Larne Harbour Station

[seagoebox]

Des Coakham had a nice 12 page article in Backtrack May 2004, I attach a couple of pages...

[jhb171achill]

Senior would have been involved in maintaining that track in the mid 1940s. It's a wonder he didn't end up in a padded cell in the Home for the Bewildered.............

[airfixfan]

Correct will get a photo when I am down at Larne Harbour again some day this week.

[LARNE CABIN]

Thanks Jim, @airfixfan, for that first black and white photo of the Olderfleet. I have never seen that one before. Yes, @Galteemore, the side on Fleet Street is basically still there but now very modernised. A lot of money has been spent on it over the past year or so! It is now called The Olderfleet Bar and Garden Venue. It will have a large outdoor garden area and they are obviously anxiously awaiting the Covid restrictions to be eased so that they can get up and running again!

[LARNE CABIN]

Just as a little aside, and a break from Signal Box, Point Rodding, Platform etc., have built up a few LMS Platform Seats from Dart Castings. These folk are waiting on a train for York Road..........they will have a long wait by the look of things, but eventually one will come along!

Edited April 19, 2021 by LARNE CABIN

[Galteemore]

Taking shape nicely. That yellow sign is another ‘signature’ that marks it out as a specific location and time. 

Making me home sick now - haven’t been able to get to Larne for almost 2 year now. Maybe this year...

[Patrick Davey]

This is a fantastic project!

[airfixfan]

15 hours ago, seagoebox said:

Des Coakham had a nice 12 page article in Backtrack May 2004, I attach a couple of pages...

Very good article there from Railway Bylines who are now aiming to have an Irish article in most issues now. Was proofing a new CDR article this morning and the June issue will have an article from myself on the County Donegal.

[LARNE CABIN]

February 1985, the canopy has gone, just the NIR Station Nameboard and the stump of the swan neck lamp left!

I have included this photo for three reasons:

1) The platform surface, sections of smooth concrete, with coping stones a darker grey, a bit shiny in the wet, as per my model of the platform above

2) The house in the right background. Outside the area of my model, but to be included, either in low relief on a backscene, or painted on a backscene to give perspective and distance

3) The Sealink Livery on 72 River Foyle, intermediate 725 and driving trailer 701, you either love it or you hate it! There's a photo by Denis Grimshaw in Jonathan Allen's 35 Years of NIR and the caption reads "Perhaps the most outlandish livery applied to any Irish railway vehicle"!

I love it! It's probably my favorite livery. I have a Worsley Works etch and doner coaches for a 70 Class Set which I have started working on. It's a long term project, but once I get to painting in a few years time, my original intention was the original Oyster Grey and Maroon so that my 70 Class could arrive at my Larne Harbour Station in 1969/1970, but I may be sorely tempted to go for the Sealink Livery and just have it on display!

[airfixfan]

See this photo of the Sealink set at Whiteabbey

[Lambeg man]

[Galteemore]

My childhood flashes before me.....before those accursed 450 class abominations came along and the Larne line became a glorified tramway.

[airfixfan]

Note the rare later type of hopper windows on this set

[LARNE CABIN]

2 hours ago, airfixfan said:

Note the rare later type of hopper windows on this set

Hi Jim, @airfixfan, thanks for that! It's funny how you, (meaning me), can be so blind to the obvious! I made a statement above about being undecided about the livery that I would eventually apply to my 70 Class set. I have so many photos, but it was only when you made the above comment that I realised that the Worsley Works etch I am using is the standard window setup and that the Sealink Set is the hopper window setup. So that is my decision made for me, the 70 Class livery for Larne Harbour will be the original Oyster Grey and Maroon.

The Sealink Livery is still my favourite though!

[jhb171achill]

2 hours ago, airfixfan said:

Note the rare later type of hopper windows on this set

Never noticed that before! Were they fitted only to the Sealink set?

[airfixfan]

From memory yes as it was the last set to get a proper overhaul at York Road

[NIR]

22 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

Never noticed that before! Were they fitted only to the Sealink set?

They also seem to have been fitted as individual window replacements across the 70 Class

Edited April 28, 2021 by NIR

[Robert Shrives]

And To make matters even muddier as windows were broken? older ones reinstated.   I have asked Allen  to look at etching a hopper window version but have been unable to confirm depth of the hopper. Drawings have gone to ground in the archives and these inaccessible  due to covid and a big dose of inertia/ work overload at PRONI !!   

You have to choose the week you want to model  it. 

[NIR]

You could draw some parallel lines on this photo and derive a relative proportion for the hopper opening

Shows a whole coach of hopper windows pre-Sealink livery.

[Paul 34F]

Looking at this last photo, I would estimate the Hopper Vent window is 2/3rds the depth of the Sliding windows.

Hope this helps

Paul

[Galteemore]

26 minutes ago, NIR said:

You could draw some parallel lines on this photo and derive a relative proportion for the hopper opening

Shows a whole coach of hopper windows pre-Sealink livery.

Lovely shot. But if I saw that view at c0755 it meant I’d missed the train to school! Can’t have been long after Downshire was rebuilt from the original cinder platform and corrugated shelter 

[airfixfan]

On 18/4/2021 at 5:55 PM, Galteemore said:

Thanks Jim - I think they kept the low building to the right of these two old views ? 
 

 

Down there today that old building has gone. The Olderfleet is still there with some horrible stone cladding. Tried to add a photo but failed!

 

[airfixfan]

Large building at front has vanished The Olderfleet is now in the low building to the right in your old photo.

Edited May 21, 2021 by airfixfan

[Robert Shrives]

On 5/8/2021 at 12:36 PM, NIR said:

You could draw some parallel lines on this photo and derive a relative proportion for the hopper opening

Shows a whole coach of hopper windows pre-Sealink livery.

Trailer looks to be a trial for air con as well ... missing a complete window ..

[StevieB]

Or forced air ventilation.

Stephen

[airfixfan]

Not a trial for Air Con!

[NIR]

11 hours ago, Robert Shrives said:

Trailer looks to be a trial for air con as well ... missing a complete window ..

I wondered about that, sometimes windows were replaced with no opening at all but nothing would surprise me.

[Galteemore]

Based on my experience of the 80s Larne line that may well be extempore air con installed by inebriated Glaswegian bandsmen.....

[airfixfan]

11 hours ago, Galteemore said:

Based on my experience of the 80s Larne line that may well be extempore air con installed by inebriated Glaswegian bandsmen.....

Most of the inebriated could also come from Belfast and Carrick as well

 Did see a few times when  thanks to the efforts of such characters to enjoy fresh air that windows would be removed from the 70 class by all means possible to celebrate their return home from a loyalist parade instantly after boarding train home

 These pagan festivals appeared to be sponsored by vast amounts of tinned beer in particular and strong language along with feral behaviour in the summer months!

[jhb171achill]

On 22/5/2021 at 8:40 AM, airfixfan said:

Most of the inebriated could also come from Belfast and Carrick as well

 Did see a few times when  thanks to the efforts of such characters to enjoy fresh air that windows would be removed from the 70 class by all means possible to celebrate their return home from a loyalist parade instantly after boarding train home

 These pagan festivals appeared to be sponsored by vast amounts of tinned beer in particular and strong language along with feral behaviour in the summer months!

Very true - I had the misfortune to board a Portadown train in (the old) Gt  Vic St one time, in which there was a swarm of them.

Politics aside, and I won’t go into the details, they were the vilest excuses for human beings I ever saw in any train anywhere. They trashed the train. I got off at Lisburn.

[LARNE CABIN]

Time to get this thread back on track , excuse the pun. I have been working on point rodding at the harbour over the last few weeks.

I started off with a single lever and rod, the only rod which turns left from the box. The crossover between the two platform roads is controlled by lever 24 and one single rod.

At first, I found this hard to understand, as I am no expert in such matters, but a bit of research explained that this was achieved by means of a 'drop lug' which allowed a rod to come off the main rod to the point blade nearest the signal box while the main rod continued to the point blade furthest from the signal box thus operating both points from the one rod and lever.

As this single rod is quite long (over 200 scale feet), a compensator is required. Point rodding expands on warm days and to prevent this from causing a problem to the finely tuned mechanisms the amount of 'push' movement in the rod must equal the amount of 'pull' movement so that the expansion counteracts itself. The compensator is required in the middle of the run to convert half of the rod from 'push' to 'pull', or vice versa.

 

 

 

There are many photos up to late 1969 showing this long run arrangement to control the crossover. I found the one on page 122 of Michael H C Baker's Irish Railways Past and Present, September 1969, very useful and informative, but when the turnout to the goods yard and harbour was lifted the rodding took the shorter more direct route on the signal box side of the tracks, straight to the crossover.

This photo, 12th July 1977, shows the rodding on the more direct route......

and again this 1980 photo.

 

The gang have gone off for lunch, so I was able to get this shot of rodding being assembled for the six rod run towards the bridge. This is being assembled in two groups of three rods each. The six rod run will be a bit of a challenge, but I am into it now!  

There are many photos showing the six rod run, but this 1985 photo gives a fairly clear view of the start of the run. Very useful to me.

Please note that no ballast will be laid until the point rodding is complete and that the colouring at the moment is purely first basic background colouring!

 

[murphaph]

So that's what those compensators do. I never realised they convert a push to a pull motion and vice versa. Cracking work as always. 

[Patrick Davey]

Magnificent!!!!

[David Holman]

Well done for including this often ignored, but essential feature. Fiddly, even in 7mm scale, I was very glad to find the SLNCR often boarded over their rodding runs at stations.

[Jonathan Allen]

On 9/6/2021 at 12:03 PM, LARNE CABIN said:

Time to get this thread back on track , excuse the pun. I have been working on point rodding at the harbour over the last few weeks.

I started off with a single lever and rod, the only rod which turns left from the box. The crossover between the two platform roads is controlled by lever 24 and one single rod.

At first, I found this hard to understand, as I am no expert in such matters, but a bit of research explained that this was achieved by means of a 'drop lug' which allowed a rod to come off the main rod to the point blade nearest the signal box while the main rod continued to the point blade furthest from the signal box thus operating both points from the one rod and lever.

As this single rod is quite long (over 200 scale feet), a compensator is required. Point rodding expands on warm days and to prevent this from causing a problem to the finely tuned mechanisms the amount of 'push' movement in the rod must equal the amount of 'pull' movement so that the expansion counteracts itself. The compensator is required in the middle of the run to convert half of the rod from 'push' to 'pull', or vice versa.

 

 

 

There are many photos up to late 1969 showing this long run arrangement to control the crossover. I found the one on page 122 of Michael H C Baker's Irish Railways Past and Present, September 1969, very useful and informative, but when the turnout to the goods yard and harbour was lifted the rodding took the shorter more direct route on the signal box side of the tracks, straight to the crossover.

This photo, 12th July 1977, shows the rodding on the more direct route......

and again this 1980 photo.

 

The gang have gone off for lunch, so I was able to get this shot of rodding being assembled for the six rod run towards the bridge. This is being assembled in two groups of three rods each. The six rod run will be a bit of a challenge, but I am into it now!  

There are many photos showing the six rod run, but this 1985 photo gives a fairly clear view of the start of the run. Very useful to me.

Please note that no ballast will be laid until the point rodding is complete and that the colouring at the moment is purely first basic background colouring!

 

I really would appreciate if people posting my photographs would acknowledge copyright: