Patricks Layout

[Mayner]

The track plan struck me as very American in principal then realised that your living in States, its interesting to see that Frank in Tasmania is also building with operation in mind.

 

I like the idea of the station and the viaduct very much part of the distinctive character of the Waterford-Dungarvan line thoughif anything a direct line from Youghal to Dungravan would have been even more spectacular.

 

Patrick it funny you mentioned Ardfert and Abbeydorney I did my first bit on serious gricing one day in 78 shortly after servicees ceased cycling around Fenit, Spa, Ardfert and Abbeydorney with a brand new Kodak Instamatic camera and no map. I arrived back in the guesthouse in Tralee tired but satisfied with my achievement, the following day it rained.

 

I have much the same idea in mind layout wise single track round the wall end to end one medium one small station both Block Posts possibly multi level.

[irishthump]

Patrick, that is a truly wonderful layout. I can't wait to see more on it!

[patrick]

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.

[BosKonay]

Coming along great! Has a beautifully atmospheric feel!

[patrick]

A few more pictures.

[gm171 kk]

Did you scrath build the wagons? They look like rtr ones.

[enniscorthyman]

Patrick Maureen sounds like a railway modellers dream wife. The choice of geographical location sounds really cool. I am a Waterford man myself and it was a really picturesque part of the network. Eamonn (Enniscorthy Man) is a wealth of information on this part of the railway and would be delighted to offer any advice.

 

Thank you very much. It was Eamonn's pictures of the weed sprayer on the Ballincourty branch that got me to consider that part of the

country. The scenery on the peninsula of the layout will hopefully reflect the area aruund Durrow and Ballyvoile with a tunnle and retaining wall.[/quote

Wonderful job on the layout Patrick.Its nice to hear that the photos

of the weedsprayer on the Ballinacourty branch inspired you.

I was delighted to get these photos from David Parks who took

these fantastic and historic photos during the 80s,and allowed me

to post up here.David also took some great photos of the North Kerry

Line with a favorite of mine appearing in the IRRS journal

showing 172 with the last weed train in May 1984 at the LC

gates of Lixnaw Station.

[patrick]

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?

[RedRich]

If you think that you can rework the back drop to a better standard Patrick it says a lot about the quality of your work. Everything else of course looks fabulous also.

 

Rich,

[RedRich]

Patrick Maureen sounds like a railway modellers dream wife. The choice of geographical location sounds really cool. I am a Waterford man myself and it was a really picturesque part of the network. Eamonn (Enniscorthy Man) is a wealth of information on this part of the railway and would be delighted to offer any advice.

 

Thank you very much. It was Eamonn's pictures of the weed sprayer on the Ballincourty branch that got me to consider that part of the

country. The scenery on the peninsula of the layout will hopefully reflect the area aruund Durrow and Ballyvoile with a tunnle and retaining wall.[/quote

Wonderful job on the layout Patrick.Its nice to hear that the photos

of the weedsprayer on the Ballinacourty branch inspired you.

I was delighted to get these photos from David Parks who took

these fantastic and historic photos during the 80s,and allowed me

to post up here.David also took some great photos of the North Kerry

Line with a favorite of mine appearing in the IRRS journal

showing 172 with the last weed train in May 1984 at the LC

gates of Lixnaw Station.

 

Eamonn any chance you could, with Davids permission pm me some of those photos as photos of that area are few and far between in my collection.

 

Rich,

[enniscorthyman]

 

Eamonn any chance you could, with Davids permission pm me some of those photos as photos of that area are few and far between in my collection.

 

Rich,

I will ask,Patrick.

By the way a good few of the photos were passed onto

Ciaráns Eiretrains website with David's permission.

The photo at the bottom of my Post is taken at Currabaha

LC west of Kilmackthomas by David in the mid 80s.

Check out Kilmeadon,Kilmackthomas,and Ballinacourty.

[burnthebox]

patrick, bloody well done, just fantastic, your layout looks great, you have some items on your layout that I still have in my attack, and it will be a while before it comes down, ( wheelchair story, long, for later ) keep up the good work, and what about a vid, well done,

[RedRich]

I will ask,Patrick.

By the way a good few of the photos were passed onto

Ciaráns Eiretrains website with David's permission.

The photo at the bottom of my Post is taken at Currabaha

LC west of Kilmackthomas by David in the mid 80s.

Check out Kilmeadon,Kilmackthomas,and Ballinacourty.

 

Eamonn I think wires have been crossed the request for photos was mine, probably my fault. Thanks for the heads up regarding Eiretrains.

 

Rich,

[enniscorthyman]

 

Eamonn I think wires have been crossed the request for photos was mine, probably my fault. Thanks for the heads up regarding Eiretrains.

 

Rich,

God Rich,the staff party on Saturday night must have left me

old head a bit buzzy-my fault.

[patrick]

 

Eamonn any chance you could, with Davids permission pm me some of those photos as photos of that area are few and far between in my collection.

 

Rich,

 

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

[patrick]

OK, I just checked it out again, The website is http://www.waterfordcountyimages.org and type in "railway", "railways" wont get you anything. There are a lot of Mallow Waterford photos from just before closure.

[RedRich]

God Rich,the staff party on Saturday night must have left me

old head a bit buzzy-my fault.

 

Cool Eamonn, did you have a good time, was there a free bar.

 

Rich,

[RedRich]

OK, I just checked it out again, The website is http://www.waterfordcountyimages.org and type in "railway", "railways" wont get you anything. There are a lot of Mallow Waterford photos from just before closure.

 

Thank you Patrick, I'll enjoy that.

 

Rich,

[enniscorthyman]

 

Cool Eamonn, did you have a good time, was there a free bar.

 

Rich,

A few free drinks were had alright Rich.

[patrick]

Work on extending the layout has began and here are a few photos of the base board mocked up to check clearances. I redrew the plan in order to gain more space for the five track traverser and the smaller passing station. This involved reducing the aisle to two foot in two places and the mock up shows that there is enough space for the three operators

at most, planned to operate the layout.The smaller station may be expanded with a passing loop and goods siding, the western end (left) unmodeled, represented in the traverser if there is enough space to make it work visually.

[patrick]

I got a lot of work done on the layout in the past week. Mocking up the baseboard was well worth while as as it proved that the isles could be narrower than initially planned leaving more room for the railway. There is now enough space for a passing loop and siding at the second (west end ) station. The baseboard, lighting and valance is now in place almost as far as the yet to be built traverser and track has been laid. Next up is painting the sky backdrop.

[Mayner]

Patrick

 

Its looking very good great to see an Irish layout that is more like a railway that runs from one place to another than the usual tail chaser. I especially like the idea of putting in the backscene and lighting valence at this stage, the fact that an operator cannot see the other station or end of the line should make life interesting.

 

It will be interesting to see how operation evolves, will you follow American practice with a dispatcher controlling train movements by radio and the operators walking around driving a train from one end of the line to the other, or follow Irish practice based around a signal man at each block post controlling train movements.

Edited December 23, 2012 by Mayner

[jhb171achill]

Absolutely superb... it's 1966, somewhere on the WRC or North Kerry!

[Kirley]

Very organised Patrick, lighting, control panel, back drop already in place before you start. I couldn’t help noticing the nice stack of vinyl on the floor.

[RedRich]

That's looking every inch the makings of a special layout Patrick. All your planing is beginning to show fruit. In agree with John tail chasers or roundy roundy layouts although they can be built and scenically well finished, they don't offer prototypycal operation. I love the LP collection, my daughter asked me what are those.

 

Keep it coming Patrick it looks great.

 

Rich,

[Dave]

Nice work Patrick, looks great

[patrick]

Thank you all for the positive comments, they inspire me to get more done. John is right about the design being inspired by American practice. In 1984 I left Ireland for Berlin Germany and soon found a copy of the Model Railroader in a hobby shop and ever since have been intrigued by the idea of building an Irish layout with prototypical track arrangements, high level narrow benchwork, walk around control and the main line running through each scene just once. Frankly I would have liked to have a continuous run with a double ended staging/fiddle yard but this would have required a duckunder, a considerably shorter main line and a much more overcrowded appearance. The visual separation between the two stations and the mid point beet siding is intentional, giving operators, who will follow their trains a sense of distance and going somewhere. A signalman, or possibly two now that there will be a second block post will control movements on the line. The fact that the layout is located in the living area of our home has proved to be a huge advantage in the sense that lighting and presentation became a high priority early on. It is so much easier to allocate funds to fun items like rolling stock and building kits than lumber and light fittings, a trap I fell into before! As regards station names, these have not been decided on yet. I have consulted a map of the area between Youghal and Dungarvan but nothing jumped out at me. Has anyone got some suggestions?

Finally, the vinal. One of the photos shows the rest of it!

[Kirley]

Patrick you are a man after my own heart, but since I got the modelling bug the vinyl has taken a back seat which is just as well as I was running out of room to store it.

[patrick]

son Kieran shot this video of the layout this morning. Hope you enjoy.

[Mayner]

As regards station names, these have not been decided on yet. I have consulted a map of the area between Youghal and Dungarvan but nothing jumped out at me. Has anyone got some suggestions?

Finally, the vinal. One of the photos shows the rest of it!

 

Google Street view is a great thing went for a jaunt from Youghal to Dungarvan this morning ;. No large settlements along the main road, what looks like the remains of a small creamery at Grange otherwise the odd cross roads pub.

[josefstadt]

Patrick, I can't view your video, as it is blocked due to content from WMG and NBC. On a positive note your layout is excellent. As others have already said, the end-to-end American style set up provides a change from the usual type of layout (that's not to denigrate other people's efforts). I've noticed from reading Model Railroader that a lot of American layouts are use foamboard as a baseboard. Have you used this material or did you lay the track on a wooden baseboard?

[patrick]

While recording the video we were listening to Electric Warrior by T Rex and thought it would make a good soundtrack. Strange, it plays over here. Here it is again without the soundtrack.

[Mike 84C]

Hey Patrick, your video is just great and the progress you have made in such a short time is a tribute to your efforts. Keep up the good work and I hope you have a good crew to operate with, it would be good fun. Ohio is a bit far to ask if I could help!! I shall enjoy watching your progress and maybe see your layout in the Model Railroad Crafsman? because its up there with the best.

Mike

[patrick]

I've noticed from reading Model Railroader that a lot of American layouts are use foamboard as a baseboard. Have you used this material or did you lay the track on a wooden baseboard?

 

The base board is indeed foan board mounted on a wood frame with construction adhesive (Liquid Nails) which is braced every 12 inches or so for stability. I had seen it used a number of places and thought i would give it a try for reasons of cost and being easy to work with. It does not hold track nails well however and solvent based adhieseves will dissolve the foam.

[patrick]

A short video showing the painted sky background on the new section of the layout. [video=youtube;uKT7NOzp_-c]