Patricks Layout

[patrick]

Lovely loco Patrick. You must be far more disciplined than me to have set operating session eras! They do sound fun though

 

Changing eras for now involves running the black and tan and black diesels and the Park Royal railcar for the 60's session. For the mid 70's session super train liveried diesels are substituted for the black diesels and the railcar and now we can run the new Bell liner also. All the rolling stock remains on track in the fiddle/staging yards, one track used to store any stock not in use at the time. At some stage I hope to acquire more prototypically correct coaching stock for the 60' session.

[jhb171achill]

"........Rails Through The West has been a huge inspiration and resource and I am eagerly waiting a follow up......"

"Rails Through North Kerry" should be on the shelves in late autumn, in time to come to the attention of Mr. S Claus... It will tell the story in colour of that line, plus Castleisland, Fenit, Foynes, Croom branch and Castlemungret.

[patrick]

"........Rails Through The West has been a huge inspiration and resource and I am eagerly waiting a follow up......"

"Rails Through North Kerry" should be on the shelves in late autumn, in time to come to the attention of Mr. S Claus... It will tell the story in colour of that line, plus Castleisland, Fenit, Foynes, Croom branch and Castlemungret.

 

Will it also be published by Colourpoint? This is really a great year for fans of the North Kerry with this new book and Alan O' rourke's excellent "The North Kerry Line"

[Hunslet 102]

Great video and great era's Patrick,your layout just shouts rural Ireland

[patrick]

As part of a feasibility study for an extension to the layout bench work was mocked up using cardboard and hot glue. Since the benchwork ends at the foot of the stairs I felt it was advisable to see how it would work out before proceeding. It is hoped that there will be sufficient space to extend the west end of Grange station to include the point for the passing loop. At present both tracks through the station go past the platforms, under a road bridge and directly into the fiddle yard. The extended benchwork will work fine but I believe Peco set track curved points will need to be used in the fiddle yard. The whole thing took about an hour and is so much better than trying to draw it out on paper.

[jhb171achill]

Colourpoint will indeed have it, Patrick.

[patrick]

Colourpoint will indeed have it, Patrick.

 

Wonderful. They did a great job on Rails Through the West.

[jhb171achill]

I was very pleased with the way they treated it..... Colourpoint's quality of reproduction these days is second to none.

[patrick]

I was very pleased with the way they treated it..... Colourpoint's quality of reproduction these days is second to none.

 

They had excellent material to work with also.

[Weshty]

These are a wonderful detail which scream rural Ireland. ... (Anyone looking for these gates can find them on the Studio Scale Models website.(

 

Thanks for the feedback Patrick. The gate project is very close to my heart, hopefully I've captured about 90% of the variations out there. You've given great inspiration for my layout (more anon.).

 

 

"Rails Through North Kerry" should be on the shelves in late autumn"

REALLY looking forward to this, and great to see the converted line given some great advertising in the Sunday Times Cycling pullout last week. It is well worth taking a Saturday or Sunday to go from Barna to Abbeyfeale. Just beautiful. You can pretend you're a train driver going over the Garryduff viaduct

Edited March 25, 2014 by Weshty

[patrick]

 

This past weekend the ballast crew were at work. Glen More was the first section of the layout started and one of the last to see ballast. I'm getting more dissatisfied with the backscene of the layout and am hoping to redo it soon. It lacks consistency and in several places the hills are too high.

[jhb171achill]

Aarrrrgh! I knew I forgot something. A photo of that layout should have been in "Rails Through the West"! Nobody would have noticed it was a model.....

 

Cue some emails to me from the publisher, "got a letter from a man who says he is an IRM poster, he wants to know why there was an oil tank in there that day....."

[patrick]

 

Something a lttle different, a video showing how the layout fits into the room. It is planned to paint the valance and fascia (not yet completed) black and hang a black curtain underneath hiding the shelves so as to focus attention on the layout.

[jhb171achill]

It really looks very well!

 

Do I imagine that I see my good colleague Barry standing at the end of the platform with his trusty camera? Future pic for a caption in a book..... "Rails Through Patrick's Layout"...... :-)

Edited April 3, 2014 by jhb171achill

[Glenderg]

Fantastic! What a superb railway room well finished with the pelmets and overall presentation. Just a wee bit envious! How you restrained yourself to not fill every square inch with track and do such a tasty landscaping job is maybe representative of american layout planning, and clever visual tricks everywhere. Just need a whole slap of magnesite wagons now..... richie

[scahalane]

Fantastic layout Patrick, I didn't realise how big it was till I saw the video. You've really captured a snippet of Irish landscape there.

[patrick]

It really looks very well!

 

Do I imagine that I see my good colleague Barry standing at the end of the platform with his trusty camera? Future pic for a caption in a book..... "Rails Through Patrick's Layout"...... :-)

 

I had the great pleasure of meeting Barry in 2012 while Maureen and I were on vacation. I was looking for a copy of "The Irish Metrovic Diesels" and it was suggested that a copy might be found at the IRRS in Dublin. We were greeted there by a very friendly member who regrettably informed us that they did not have a copy for sale "but here comes the author right now". While talking with Barry a copy of the book was unearthed somewhere which he signed. It was Maureens first trip to Ireland and everything seemed to go our way. The previous weekend we ended up in a pub with Geno of Four Men and a Dog after a concert in Clare. And in two weeks it only rained once!

[StevieB]

I can recommend a rake of magnesite wagons. However, as the prototype was actually oil and magnesite, you might need to consider running separate trains - the consist might look a little silly being so short - lack of space affects us all.

Stephen

[Hunslet 102]

The space available is to die for Patrick,what a class railway room and and a great use of the space available

[patrick]

 

This weekend ballast work was completed at Glen More and the first foot crossing put in. Ground covering was also done behind the up platform (Waterford to Cork is designated timetable Up). The next step is to redo the backdrop. The photo shows a Cork Waterford passenger meets a goods train.

[Blu Bianco]

I love the little yellow loader in the background. It adds that extra touch to the whole proceedings.

[patrick]

I love the little yellow loader in the background. It adds that extra touch to the whole proceedings.

 

Vehicles are lacking on the layout at present as virtually nothing is available off the shelf over here and my limited resources has so far gone into getting the layout up and running and for scenery. The only accurate scale vehicle is an Oxford diecast Morris (I think, I know nothing about cars) The other vehicles are two Hotwheels front loaders and an Ertel John Deer tractor, None of which are anything close to oo scale but were found at the supermarket for a dollar each and were put on the layout to give it some life for now. One of the front loaders is at the beet loading siding at Keilys Cross and it at least gives a strong visual clue to what goes on there even if the barley which represents the crop is just a stand in for now until I find something better. There is also a Spanish HO scale model excavator which I got in Berlin when I lived there in the 80's Its tracks are crude and it lacks detail but the proportions are nice. Once the basic scenery is complete and detailing begins the vehicle issue will be addressed. Because of the rural theme of the layout not many vehicles will be required and I hope to acquire some nicely detailed models which will reinforce the location and era of the layout........I may have to learn something about cars!

[patrick]

 

The layout backdrop is being redone. The joints were filled and sanded, something I should have done from the start and the hills, which never looked right to me, they extended way too high and the color was wrong , were painted out. I am considering consulting an artist aquaintance of mine for advice before proceeding any further. For now it looks a hell of a lot better.

[Glenderg]

Lovely! Leave it like that and we're in bucket and spade territory An aul van selling HB ice-cream and you're done! Richie

[patrick]

I just realized I spoiled the last three photos by putting the signal cabin roof back on backwards after doing the backdrop! I may update the paint job on the cabin by painting over over the green with grey but eventually replacement with a standard GSWR style cabin similar to the one at Dungarvan or possibly Kilmacthomas is planned.

[patrick]

Lovely! Leave it like that and we're in bucket and spade territory An aul van selling HB ice-cream and you're done! Richie

I'm getting flashbacks of being ten years old waiting on the footbridge at Fenit for the summer Sunday seaside special to arrive from Tralee. On a real good day a boat would be in and a Deutz would be shunting wagons between the station and the pier where the steam cranes would be unloading timber. I can feel the warm sun, smell the suntan lotion the seaweed and diesel exhaust and feel the Choc Ice melt on my fingers!

[StevieB]

I love the backdrop - big skies are always the best option.

Stephen

[201bhoy]

Superb!!!!!!

[patrick]

 

Glen More railway station in the late sixties.

[timmycork]

Great scene Patrick, well done

[patrick]

 

Recent progress on Glen More goods yard and backdrop. The Bitumen depot is based on the facility at Tralee. John Mayner posted a photo of it a while back which was used as a reference to model it.

[Mayner]

I hadn't noticed the concreted hard standing before nicely modelled with the expansion joints and dummies. There must be a large creamery Co-Op locally to justify the investment inbound fertiliser, possibly the Ratio gantry to handle outbound butter & cheese for the UK market in insulated FM or those new fangeled ISO containers. The station might even stay open under Railplan 80

 

Maybe it the signal box but to me the station has a look of the GN about it, but still plausible if the Cork & Waterford had been built by an independent company in the 1850-60.

[patrick]

The hard standing was modeled using thick high quality card which I found in a craft store. It was painted with a spray can of grey primer, the closest color to concrete I could find at Wal-Mart, and the expansion joints and a few cracks were drawn on using a sharpie pen. I'm very pleased with the result. I have issues with the signal boxes on the layout. Eventually I would like to replace all the buildings with scratch built models based on those at Kilmacthomas and Durrow.

[patrick]

 

The first signals (SSM) were completed and installed at Glen More last weekend. Next up are some semaphores.

[Seanw12]

Very nice