The "Lisnamore & Ballynahinch LIne" 1968-72

[colmflanagan]

The  “Lisnamore and Ballynahinch Railway” by Colm Flanagan

 

1968 – 1972

             I’ve been seriously into railway modeller since about 1961 when I sold all my Hornby Dublo 3 rail because it wasn’t realistic enough! My first efforts were a bit “hit & miss”, mostly the latter, but I began to gather some decent rolling stock and began working with Peco Streamline track (as it was called then). As my skills increased and I began to know how to set realistic goals, I began to photograph the layouts I built.  Beginning with this one.

             This was actually my second “permanent” layout and was occasioned by my parents emigrating to South Africa in 1967. Until this time I had been working on a quite large L shaped layout measuring some 15’ long by 8’ down the “L”. I had really bitten off more than I could chew and this was never anywhere near finished, while ideas of building a more ambitious two level layout on a 8x5 board inspired by a layout in “60 Plans for Small Railways” never got beyond the planning stage.

For various reasons I did not accompany my parents to South Africa to live, but moved in with my grandparents who lived nearby. A small back room in their house measuring 8’ by 10’ was “spare” and so I designed and built the “Lisnamore and Ballynahinch” Railway there. The pictures were taken with a little brownie camera so the quality is not great.

 

                    

            This layout was a single track continuous run, with a junction station, and a single track branch inside leading to what was to be a terminus station based on Ballynahinch (BCDR). there were some  storage sidings under what was to be Ballynahinch Station.

 

                    

 

            It also incorporated low and high level storage sidings, the former having a crude form of track circuit; I bent the fishplates of a length of Dublo track and glued a metal strip to the under side; another metal contact was wired to a 12v bulb on the control panel; as a locomotive moved on to the bent up track, its weight pushed down, made contact and the light glowed showing me that the train had reached the end of the siding. Crude but it did work. The problem of access to re-marshal trains, though, meant that I have not perpetuated this idea on more recent layouts!  And I discovered that a 1 in 12 gradient (with a curve on the bottom of it) was very restrictive!

 

            

 

            The junction station which was basically freelance although the station buildings were loosely based on Coleraine in County Londonderry, a station I knew well from having been at school there for 7 years.

 

            E

 

 

There was  a working Tri-ang Minic Motorway!  And also a 009 narrow gauge line. For this a little Jouef/Playcraft 0-4-0 locomotive  (Steatite, if I remember correctly) and a few goods wagons, ran from the goods yard at Lisnamore down to a loop and back again passing under the main line.  My current layout has a 009 narrow gauge layout as well as the standard gauge, I must do a wee history of that one too..sometime!

 

           

 

Much of the stock was standard Hornby Dublo but I began to make some “Irish” locomotives and carriages at this time, some of which still run on my present layout, such as BCDR No.4, a goods 0-6-0 based on the Triang MR 3F locomotive.  This one is now No 14, as any readers of my BCDR topic will know, But  my interest in Northern ireland diesel trains led me to try and MED from a Triang BR DMU. I never completed the Ballynahinch station section beyond basic trackwork, and with the death of my grandmother in 1972 the layout was dismantled, and some of the track and buildings were set up at a friend's house where three of us had planned and began building a joint layout.

 

         

            This only lasted a couple of years as when I returned to the house where I now live, a bigger room became available and I reclaimed much of my stock and began work on a new layout “The Newcastle Line”.

But I had a lot of fun building it, and the idea of a continuous run with an inner branch is more or less the same as my present layout.   

 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2021 by colmflanagan

[jhb171achill]

Fascinating, Colm. That's a very nice conversion of a Triang railcar you did. I had one of those and tried to make it look AEC-like by converting the three front cab windows into two. It was about the best one could hope for at the time without scratchbuilding. Unfortunately I've no photos of it - I painted it UTA green with wasp stripes added to a lower yellow end with the aid of a ruler and fine-tipped black marker pen.

[Galteemore]

Great to see such a layout commemorated. My early realisation that Irish railways could be modelled came about the age of 6 when my dad took me to see Drew Donaldson’s system one day. And another day he took me to Fred Graham’s house where I saw clockwork blue GN locos with brown coaches. My Hornby class 37 just wasn’t the same after that! Glad that a few like you Colm had the wit to try and get the 4mm Irish scene going…

Edited November 6, 2021 by Galteemore

[colmflanagan]

PS Have just realized this should be by rights be in the "Irish model layouts" forum so future  stuff about layouts will be posted there!

 

Colm