Arigna Town [SLNCR] developments

[David Holman]

Have been working on two turntables - one for locos and railbus, the other a full train version in the fiddle yard. The loco turntable is a much adapted Dapol/Airfix plastic kit, while the train table is mostly MDF.

The other pic shows the recently completed cattle dock fencing. Around 60 posts, each drilled 6 times to take the horizontal bars [0.8mm piano wire], so it was a somewhat repetitive process. Will put further details of all three in my blog next week, though you can read about why the project now has a name this week.

[Garfield]

This layout is fast becoming one of my favourites here. Great work!

[Lough Erne]

Would agree with Gg - it is a fantastic model and the turntable looks the part. All you need now are the cantilevered walkways, well weathered handrails and the addition of timbers between the rails on the deck.

Now that the layout is named have you developed a suitable history for it and how it came to be?

[RedRich]

I agree with the lad's fantastic, I love the track and the models are beautiful.

 

Rich,

[David Holman]

Thank you kind sir.

Have been pondering over the cantilevered walkways, not least because it is a scale 4' drop into the pit! However, not done it yet as the deck is only 40' long [including extension rails], which I'm concerned might cover much of the rest of the well - in which case a solid top would have made more sense. The deck is planked now though. Perhaps I'll do just one side.

As for the layout name, check out my Blog, as have recently penned a full history [with maps]. A bit sad, but it does help me set the scene and work out the traffic & hence stock I need to build.

[RedRich]

I actually like the planing stage of a project David and drawing maps and researching gives more life to the layout. I measure and photograph buildings and draw scale plans of the buildings myself. I read the Blog and it is a fantastic project, I'll be watching things progress with interest.

 

Rich,

[heirflick]

beautiful modelling - that railcar is a real cracker! thanks for posting.

[jhb171achill]

As an aside, I often wonder what would have happened had that line remained, and not become subsumed into CIE...

 

David Holman has referred to this; the idea of making up a history for a layout. I often think that the rationales that people have behind the existence of a layout are in themselves fascinating... I would imagine a modern day SLNCR would have used (Lough Swilly style) cast-offs from NIR & IR until maybe the mid 90s, when they would have taken advantage of the money awash then, and bought a couple of 2 car 2600s...... Timber from Manorhamilton, anyone?

[Tarabuses]

I don't think the SLNCR ever became part of CIE as it crossed the border into Fermanagh. It closed because the GNR to Enniskillen ceased to exist.

[Lough Erne]

I enjoyed reading the history of the branch though I do wonder about the dual gauge bit. I imagine they would have gone for the standard gauge option to the mine if the branch had been built.

 

As regards the turntable I would install the walkways and handrails with quite a narrow clearance. - speaking from experience it can be quite narrow between loco and handrail!. If you are concerned about hiding the detail of the table you could say that the boards on one side have been removed for replacement?

[Mayner]

I enjoyed reading the history of the branch though I do wonder about the dual gauge bit. I imagine they would have gone for the standard gauge option to the mine if the branch had been built.

 

 

I still keep thinking Davids model looks more like Drumkeeran than Arigna, then again my layout does not look anything like Keadue

 

The whole history of coal mining and iron making in the area is quite interesting with one of Irelands earliest railways an 18th Century Plateway linking the mines and Ironworks, the Lough Allen Canal and the Government 1918 built Arigna Valley Railway from Arigna Station

to Derreenavoggy (Arigna Fuels) and Aughabehy. http://www.arignafuels.ie/about/history/

 

Coal traffic on the narrow gauge only seems to have come into its own in the 1930s when the GSR drafted in 4 extra locos and a large number of wagons from the Cork Blackrock & Passage Line.

 

There probably never was enough traffic to support a broad gauge line or there may have been some un-written agreement between the Midland and GNR not to build into the area, Irish companies keeping to their own areas, with the Sligo line skirting the border between Leitrim and Roscommon and the Midland's Killeshandra and GNR Belturbet branches probing the frontier and that 20 odd mile gap between Sligo and Bundoran.

[jhb171achill]

At one stage the GSR gave serious consideration to altering the gauge to 5ft 3. Had this occurred, it would have made an interesting parallel to the Timoleague line; another broad gauge roadside tramway but with heavy coal trains instead of No. 90 trailing two covered vans along about twice a week!

 

There's a near-equivalent: sand trains on the Blessington tramway by night....!

[Mayner]

At one stage the GSR gave serious consideration to altering the gauge to 5ft 3. Had this occurred, it would have made an interesting parallel to the Timoleague line; another broad gauge roadside tramway but with heavy coal trains instead of No. 90 trailing two covered vans along about twice a week!

 

There's a near-equivalent: sand trains on the Blessington tramway by night....!

 

 

There were a hell of a lot of schemes convert/extend the C&L with little physical substance apart from an underbridge at Keady and the Government funded line to the mines.

 

All the same the C&L was probably the most profitable part of the GSR at least up to 1934 paying a 5% return on its capital and probably making a small profit on its operations.

 

All because the Ratepayers signed up to an early form of Public-Private Partnership in the 1880s and agreed to guarantee a 5% return on the capital in pertuity. This along with the National question probably lead to a lot of the hostility that blocked any extension of the line and the friction that boiled up between staff and management during the War of Independence.

 

The Dublin & Blessington and Clogher Valley were in a similar position with the ratepayers having to provide a guaranteed return on capital to a pair of railways that were basially broke. The Free State & Stormont basically had to buy out the shareholders to take the strain off the ratepayers and cover pension costs when the lines were abandoned.

[David Holman]

Some fascinating discussion here - thanks everyone!

Interesting [& a tad frustrating that John mentions Drumkeeran as a line through there [as a pure SLNCR route] was proposed in 1905... Frustrating because did not go that way on my field trip in June. Will have to travel by Google again.

Also, according to my much thumbed Railway Atlas of Ireland [Maxwell Hajducki], this could have used the Creveela Ironworks tramroad of 1852 for a [short] part of the route. My love of maps now tempts me to mock up the Drumkeeran line [can still call the terminus Arigna, of course]. However, would have to have the SLNCR acquire and E class 0-6-0 to work the coal trains - or perhaps the GSR might have offered anyway???

[jhb171achill]

The SLNCR had already obtained second hand engines in the past, notably from the GNR, so acquisition of something from the Midland or GS would have been quite feasible.