Johns Workbench, a place to start.

[Turin60]

I'm just starting my Irish railway modelling journey so I anticipate a good few mistakes so please bear with me. How did I end up here, well not too many miles from me lives a certain Andy Cundick whose exploits with 4mm scale Irish modelling are well known here, given such influence I was bound to want to dip a toe in sooner or later.

The other influence was from when I was growing up in the 1960,s, I had a copy of "The Observers Book of Railway Locomotives" and in there were some diesel locomotives which appeared to be painted SILVER! What a mad idea, only to be outdone in the 1980's by Network South East painting locomotives red WHITE & blue...now that was mad!. Anyway now I've got a replacement Observers book and it seems that edition was the first to feature the railways of the Irish republic.

Now being English (albeit with Irish ancestry) and awkward my project is going to be built to 21mm gauge, now I must admit I don't mind building pointwork which is going to be done with code 70 rail and PCB sleepers, there should be appended to this message a photograph of my point plan set up with sleepers stuck in place ready to go!  In more recent times I seem to have acquired a reputation for building layouts which don't feature many (or any) points, well my plan is to use two points so the layout might be classes as small as opposed to Micro and will be more charicature rather than prototype. Bear with me it might not be as bad as you fear.

So I've got the cunning plan and rail and hope to make some progress over the forthcoming festive season, so best wishes to you all. Now let's see about inserting that photograph.

John Bruce.

[Patrick Davey]

Good luck with the journey John!

[Mol_PMB]

Welcome! 

I'm a few months ahead of you with building a 2-point layout as a first step in 21mm gauge, so it's great to see someone else following the same path.

Here's my journey so far:

I look forward to seeing your progress. Feel free to ask if you have any questions on regauging stock etc. 

Have you chosen which wheel/rail standards you're using? Some people use P4-based dimensions but others (myself included) use EM flangeways and wheel profiles.

As for silver locos, this is my attempt:

Cheers,

Mol

[Galteemore]

Excellent work! And if you live near Andy you’re probably not far from me (far west Oxfordshire) 

[Turin60]

Thanks for the interest guys, Mol as far as standards go I'm going for EM on 21mm and I do like your "Silver" engine, early days yet, my own motive power looks set to be a C class (in silver) and a G class (later type in black) and when new patterns are made hopefully a second (earlier) G class to be in green.

Galteemore, I live in NW Hampshire so as you say not too far away.

It's early days yet, points to build and sleeper bases are hopefully on their way to me, baseboards are part new build and part recycling, the design will be quite simple but we can look at this at some point in the future.

John Bruce.

[Galteemore]

Any ideas for what kind of set up you’ll be modelling in terms of prototype? Looks a great start. We used to live in NW Hants between Basingstoke and Fleet……I modelled Kato N gauge out of the box back then! 

[Broithe]

22 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

We used to live in NW Hants between Basingstoke and Fleet.

We were at Odiham in 1967 & 8.

[Colonel]

Swillybegs will be at Southampton next month and know Andy will be there too, so maybe see you there as well.

David

[Turin60]

Galteemore, my model will be fairly minimal featuring just two points and will be of the "Bitza station" school which was popularised perhaps by the late Iain Rice and carried on by James Hilton even more minimally!  Mine will feature a goods loop with small stone & brick goods shed, a siding feeding a small agricultural merchants in corrugated iron. The line through the single platform ends under an oxide painted girder bridge, the line presuming to be closed beyond the bridge with a disused signal post in front of the bridge.

The (small) station building will again be stone with brick quoins and will also act as a view block for the fiddle yard, for the bridge I found a good colour photograph showing what I considered perfect...can I find it now, can I heck.

However in the meantime there are some points to build, if it helps anyone else I'm cheating here in that despite working to 21mm gauge I'm using Peco point plans for the templates. Peco track geometry is spot on despite having sleeper spacing to suit European spacing, so download the Peco templates and before printing them enlarge the image by 127% and hey presto 21mm gauge points with more or less (?) correct sleeper spacing.

John Bruce.

[Turin60]

For folk in the UK wishing to try 21mm gauge using EM standards be it in 4mm scale or 7mm scale (Three foot gauge), Paul Martin of EDM models produces and sells a 3D printed back to back gauge photo attached.

Gauge shown in the photograph with a 4mm scale wheel on a 26mm length axle, hope this helps someone.

John Bruce.

Edited 8 hours ago by Turin60
grammar

[Mol_PMB]

Ah, I know Paul but I didn't know he made those. 19.2mm across faces, I assume?

I made one myself out of a block of brass which is good for plain axles but not ideal for powered ones.

 

[Turin60]

The website claims 19.3mm, I shall have to check. Might need to introduce it (very gently of course) to some very fine wet & dry.

John Bruce.

On 25/12/2025 at 7:31 AM, Colonel said:

Swillybegs will be at Southampton next month and know Andy will be there too, so maybe see you there as well.

David

I plan on attending so will make a point of looking you up.

John Bruce.