"Voiding the Warranty" - Mol's experiments in 21mm gauge

[Mol_PMB]

Just now, Flying Snail said:

Where did you get you hands on the  the GSWR carriage diagrams?

 

In the DCDR bookshop at Downpatrick.

[Mol_PMB]

One of the IRRS journals I chose to buy on Saturday is the February 2019 issue, and I picked this one because it has a detailed illustrated article on Private Sidings on Irish Railways. 

There were surprisingly many industries, of varied types, which had their own sidings served by CIE. In some cases they had their own wagons, or even their own motive power, but in many cases they were shunted by CIE locos with standard wagons. A surprising number of them were in the Cork/Kerry region. 

Inspired by some of the small but very effective shunting layouts I saw at the Belfast exhibition on Sunday, I'm wondering whether a simple 'Irish Industrial' layout could be a starting point to give my 21mm gauge stock something to run. It would be smaller and simpler than my previous plans, and with fewer turnouts to build. A good practice layout to try out track building techniques and get something running before tackling a more ambitious scheme such as Fenit. The same locos and stock would be usable. I'll have a think and review some trackplans for small, simple shunting layouts. 

[Galteemore]

11 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

One of the IRRS journals I chose to buy on Saturday is the February 2019 issue, and I picked this one because it has a detailed illustrated article on Private Sidings on Irish Railways. 

There were surprisingly many industries, of varied types, which had their own sidings served by CIE. In some cases they had their own wagons, or even their own motive power, but in many cases they were shunted by CIE locos with standard wagons. A surprising number of them were in the Cork/Kerry region. 

Inspired by some of the small but very effective shunting layouts I saw at the Belfast exhibition on Sunday, I'm wondering whether a simple 'Irish Industrial' layout could be a starting point to give my 21mm gauge stock something to run. It would be smaller and simpler than my previous plans, and with fewer turnouts to build. A good practice layout to try out track building techniques and get something running before tackling a more ambitious scheme such as Fenit. The same locos and stock would be usable. I'll have a think and review some trackplans for small, simple shunting layouts. 

The late Ken McElhinney (with whom you would have had much in common and who sadly died just around the time you got involved here) did just that in 21mm - search for Port Breige on here. For some reason my phone won’t let me post hyperlinks. 

[Mol_PMB]

11 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

The late Ken McElhinney (with whom you would have had much in common and who sadly died just around the time you got involved here) did just that in 21mm - search for Port Breige on here. For some reason my phone won’t let me post hyperlinks. 

Many thanks - here it is and it looks very inspiring. I shall have a read of the thread.

 

[Galteemore]

1 hour ago, Mol_PMB said:

Many thanks - here it is and it looks very inspiring. I shall have a read of the thread.

 

Fab. Ken was a very gifted engineer/designer who did a lot of pioneering work in making 21mm stuff with modern tech. If you do a forum search for his postings you’ll see what an inspiration he was. 

Edited Tuesday at 18:51 by Galteemore

[Mol_PMB]

Something like this might work, just a quick pencil sketch but I'll try it out on the confuser later.

Designed for trains of 1 smallish diesel and 3 wagons. Storage for plenty of stock on the two hidden tracks. 

In reality I believe the Webb's Flour Mill closed in 1957 but I can give it a slightly longer lease of life into the 1960s.

Grain vans inward and normal vans carrying flour outbound, plus some open wagons with coal for the mill's boiler house. That fits my existing fleet well. 

The branch remained open until 1977 with tar bitumen traffic for Roadbinder Ltd which would also be possible to model, or I could choose to represent some other freight not associated with the mill.

Random IRRS specials also possible - pic posted on this forum by @Westcorkrailway:

Only 2 turnouts to make, not too daunting. Baseboards could be a Grange&Hodder 'cheat' to get things moving quickly. 

A mix of industrial buildings and foreground greenery, possibly feature part of the mill leat at the front of the board.

Hmm, I shall think, but I probably shouldn't think too hard - I should just get on with it!

 

So far I have only found 3 photos of the place when the line was open, though some of the buildings still survive. The others are in IRRS Journal No.198 p.234, and this one:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53507047725

 

[Galteemore]

3 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

Something like this might work, just a quick pencil sketch but I'll try it out on the confuser later.

Designed for trains of 1 smallish diesel and 3 wagons. Storage for plenty of stock on the two hidden tracks. 

In reality I believe the Webb's Flour Mill closed in 1957 but I can give it a slightly longer lease of life into the 1960s.

Grain vans inward and normal vans carrying flour outbound, plus some open wagons with coal for the mill's boiler house. That fits my existing fleet well. 

The branch remained open until 1977 with tar bitumen traffic for Roadbinder Ltd which would also be possible to model, or I could choose to represent some other freight not associated with the mill.

Random IRRS specials also possible - pic posted on this forum by @Westcorkrailway:

Only 2 turnouts to make, not too daunting. Baseboards could be a Grange&Hodder 'cheat' to get things moving quickly. 

A mix of industrial buildings and foreground greenery, possibly feature part of the mill leat at the front of the board.

Hmm, I shall think, but I probably shouldn't think too hard - I should just get on with it!

 

So far I have only found 3 photos of the place when the line was open, though some of the buildings still survive. The others are in IRRS Journal No.198 p.234, and this one:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53507047725

 

Oh I do like this ! Subtle curvature will stop it looking like a cookie-cutter Setrack thing, and add some lovely photographic angles. Mulling this for 36.75….

Edited Tuesday at 21:24 by Galteemore

[jhb171achill]

Perfect venue for your E401 model!!

"Ballymoll Mill Sidings"

[Westcorkrailway]

 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 23:17 by Westcorkrailway

[Mol_PMB]

Wonderful, many thanks! Those extra photos give some useful different views of the buildings and scenery, and the description of the line and traffic is invaluable. 
I expect there may be some more photos out there somewhere from other tour participants, but they will be hard to find. 

[Westcorkrailway]

Some more early photos 

[Galteemore]

Now that’s a rough shunt 

[jhb171achill]

37 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

Now that’s a rough shunt 

I bet someone said “ooops!”

[Mayner]

1 hour ago, Westcorkrailway said:

Some more early photos 

 

There was a piece in one of the IRRS Journals on the incident. A Killarney or Trelee bound goods was wrecked at the Mill, apparrently the points were set for the siding rather than the Main Line.

[Mol_PMB]

Here's a more accurate sketch of the layout based on Quartertown Mill. Still the same 1600x400 footprint, with a scenic section 1200x300mm. Minimum curve radius 900mm, designed for a max total train length of 450mm including loco or 300mm without.

Rails are black, buildings red, backscene and trees are green. Building outlines are simplified at present.

I've added another smaller sector plate in the fiddle yard to increase flexibility by allowing loco run-rounds or hand-shunting of wagons between tracks.

There is also the option of a third track in the fiddle yard if it can run inside/under the buildings on the scenic part, which ought to be possible.

Grain vans would be dealt with on the headshunt at the left-hand end, whilst flour would be loaded into vans from the platform with canopy in the middle of the layout. Coal for the boilers or tar bitumen would be unloaded on the short spur bottom left. Three wagons can be left in each of those locations without snarling up operations completely. Three wagons and a loco will also fit on each of the fiddle yard tracks.

I think this works out quite well and there's plenty of scope for freight trains to arrive on scene, run round, shunt and depart, then re-marshal in the hidden sidings. 

The next step is to draw up a plan for the two points in Templot.

[Horsetan]

13 hours ago, Westcorkrailway said:

 

 

 

There's that unmistakable sense of semi-neglect in the photos that only Ireland can do.

[Galteemore]

16 minutes ago, Horsetan said:

There's that unmistakable sense of semi-neglect in the photos that only Ireland can do.

As an 18th century traveller to our country observed, ‘nothing lasts long in Ireland except the miles’

[GSR 800]

5 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

I bet someone said “ooops!”

Might have said something else too.

[Mol_PMB]

A new arrival from eBay today, a green A class which I had been mulling over for a while and eventually gave in despite @DJ Dangerous badgering me to buy an anteater instead...

I have posed it here with three of my vans which are conversions from the IRM fitted H vans. All of these have been modified to 21mm gauge which isn't as bad as I thought but still a fair bit of work with the brake gear.

The green one 18829 has the extended buffers fitted as per prototype.

The middle one 18828 is one of the rare prototype Palvans converted from H vans. This is a kitbashed Parkside BR Palvan body on an IRM chassis, also with extended buffers. These were originally green too, but at least one received the plain grey livery shown here. 

The left-hand one 17083 represents the batch of vans built before the H vans, with a similar body but on a conventional non-triangulated chassis. This uses the spare IRM body from the middle van, on the spare Parkside chassis from the Palvan kit. Both with appropriate modifications. 

All have been repainted, lettered and weathered. My green van was probably a fair match to the shade of the green A before I weathered it.

I have yet to test the A class, and of course it's presently the wrong gauge. I have yet to try regauging an A; as with the wagons it will need new wheels but the existing axles should be OK.

[DJ Dangerous]

A42 looks stunning, definitely worth splurging on!!!

[Mol_PMB]

2 minutes ago, DJ Dangerous said:

A42 looks stunning, definitely worth splurging on!!!

It does look very nice - I'm glad I was able to get a light green one, which was a fairly common livery for the class. Of the 18 models made by IRM, 12 were in variants of orange and black livery plus two in black. Only one in plain light green, and none in light green with a waist line. The dark green on the A46 model was short-lived and applied to only a few locos.

I suppose at least I'm helping to sustain the resale value of IRM locos, even if the money doesn't go to IRM.

Hopefully it will work when I test it later!

[Mol_PMB]

Good news, Bad news, Good news, and a Question

I have tested my green A42 on DCC, having worked out that its ID was 42. No surprise I suppose.

Initially it was very jerky and inconsistent. Giving the wheels a good clean with IPA solved that issue - mechanically it runs. Good news

But there was no sound (this was advertised as DCC sound fitted) and the lighting functions weren't set up right. So I looked in the roof and found that the chip fitted wasn't a Loksound, but what appears to be an old entry-level non-sound Bachmann chip. Bad news

I contacted the eBay seller, and suggested that the best way to resolve this was a partial refund. They responded within a few minutes, agreed to my proposal and sent the amount I had suggested. Good news

 

Now I need to buy a Loksound V5 sound chip for a Crossley A class. There seem to be two options:

• Accurascale for £114.95: https://www.accurascale.com/products/a-class-crossley-sound-decoder
• Roads and Rails for £109.99: https://www.roads-and-rails.co.uk/products/loksound-5-decoder-for-irm-irish-a-class-diesel-crossley

When AS loyalty points are considered, the prices of both are very similar. 

They appear to be different products - they certainly have different function listings. The Roads and Rails option has a Kadee Shuffle function which would be useful for me. That doesn't seem to be on the Accurascale function list.

I don't know whether the sounds are from different sources, and/or which might be the more realistic for the Crossley. I have actually driven an XA on the main line in Australia so I ought to know what a Crossley A class would sound like. But it was a long time ago and my memory is more of the steam-era driving controls and the absolute filthy oily blackness in the engine room!

So the Question, for those of you with sound-fitted Crossley A class. Which option did you choose, and why? Are you happy with it?