FrankS

Hi Guys,

When I decided to pack up my traps and leave the Fermoy Branch I made a BIG boob. Loughrea seemed ideal, right place, right traffic, right time, BUT someone else (MRSI) got there before me and modelled it far better than I can hope to do. My freelance Loughrea couldn't be a patch on the REAL thing and I'd forever feel guilty about trying to steal their thunder everytime I used the name.

So, I'm having another go:banana: and, this time hopefully it will be third time lucky

This time I'm trying Ta-ra "The Ballybeg Branch". I think I'm on safer ground here, as there seem to be lots of Ballybegs in the Emerald Isle and I'm pretty sure none were served by rail.

But better to be safe than sorry, If anyone knows a reason why The Ballybeg Branch can't be modelled as a freelance/CIE line, please, speak now ~ before I put my foot in it

again

Cheers,

FrankS.

Fabulous model ~ definitely on my Christmas Shopping List - Can't think of anyone who deserves it more

Reynauds in the States (http://www.reynaulds.com) have it for $US 341. You've got to read carefully though, as there are 7 different models, some dedicated to specific Continental DCC sytems.

Cheers,

FrankS.

Hi,

Does Jim have a website or Commercial Outlet ?

Thanx

Frank S

THere's a litle known Irish Film called "The Rising of the Moon" released in 1957 and directed by John Ford. Tyrone Power introduces three short films. The middle one of theses called 'A Minute's Wait' is filmed on the 3' gauge West Clare Railway. Acted by players from the Abbey Theatre in Dublin it was also known as 'The Three Leaves of a Shamrock'.

Cheers,

FrankS

Hi John,

Same again for me, please.

Frank S.

Lovely looking models, John.

Is the 4whl LWB long enough to start causing worries about the minimum radius it will negociate ?

Frank Savery

Thanx for the info, guys. VERY much appreciated.

I've put in an order to DCC Supplies for the TCS units.

Cheers,

Frank Savery,

Tasmania

Hi all,

I now have (or soon will have) 6 Murphy Models 141/181 Diesel Locos.

I understand that these have a 21-pin decoder socket.

Can anyone please tell me what is the recomended PlugmPlay decoder & harness and where can I get it ?

Is there plenty of room in the loco ? I like TCS decoders from the USA but want to make sure it will fit in.

NB - Ordinary decoders NOT sound.

Thanx,

Frank Savery

Hi Guys,

Interesting reply from jhb171achill on the many shades of CIE green. I'm colourblind which adds a whole new dimension to the problem of getting shades right

I wonder were any of the CIE greens similar to the UK Southern Railway Green as interpreted by Hornby ?

Thanx, Frank Savery

Just a re-hash of what I wrote on the Fermoy Branch thread.

OPERATING THE LOUGHREA BRANCH C.I.E.

I'm very much into "Operating" in the American Model RR sense.You may have seen the sort of thing. Instead of just shunting whatever wagon takes your fancy, each wagon has a Card with a pouch which holds a waybill which directs the wagon to a certain industry or business to be unloaded then turning the waybill specifies wether it's to be loaded, what with and to a new destination or maybe it's just to be an empty to be returned to the nearest yard ).

If shunting is your thing, it adds an awful lot to the fun. Moving a wagon has a purpose.

There was an excellent series of articles in the July - November 2010 Railway Modeller entitled 'Operating Branch Line Layouts' by David Cox. There is a fantastic amount of information and ideas in these articles, covering passenger traffic, freight traffic, timetables, generating traffic, etc. A really good investment in RM Back Numbers.

Of course, this sort of operation is really suited to "Old-Fashioned Railways" the modern day block trains going from A to B and back again don't give much scope for 'operation'. Which is why I set my railways around the late 60's - 70's.

Shunting is my thing, and I've tried to give myself plenty of destinations to deliver wagons to, etc

I sat down and worked out what I thought was the sort of traffic I could reasonably justify on a layout like the Loughrea Branch. I came up with :

Anticipated traffic fto Loughrea:

IN Bulk Cement, aggregate, Gypsum, etc to Bulk Ready Mix Concrete Depot

Containers for local area delivery

Engineers Stores

Household Coal

Guinness casks and crates to distributor

Bagged Cement to Distribution Depot

Palletized Bagged Fertilizer to Farmers Co-Op Depot

Components to Caravan Manufacturer

Sawn timber to L/R Timber Yard

Parcels, etc to Parcels Depot

OUT Cattle from Monthly Fair

Sugar Beet to Tuam - October to January

Logs to Sawmills.

Railway Ballast in Engineers Hoppers

Empty Guiness Casks

Containers

Caravans from builder

Anticipated Passenger Traffic :

Branch train consisting of 141/Open Coach/Generator Car shuttling between Limerick Junction and Fermoy and return.

Sometimes replaced by 2 car DMU set

Morning & Afternoon trains to Galway & return for shoppers & schoolchildren

Once daily train to Dublin out early morning return evening

Fairly frequent RPSI weekend steam excursions

Special trains for football and hurling matches

There should be enough traffic there to keep me occupied (:-)

G'day all, having just completed the drive up from Fermoy, I'm busy settling in to my new job as District Manager,Loughrea Branch, C.I.E.

The Loughrea Branch bears an uncanny resemblence to the old Fermoy Branch, just coincidence, I guess

The story is that the Loughrea Branch was "Ireland's last operational rural railway branch line, having outlasted most other country railway lines of this type by 10 – 20 years, and even surviving to have diesel trains used on it."

In an unexpected flash of brilliance C.I.E. managment decided that Loughrea might have a considerable future as a commuter town for the City of Galway, and instead of closure decided to modernise and develop the Loughrea Branch as a railhead for the surrounding area. The sugar beet traffic was greater than ever before and the lead & Zinc mines at TYNAGH were (this is 1972, remember ) " for 15 years (1960–1975) the most important zinc and silver mine in Ireland"

With growing commuter traffic, mineral traffic and sugar beet traffic ~ How could it fail ???

Ah, If only real life were as well organised

The Loughrea Branch is a classic station to fiddle yard design, so beloved of British GWR modellers, but with the added refinement of a "hidden" continious run.

It fits around the walls of a roughly 16' x 10' bedroom The actual station is on a 9' 8" x 2' 3" board and is set in the 1970's. The baseboards around the other 3 sides of the room already exist as part of my existing On30 layout. On these boards the scenery will mostly remain as is, with the buildings, vehicles, etc., being swapped for OO scale ones. This should work out OK as a 7mm tree just becomes a bigger tree in 4mm scale.

Talking of TREES,

One of my pet peeves with the layouts I see are the tiny little fiddling trees on them, little more than bushes. Trees are BIG things. When I lived in Queensland we had two magnificent trees in our back garden between 100' and 125' high - actually nothing exceptional in REAL trees. Think about it, in 4mm scale a 120' tree is 480mm ! thats almost 19 INCHES. Compare that with the fiddling little 4" high "bushes" you see on 99% of layouts ! So my layout will have BIG trees and lots of them!.

Locos will be RTR using the products of Murphy Models and Silver Fox. Same for Passenger stock. The branch is set in the 1970's so diesels are the norm but there will be "RPSI" steam locos, Green 2-6-0 N and O-6-0T Y available for steam charters. 141/181 are my favourite locos and trusting in God and the postal system I should have six of these, three in Black & Tan and three in Supertrain liveries. 121s are my next favourite and, hopefully, I'll have 2 or 3 of these If Mr Murphy looks after us. A 2600(original) DMU set will share passenger services with the loco hauled trains.

Goods stock will start off as repainted/kitbashed DAPOL mostly but will gradually be replaced with the genuine articles as my pension allows.

Control will by by DCC. I use an American system called EasyDCC which you probably have never heard of in Ireland, as they only sell direct to the customer not through shops. It lives up to its name and is well made and easy to use. One thing I particularly like is that the hand controllers only have 5 buttons in addition to the 1-0 keypad, not like most DCC systems (most of the UK ones are re-badged US ones, anyway)which have enough buttons on the hand (more like 3 hands ) controller to fly a 747.

All programming is done by the seperate base station, accessible only to the owner, who, in theory, at least, understands it all. So no chance of a ham fisted new operator accidentally reprogramming the whole system with a few confused keystrokes

I'll post some photos when there is something worth photographing.

In the meantime I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my 141/181s.

Cheers,

Patrick "Frank" Savery,

District Manager, Loughrea Branch, C.I.E.

Forget The Fermoy Branch See the NEW, EXCITING Loughrea Branch, C.I.E.

Hi Guys, Just as I was getting settled into Fermoy, a new job has come up and I'm moving up to County Galway to be the District Manager, Loughrea Branch, CIE.

I've just got my copy of "Rails THrough The West" from Colourpoint, via the RPSI, and I was up half the night devouring every page and every photo ! What a revelation, I've learned an awful lot in a short time.

The big attraction of Fermoy was that it was in 'sugar beet country'. I knew about the Sugar Beet factory at Tuam, but I wrongly assumed that siting it there was a political decision, spreading the employment around with the beet coming up from Wexford for processing.

I didn't realised that the Galway/Mayo areas were 'sugar beet country' too

So I could operate in my favourite area and still model the sugar beet industry - what more could one want ?

When I read about the Lead/Zinc mines at Tynagh it was just the icing on the cake.

Wikpedia tells me that ~ The town expanded in recent years as it increasingly becomes a commuter town for the city of Galway

Tynagh was for 15 years (1960–1975) the most important zinc and silver mine in Ireland

This line was Ireland's last operational rural railway branch line, having outlasted most other country railway lines of this type by 10 – 20 years, and even surviving to have diesel trains used on it.

Could I ask for more ?

So, as I'm stuck in a 1970's time warp, moving north quickly became a foregone conclusion. As we speak I'm busy packing up the old Bedford truck for the move up to Galway:ROFL:

So for the future, please follow the adventures of the Fermoy Branch on the NEW, BRIGHTER Lougrea Branch, C.I.E. thread.

Patrick "Frank" Savery

incoming District Manager, Lougrea Branch, C.I.E.

Fantastic video ! What a wonderful imagination Cyril Fry had. Up there with the GREATS of British Isles railway modelling, Peter Denny, John Ahern, et al.

Hi all,

To partly answer my own questions, I found more photos and information on the Perth & District M.R.C. webpage see:

http://www.perthmrc.com/page9.htm

and you get another couple of photos when you google in "Old Blarney model railway layout"

Ain't the Internet wonderful, even for slightly tarnished 'golden oldies'

Cheers,

Patrick 'Frank' Savery,

District Manager,

Fermoy Branch C.I.E.

Lovely layout, BosKonay. Who was/is the proud builder?

Any chance of more photos or a track plan?

Cheers,

Patrick "Frank" Savery,

District Manager,

Fermoy Branch C.I.E.

Hi Guys,

I was looking at the three Irish wagons produced by Shapeways. Are they as good as they look ?

Or, is the truth a bit less than the photos/computer graphics suggest.

They look to me as though they might be very brittle, is this so ?

What sort of glue works best ? I'm not a great fan of super glue preferring epoxy unless I want to amuse myself by glueing my fingers together

Thanx,

Patrick 'Frank' Savery,

District Manager, Fermoy Branch, C.I.E.

RAILS THROUGH THE WEST ~ Limerick to Sligo ~ An Illustrated Journey on the Western Rail Corridor

WOW - What a fantastic book. My copy arrived this morning from RPSI, and I haven't put it down since. Thank you very much 'Eire Trains' for suggesting it. The collection of colour photos is amazing, the authors, Jonathon Beaumont and Barry Clarke are to be heartily congratulated.

If only there was a similar book on all the other rail corriders.

VERY highly recomended to all Irish rail enthusiasts.

Patrick F. Savery,

District Manager, Fermoy Branch, C.I.E.

Thanx Josefstadt,

Yes, I think worldwide the 1970's were about the end of traditional railways, it's been downhill ever since.

I see 6 or 7 container trains pass by my railway room/back bedroom every day, and while I'll always watch them go through, they excite about as much desire in my breast to model them as do the trucks that pass along the road at the front of the house.

Mind you, everyone to his own, I don't know about Ireland, but in Australia N scale modellers, particularly American prototype modellers, seem to derive great enjoyment in running 4 loco lash ups on 40 wagon block trains running around 4 track main lines ~ definitely not my cup of coffee, though

Maybe it's an age thing ?

The track planning program I use is American made by RR-Trak - http://www.rrtrack.com/

It has it's limitations but I find it very easy to use and quite relaxing, I must have designed hundreds of 'dream' layouts over the years. Basically it has libraries of ready made track & pointwork that you use, Peco, Fleischmann, Bachmann, etc., but, with a bit of pratice you can make custom track sizes as you would use flextrack.

I tried a British system (which I think was a relabelled German system) but it had me tearing my hair out in frustration because the damn thing wouldn't do what I wanted it to.

Thanx Richie,

I've just had a look at their website and they seem to have out of season Pilgrimages from May to September with a main season from August15th - 8th September.

I think we could build up a lucrative business running excursion trains to be met at the station by a line of coaches.

Carry on like this and we might even start to make a profit

Thanks for the heads up, Dave.

Obviously not a gentleman to get too involved with.

Unfortunately there are crooks everywhere, even in this 'genteel' hobby. I'm chasing one in South Africa right now.

Hi Guys,

Another Question, this time Re:

BELL LINE CONTAINERS

You may have read my post on making cardboard/paper kits for containers from the Internet.

There is a guy in England doing more sophisticated "kits" for containers see:

http://stores.ebay.com.au/modeltrains-online?_trksid=p4340.l2563

He does a 40' BELL LINE COntainer (see e-bay Item number: 320904429800) and is planning a 20' BELL LINE container .

He asked me If I could confirm :

Did they have white roofs ? He thinks he's seen one with a white roof.

I'll pass on any info you can give.

OPERATING THE FERMOY BRANCH C.I.E.

I'm very much into "Operating" in the American Model RR sense.You may have seen the sort of thing. Instead of just shunting whatever wagon takes your fancy, each wagon has a Card with a pouch which holds a waybill which directs the wagon to a certain industry or business to be unloaded then turning the waybill specifies wether it's to be loaded, what with and to a new destination or maybe it's just to be an empty to be returned to the nearest yard (eg Limerick Junction).

If shunting is your thing, it adds an awful lot to the fun. Moving a wagon has a purpose.

There was an excellent series of articles in the July - November 2010 Railway Modeller entitled 'Operating Branch Line Layouts' by David Cox. There is a fantastic amount of information and ideas in these articles, covering passenger traffic, freight traffic, timetables, generating traffic, etc. A really good investment in RM Back Numbers.

Of course, this sort of operation is really suited to "Old-Fashioned Railways" the modern day block trains going from A to B and back again don't give much scope for 'operation'. Which is why I set my railways around the late 60's - 70's.

Shunting is my thing, and I've tried to give myself plenty of destinations to deliver wagons to, etc

I sat down and worked out what I thought was the sort of traffic I could reasonably justify on a layout like the Fermoy Branch. I came up with :

Anticipated traffic from Limerick Junction to Fermoy:

IN Bulk Cement, aggregate, Gypsum, etc to Bulk Ready Mix Concrete Depot

Containers for local area delivery

Engineers Stores

Household Coal

Guinness casks and crates to distributor

Bagged Cement to Distribution Depot

Palletized Bagged Fertilizer to Farmers Co-Op Depot

Components to Caravan Manufacturer

Sawn timber to L/R Timber Yard

Parcels, etc to Parcels Depot

OUT Cattle from Monthly Fair

Sugar Beet to Mallow - October to January

Logs to Sawmills in Limerick and Wexford

Railway Ballast in Engineers Hoppers

Empty Guiness Casks

Containers

Caravans from builder

Anticipated Passenger Traffic :

Branch train consisting of 141/Open Coach/Generator Car shuttling between Limerick Junction and Fermoy and return.

Sometimes replaced by 2 car DMU set

Morning & Afternoon trains to Waterford & return for shoppers & schoolchildren

Once daily train to Dublin out early morning return evening

Fairly frequent RPSI weekend steam excursions

Special trains for football and hurling matches

I'll have to study my guide books and see If I can find a religious location in the area to justify Special Sunday Excursions for pilgrims.

There should be enough traffic there to keep me occupied (:-)

G'day all,

from w-a-y down South in Tasmania:)

The Fermoy Branch is a classic station to fiddle yard design, so beloved of British GWR modellers, but with the added refinement of a "hidden" continious run.

It fits around the walls of a roughly 16' x 10' bedroom The actual station is on a 9' 8" x 2' 3" board and is set in the 1970's. The baseboards around the other 3 sides of the room already exist as part of my existing On30 layout. On these boards the scenery will mostly remain as is, with the buildings, vehicles, etc., being swapped for OO scale ones. This should work out OK as a 7mm tree just becomes a bigger tree in 4mm scale.

Talking of TREES,

One of my pet peeves with the layouts I see are the tiny little fiddling trees on them, little more than bushes. Trees are BIG things. When I lived in Queensland we had two magnificent trees in our back garden between 100' and 125' high - actually nothing exceptional in REAL trees. Think about it, in 4mm scale a 120' tree is 480mm ! thats almost 19 INCHES. Compare that with the fiddling little 4" high "bushes" you see on 99% of layouts ! So my layout will have BIG trees.

LAYOUT CONCEPT

The idea is that the Fermoy Branch was a typical reasonably busy steam-era branch. CIE have decided to modernise and rationalise it. Sweeping away most of the old steam-era buildings, the fairly big loco depot and the goods yard. The Cattle Pens still remain in use for the monthly Fair and a small coal yard remains in use for household coal, BUT their days are numbered.

CIE are developing Fermoy as a railhead for the area with distribution centres for Cement, Fertilizer, agricultural products, oil & petrol & household coal. There is a small container depot for local distribution and outward bound traffics are Sugar Beet (seasonal) timber, and track ballast from a quarry under contract to CIE. Also the output from a Caravan manufacturer. It's planned to put in a small storage yard for the engineers.

The plan is what I'd like to do, but it's not written in stone If, as I build it I find a section is a bit overcrowded, I'll simplify it.

Looking at the plan, the RH line runs down to a small halt where a Bulk Cement distribution depot will be built and on to the fiddle yard + a "disused" siding will run off to the right.

The LH line is an extended siding to serve a loading bank for Sugar Beet (from October to January) and the loader for track ballast from the quarry. A "disused" siding will run off to the left.

The two "disused sidings" will join up and form a continious run. Used for running in locos, and when I just want to sit back and watch the trains go by i.e. 'playing trains'

I'll add photos as soon as there is something worth photographing.

I'll welcome advice/criticism/brickbats, etc. I hope there are not too many anomolies in the thoughts of Chairman Patrick:((

But please be gentle with me

The last time I was in Ireland and on an Irish train was in 1968, when I went over to Co. Meath to meet my future in-laws:x

We travelled from Sligo to Dublin by train and then on the Dublin suburbans. So 99.99% of my information comes from books and videos, so, hopefully, I won't get it too wrong

You may ask why Fermoy. Actually my prototype interest is mainly centred further North around Sligo. But the answer is Sugar Beet. I've been interested in harvesting beet for many years and it has featured as a traffic on several of my Narrow Gauge layouts - so, it HAD to be in sugar country.

BTW, I know about the line from Mallow to Waterford which went through Fermoy. But they were on the other side of town and we try to ignore them

Cheers for now,

Patrick F. Savery,

District Manager, CIE Fermoy.

The Hay shed is just a straight out of the box Hornby Skaledale building.

HI Guys,

Something to share with you to make up for all my questions .

I discovered how to get realistically finished and weathered containers for my Fermoy Branch C.I.E.

We all like something for nothing:D

What do you think of the OO scale 20’ and 40’ Containers in the photo?. These are printed on thin card (or paper) and strengthened with 2mm or 1/8” balsa wood.

Because the originals are produced from photographs all the weathering, rust, colour, logos comes with them, nothing for you to do but print out and assemble the “kits” !

And the BIG thing is they are FREE, Gratis and For Nowt !

NOTE: Because they were originally designed for N scale use there are certain steps you must do to have your printouts come out in OO scale, but nothing too complicated.

You can fit 2 OO scale 20’ Containers on a sheet of A4 in portrait format. Also you can print out one 40’ container on an A4 sheet in landscape format and (I think) you can JUST fit a 45’ container on an A4 sheet (still experimenting with 45 footers).

How to build FREE Containers for OO scale

On a PC Go to http://norbtach.no.funpic.de/

Scroll down the page until you come to :

Bouwplaten van 20 ft containers with 6 little symbols underneath

Click on one of these, you will get a page showing 30 container sides scaled for N.

Left click on the design you want and you’ll get 2 sides, roof & 2 ends. Right Click COPY IMAGE on this.

Then open a new page in MS Word.

Insert a 1 Column x 3 Row Table on this page.

Set the Width as 16.0cm. Don’t worry about the height, it will automatically adjust itself.

Put the cursor in row 1 and press PASTE ~ voila a correctly scaled kit for an OO Container.

Skip Row 2

Go back and select another container design, COPY and PASTE it into Row 3.

Now you have 2 kits ready to print. If you can print on thin card,so much the better, but ordinary paper will do.

Cut out and assemble the 2 kits. Holding with spring-type clothes pegs.

Cut the internal bracing from balsa wood sheet. I used 2mm thickness.

Cut 2 side pieces 31mm x 78mm. Glue to insides. Hold with clothes pegs for a couple of minutes

Cut 2 end pieces 31mm x 27mm (Width will vary depending on the thickness of the balsa you used for the side pieces.)

Glue the ends inside the side bracing and hold with clothes pegs.

Repeat as many times as you want. There are 6 pages of 20’ containers, 6 pages of 40 footers and 30 35’ Footers.

You will find that the containers are quite rigid. Weights could be added, glued to the inside sides.

40 footers will print out the same way 1 to a landscape page if you set the 1 x 1 table length to 26.0 cm (it may adjust itself to 26.19 but this doesn’t seem to make a difference.)

I “THINK” it will be possible to just squeeze a 45’ Hi Cube container onto a landscape sheet. I haven’t tried it yet or worked out a length for the table.

Give it a try, I think you’ll be pleased with the results. Because the designs are from actual photographs of the originals you get weathering by the real expert ~ Mother Nature & Co.

Hope this is useful to someone,

Cheers Frank Savery,

District Manager, Fermoy Branch, C.I.E.