Ballybréige - My imaginary Preservation Railway

[Bumble_Bee]

Hello all,

 

I have decided to finally start a thread for my own layout. 

 

The track and board is from my childhood but a lot of work has went into painting, priming, corking, pinning,ballasting etc etc to get it to this stage. 

It is of course still very much a work in progress and I am trying to decide which sort of buildings and equipment I should be adding. 

 

It is a fictional preservation line and I imagine the left hand sidings to form a station/shed area that is like a miniature Whitehead, and the sidings to the right will be the remains of an old quarry or frieght siding that has been converted to storage. 

I know its very small but it is all I can work with until I can get a house of my own etc. 

Being a preservation layout means I can have a mix of modern and old. 

 

With that in mind does anyone have suggestions for what kind of buildings or equipment (machinery, cranes etc) I can add? So far the only thing set in stone is the roll on ramp to the left and a hornby small station platform (not currently pictured) but I am open to moving that anywhere it will fit. 

[Bumble_Bee]

An example of my rolling stock so far. Dapol unpainted vans make a great start. 

 

And a 'what if' NIR/GNR castle class that was used as painting practice haha. 

Most of my locos and stock are actually LMS. 

Until I can get some irish steam locos, my layout works with 'borrowed' British locos, and with the power of imagination I can ignore the gauging issue

[jhb171achill]

A steam loco in NIR livery! Now THAT'S imagination! Well done, Tony.....

Had steam lasted a bit longer in the south, we'd have seen black locos with CIE "roundels" on the tender.....

[Westcorkrailway]

6 minutes ago, Bumble_Bee said:

An example of my rolling stock so far. Dapol unpainted vans make a great start. 

 

And a 'what if' NIR/GNR castle class that was used as painting practice haha. 

Most of my locos and stock are actually LMS. 

Until I can get some irish steam locos, my layout works with 'borrowed' British locos, and with the power of imagination I can ignore the gauging issue

What I Would do to expand from that (good to hear that you have an A Class pre ordered) is picking up an irish mogul from bachmann years ago, re painting a jinty to NCC livery, silverfox G class as there fairly popular in preservation (in green or silver i would like to see!)

of course if your into re-spraying you could make a "maebh" or respray some of the new hattons genisis coaches to make cie coaching stock. The skys the limit either this really. one of my west cork freinds turned a LNER j72 into A MGWR J26. While its not completely accurate it doed the job for him with a bit of imagination! 

 

There is a new CIE brakevan being released by JM designs which might also suit preservation stock. 

[jhb171achill]

1 minute ago, Westcorkrailway said:

There is a new CIE brakevan being released by JM designs which might also suit preservation stock. 

This will not just suit a potential "preservation" site; it is a must for any sort of layout on CIE in the 1950s and 60s; a few lasted into the 70s (and therefore brown livery) too.

I await a few of them myself!

[Bumble_Bee]

10 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

A steam loco in NIR livery! Now THAT'S imagination! Well done, Tony.....

Had steam lasted a bit longer in the south, we'd have seen black locos with CIE "roundels" on the tender.....

Well I have just repainted an old gwr county class in 'maebh teal' and I might stick a CIE roundel on it just to see what it looks like haha. 

[jhb171achill]

3 minutes ago, Bumble_Bee said:

Well I have just repainted an old gwr county class in 'maebh teal' and I might stick a CIE roundel on it just to see what it looks like haha. 

Wow! You'll have me reaching for me smelling salts!

[Bumble_Bee]

15 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

Wow! You'll have me reaching for me smelling salts!

Sometimes I enjoy annoying 'rivet counters' on purpose haha

[Bumble_Bee]

Current fleet of 'work in progress' passenger stock. 

As my layout is very small, it looks daft with more than a handful of carriages in a train (if i make a 9 rake 'realistic' length train, the loco is almost coupled to the rear coach haha) 

So these handful of orange thingies will serve me well for the time being. 

When I get closer to finishing I will be getting decals to complete the look 

[Westcorkrailway]

10 minutes ago, Bumble_Bee said:

Current fleet of 'work in progress' passenger stock. 

As my layout is very small, it looks daft with more than a handful of carriages in a train (if i make a 9 rake 'realistic' length train, the loco is almost coupled to the rear coach haha) 

So these handful of orange thingies will serve me well for the time being. 

When I get closer to finishing I will be getting decals to complete the look 

On that size layout, 3 or 4 is the max size of a train i would think. Thats also why I think 3 wheelers would work well on that layout, there just the right size.

 

If your imagination sees them as irish rolling stock, then they are simple as

[Bumble_Bee]

Absolutely @Westcorkrailway! 

I have a lot of LMS stuff as well so have preordered the Hattons LMS genesis 4 pack, they will be an absolutely perfect size for this. I have their Andrew Barclay Katie loco and they will look absolutely perfect together as a little heritage railway. 

Then I can imagine the upcoming A class and these orange 'modern' coaches being my version of main line rail tours

I have a few more old mk1s and mk2s that I might leave in their BR livery or convert to a made up heritage livery if I can design one. (Similar to how RPSI had the blue and cream coaches inspired by GNRi and the current green ones inspired by UTA) 

[jhb171achill]

1 hour ago, Westcorkrailway said:

On that size layout, 3 or 4 is the max size of a train i would think. Thats also why I think 3 wheelers would work well on that layout, there just the right size.

THREE wheelers?

[Bumble_Bee]

20 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

THREE wheelers?

Must be used to the French custom of only naming half the wheels  

Or else they are coaches made for running on 3 rail dublo track. 

Or maybe the Lartigue monorail, those are technically three wheeled right?  

[Westcorkrailway]

40 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

THREE wheelers?

Apologies......im still used to counting axels rather then wheels!

 

20 minutes ago, Bumble_Bee said:

Must be used to the French custom of only naming half the wheels  

Or else they are coaches made for running on 3 rail dublo track. 

Or maybe the Lartigue monorail, those are technically three wheeled right?  

 the larigue engine is an 0-3-0

Edited March 13, 2021 by Westcorkrailway

[jhb171achill]

9 minutes ago, Westcorkrailway said:

Apologies......im still used to counting axels rather then wheels!

 

 the larigue engine is an 0-3-0

 Mainland Europeans use that notation - what we know as as 2.6.4 is to them a 1.3.2!

[Westcorkrailway]

8 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

 Mainland Europeans use that notation - what we know as as 2.6.4 is to them a 1.3.2!

My father would call an 0-6-0 a triple axle train!

[Bumble_Bee]

Currently on the workbench. 

 

Some unpainted dapol wagons repainted into CIE. 

I know the hopper isnt accurate to anything real but it looks cool at least. 

Once the decals settle, they shall be weathered:) 

[Galteemore]

Hopper isn’t a million miles out.....https://www.steamtrainsireland.com/rpsi-collection/41/8309-ballast-wagon

all looking good! 

[Westcorkrailway]

21 minutes ago, Bumble_Bee said:

Currently on the workbench. 

 

Some unpainted dapol wagons repainted into CIE. 

I know the hopper isnt accurate to anything real but it looks cool at least. 

Once the decals settle, they shall be weathered:) 

Realistically you can take any 4 or 5 plank wagon, slap a flying snail on it and hey presto....rolling stock

 

You can paint them (as you have) for extra points!

 

But of course. The bullied open wagons are the best of the best

[Noel]

3 hours ago, Bumble_Bee said:

Currently on the workbench. 

 

Some unpainted dapol wagons repainted into CIE. 

I know the hopper isnt accurate to anything real but it looks cool at least. 

Once the decals settle, they shall be weathered:) 

Excellent

2 hours ago, Westcorkrailway said:

Realistically you can take any 4 or 5 plank wagon, slap a flying snail on it and hey presto....rolling stock

 

You can paint them (as you have) for extra points!

 

But of course. The bullied open wagons are the best of the best

Exactly, great idea. Dapol unpainted wagons are inexpensive and come with NEM pockets. Works with vans too. I've kit bashed three rakes of assorted two axle wagons like these over the past 5 years.

[Bumble_Bee]

13 minutes ago, Noel said:

Excellent

Exactly, great idea. Dapol unpainted wagons are inexpensive and come with NEM pockets. Works with vans too. I've kit bashed three rakes of assorted two axle wagons like these over the past 5 years.

Lovely!! 

 

Dapol are a god send honestly. I love that the van bodies are all interchangeable, i bought a few unpainted vans then some spare bodies for them so i can paint them into different liveries and swap them around and have different rakes for very little money compared to buying fully painted vans

[Bumble_Bee]

Okay so I'm quite proud of this 'happy accident'. 

I made up some blackwash to weather the wagons i painted earlier, then proceeded to weather a lot of different wagons just to use it up, then i had a BRAINSTORM 

As seen in previous pics on the post, this siding area was covered in white filler (to represent gravel/dirt etc of a yard) and i was worried about having to paint it, however i thought i would try the blackwash on it and lo and behold, it has come up a lovely shade of concrete grey! 

I will make up more wash with a bit more paint in it to darken it further but for now I'm pretty happy with how well it looks! 

Also an excuse to weather the 'car ramp' which is just the old hornby one with painted brick and curbstones. Hopefully the blackwash dries as it looks here because it makes quite decent tire tracks! 

In my imagination, this ramp wouldn't be used as car transport but rather a way to easily load up permanent way trains with ballast/rails or loading loco tenders with coal etc. 

As a bonus, can anyone guess what the wagon in the third pic is based on?

[Bumble_Bee]

Cleared the table and added some of my rolling stock just to get a feel for the layout again. 

 

Any suggestions for buildings, platforms, scenery etc to add? (I know the signals are incorrect but these are just for decoration haha) 

[Westcorkrailway]

35 minutes ago, Bumble_Bee said:

Cleared the table and added some of my rolling stock just to get a feel for the layout again. 

 

Any suggestions for buildings, platforms, scenery etc to add? (I know the signals are incorrect but these are just for decoration haha) 

There isn't an awful lot of space to put things like an engine shed. Something that might fit in though are telephone poles like these ones in the picture *albeit there a bit overgrown*. They can be either home made or bought on the WWW but i always think they bring atmosphere to a layout.

Maybe cows in the feild, a water tower for steam locos, signal box, level crossing, home-made fencing along the track....there deffinettly is a few things you can do with it

[Bumble_Bee]

Updated pics of the finished wagons. 

 

I know they aren't accurate to anything in particular but now I have a decent length irish frieght train to run

[Galteemore]

Looks fine to me ! Very nice.

[Bumble_Bee]

Quite proud of how these coal loads turned out! 

They are the Dapol ones that came with the unpainted wagons, sprayed with gunmetal grey to give a graphite sheen then blackwash to give some texture and matte areas. 

 

Super pleased that it captures the shiny yet dusty look of certain coal grades haha

[Bumble_Bee]

Ballybréige has had some visitors from Cybertron since the last time trains were running, but they made room for the preservation railway to run its brand new IRM A class. 

 

Despite the raging intergalactic war going on in the background, visitors to the site were treated to some retro freight running and a brief tour on the railways imported LMS coaches.

 

Interesting to note that the micromaster cars in Transformers scale well with 00 and therefore are quite good to use for my car transporter wagon until I can get some "real" cars

[DJ Dangerous]

Aside from the gorgeous A, I see Optimus kicking back and observing in one of the photos.

Can you replace the wheels on the Micromasters with more authentic looking ones?

That green Chevy (Big Daddy knock-off?) looks very similar to Hurricane from M.A.S.K.

Edited October 25, 2021 by DJ Dangerous

[Bumble_Bee]

16 hours ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Aside from the gorgeous A, I see Optimus kicking back and observing in one of the photos.

Can you replace the wheels on the Micromasters with more authentic looking ones?

That green Chevy (Big Daddy knock-off?) looks very similar to Hurricane from M.A.S.K.

 

Well spotted! Indeed this turquiose micromaster is a repaint of the Big Daddy mould, their name is Windstorm (see the pun?) and they are indeed a purposeful homage to the MASK Hurricane car! The orange car is Stingracer who is a more loose homage to Stinger from MASK. 

 

In terms of wheel replacement, I probably could but I will probably try painting them first to see how it looks. Most of them have quite detailed little wheels but just obscured by the fact they are completely black. A touch of silver will brighten them up for sure.

[DJ Dangerous]

Hurricane and Wolfbeast are the only two survivors, here: