shell that you are doing, once the finances are back on track and if you are going to produce them I wouldn't mind getting two of them from your, or if you would like some one to use their printer let me know as I have a contact with a narrow gauge model supplier who makes some very find models on his new 3D printer. Colin

Hi J-Mo try this group as well for any help https://groups.io/g/00n3modellers we don't bite, but we can help you out, if you have never built a brass kit try to down load the following link and start reading over a large cup of Coffee or Tea https://www.engelsmodelspoor.shop/media/pdfs/Building Coaches the Comet Way.pdf, This is the advice that Allen give out to anyone who has never built one of his kits Colin Rainsbury

I know this will upset the purists, but I do wonder somethings if there is now a possibility of linking Derry/Londonderry to Strabrane using the old Donegal Line across town, I thin they have already moved the old NCC line to the right side of the old station, so building a new link between these two old station sites should not be that bigger problem, with the exception of any new building and roads that have been built since the Donegal closed, but it is not impossible, not when you consider just how much money is being spend on the HS2 project in the UK. Colin

I appreciate that not everyone wishes to tell the world where they live and that is fine, sometimes people (and not everyone) like to get together over a beer or join together to build a layout or exchange ideas on how to build something or just exchange information about an item, this can be fun as well. As far as i am concerned it does not matter what your background is, we can all learn off each other and get inspired to do things better next time. I have built some right dogs over the years (some folk say I still do) but when I do show off my work I am the biggest critic ever going, I press the self destruct button by telling people of the faults I notice, some people have even like some of it more than me and have paid good money for it (I don't know why to be honest). All I can say is once the pandemic is over it will be great to get over to Ireland and see the world of modelling that takes place in Ireland, but like JHB has said I will not be too surprised if the number of Irish modellers is not that great. Colin R

Thats better odds than winner the euro lottery