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Clogherhead - A GNR(I) Seaside Terminus

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Picked up a 2nd 121 decoder today from @WRENNEIRE Dave Bracken at the Belfast show - now I can recreate a childhood memory, 2 121s double heading.  This was common on the freight workings into Adelaide although by the time I was paying attention both locos would have been in Supertrain livery.  Easy to set up on the NCE PowerCab. 

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The UMRC show was, once again, superb!  My T2 No. 64 was very happy to see that I returned home with some very appropriate carriages for her to pull 👍🏻 these were acquired from Chris Dyer - Chris’ stall should have a ‘wallet warning’ 🤣
Such a friendly show, great to catch up with so many fabulous people - I spent today trying my best to help Alan Nixon @Tullygrainey operate his fabulous ‘The Stone Yard’ layout - look out for extensive photo coverage later!

 

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14 hours ago, Patrick Davey said:

The UMRC show was, once again, superb!  My T2 No. 64 was very happy to see that I returned home with some very appropriate carriages for her to pull 👍🏻 these were acquired from Chris Dyer - Chris’ stall should have a ‘wallet warning’ 🤣
Such a friendly show, great to catch up with so many fabulous people - I spent today trying my best to help Alan Nixon @Tullygrainey operate his fabulous ‘The Stone Yard’ layout - look out for extensive photo coverage later!

 

DC288899-0769-4402-A365-F9BDD377A7AC.jpeg

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70E84FAF-2411-4C85-B935-1847A3591B19.jpeg

A8B7A6CA-FE88-4BAF-A51B-B54082B73734.jpeg

A39516F5-0390-463C-B037-DB4C35D7AEC9.jpeg

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Hi Patrick,

I have just finished building some GNRI coaches by cutting and shutting some Hornby Stanier coaches. They are not 1005 accurate dimensionally but near enough. The one thing I had trouble with was the colour I used an automotive spray can with the colour code RAL 8023 orange brown. I used this shade as it is very close but a slight lighter than Humbrol's gloss 9 which I was advised as close to the scumble teak. I found both Humbrol 9 and RAL 8023 to be very similar to the British LNER teak coach colouring and so went with it.

I also looked on the RPSI's website however I couldn't decide as in the photographs some coaches looked quite orange and other copper red as yours do.

The photographs of your coaches look a more copper red shade than the photographs of my coaches and wondered what shade you had used.

Gibbo.

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24 minutes ago, gibbo675 said:

Hi Patrick,

I have just finished building some GNRI coaches by cutting and shutting some Hornby Stanier coaches. They are not 1005 accurate dimensionally but near enough. The one thing I had trouble with was the colour I used an automotive spray can with the colour code RAL 8023 orange brown. I used this shade as it is very close but a slight lighter than Humbrol's gloss 9 which I was advised as close to the scumble teak. I found both Humbrol 9 and RAL 8023 to be very similar to the British LNER teak coach colouring and so went with it.

I also looked on the RPSI's website however I couldn't decide as in the photographs some coaches looked quite orange and other copper red as yours do.

The photographs of your coaches look a more copper red shade than the photographs of my coaches and wondered what shade you had used.

Gibbo.

I bought these RTR 🤣

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The Silver Fox coaches look the business, Patrick, not perfect, but windows the right shape and in the right place etc and the colour works pretty well.

I have one of his railcar sets - have you managed to persuade yours to go slowly? I need to do some homework on my DCC manual to get the acceleration right! Mine takes off like a Saturn Five rocket!

Of course, the coach set is just made by the Y5 van from a very well known source - you've done a very nice job building it.

An absolutely super layout!

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Posted (edited)

THE SISTERS BY THE SEA

In the town of Ardee in Co. Louth there was once a community of nuns, under the supervision of the very strict Mother Lee Love, who tried, but usually failed, to keep the younger nuns in order.  Despite Mother Lee Love drawing a veil of secrecy around much of their activities, the sisters served the Ardee community well, even running a very popular community laundry which was overseen by one Sister Matic.  The sisters also travelled widely, giving retreats and attending special events in churches far and wide.  They always preferred to travel by the trains of The Great Northern Railway, and despite the cessation of regular passenger services on the GN’s short branch line into their town, the sisters managed to charm the management in Amiens Street to such an extent that in 1952, a six-wheeled carriage which had been previously used by The Dundalk, Newry & Greenore Railway was sent to Ardee for the exclusive use of the sisters.  Provided notice was given the evening before, the carriage would be attached to the morning goods train out of Ardee and the sisters would be brought to Drogheda in comfort, from where they could easily connect to anywhere on the GN network and further afield.  On one notable occasion in 1948, the sisters made an error with their connections at Belfast & Ballymoney and ended up at Capecastle, possibly the remotest location on the Antrim narrow gauge lines.  They were soon affectionately known to railwaymen throughout Ireland as ‘The Sisters of Perpetual Motion’, or ‘The Roamin’ Catholics’.

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One of the sisters unfortunately met with a tragic end due to her fondness for playing darts, in which sport she was definitely a novice.  On one occasion, during the annual Dundalk & District Darts Day, she was standing quite close to the dartboard as a player threw his first dart, scoring double twenty.  Eager to get a better view, she edged closer still as the player threw his second dart, again scoring a double twenty.  The curiosity got the better of her and just as the player launched his third dart, she edged forward again, but she tripped and stumbled into its flight path.  The referee immediately bellowed “One nun dead and eighty!”  Tragic.

There was nothing the sisters liked better than a trip to the seaside, and Clogherhead was one of their favourite destinations, due to its close proximity to Ardee and the convenience of having a chapel beside the station.  The sisters were also very partial to a sweet treat or two, and the proprietors of the Clogherhead station tea rooms, Earl Grey and Nan Barrie, loved to see them coming, and they would mark those occasions by running a special ‘Buns with The Nuns’ promotion.

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However, following a regrettable incident of misbehaviour by the younger members of the order, Mother Lee Love had to eventually put a stop to the nuns’ excursions.  On July 7th 1954, the sisters arrived at Clogherhead to attend a lunchtime recital in the nearby chapel, given by the famous soprano Dee Va.  It was a glorious summer’s day and whilst Mother Lee Love was transported to her happy place by the powerful tones of the corpulent songstress, it quickly became too much for the younger nuns who by that stage had decided that Dee Va was actually a pirate queen - because she was murder on the high Cs.  Anyway they quickly and silently made their way out of the front door of the chapel and it wasn’t long before they were causing mayhem down at the station, feeding their egg & cress sandwiches to the seagulls and using their irresistible charms to convince the railwaymen to give them trips around the station on the locomotives and wagons.  But they were having so much fun that they failed to notice the rapturous applause which greeted the conclusion of Dee Va’s performance, and before long, the ominous silhouette of Mother Lee Love appeared on the platform, bringing the merriment to an abrupt stop.  Sadly that was the end of the sisters’ excursions, and as if to emphasise the point, Mother Lee Love informed Amiens Street that they would no longer be requiring the use of the ex-DNGR six-wheeler.  The vehicle was subsequently donated to the fledgling Belfast Transport Museum - it can still be seen to this day in ‘The Irish Railway Collection’, but the full story behind its journey to Cultra is not widely known.

 

Postscript: The use of the DNGR carriage by the sisters directly contributed to its preservation, and many years later, when this became known to the museum management, they decided to make an appropriate gesture to the memory of the sisters by installing suitably-attired figures in their carriage.  However, the team who were tasked with carrying out the installation ended up placing the figures in the wrong carriage - this mistake has, as yet, not been rectified.

Edited by Patrick Davey
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Hi Patrick,

Did the Nuns fill in a suitable repair card regarding the seized trailing axle of the leading bogie of T2 No. 62 ? The wheel set may have to visit the lathe for reprofiling.

Watch at 2:41 in the video.

Gibbo.

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15 hours ago, gibbo675 said:

Hi Patrick,

Did the Nuns fill in a suitable repair card regarding the seized trailing axle of the leading bogie of T2 No. 62 ? The wheel set may have to visit the lathe for reprofiling.

Watch at 2:41 in the video.

Yes they were very annoyed about it, it affected the smooth running of their joyride 🤣

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50 minutes ago, Patrick Davey said:
16 hours ago, gibbo675 said:

Hi Patrick,

Did the Nuns fill in a suitable repair card regarding the seized trailing axle of the leading bogie of T2 No. 62 ? The wheel set may have to visit the lathe for reprofiling.

Watch at 2:41 in the video.

Yes they were very annoyed about it, it affected the smooth running of their joyride 🤣

Joy Ride ?!?

Candles out girls !?!

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