So why build Irish?

I Have been interested in Irish Railways from the late 1960's, something to do with being half Irish and a lot of visiting relations I suspect. Irish railways are odd, they are almost the same as English railways, but not quite. They were indeed British until Irish independence and this shows with similar construction and operating methods. Not really surprising as they had to answer to the same Board of Trade as their British counterparts. Notable engineers include Brunel and Stephenson. CMME's include Maunsell, Robinson and Bullied. However, despite a similar heritage, being Irish, they do have their own individuality. The track gauge is 5'3" and most lines are only single track. But as with any railway, it is the people who work on it that make it what it is. The easy going friendly nature of the Irish make travel on Irish railways a joy. So, as such, I had always had a hankering to build an Irish model railway.

Who and Why ?

My particular interest is Coras Iompair Éireann (CIÉ), or roughly translated, The Irish Transport Company. I don't remember steam operation in Ireland, not surprising really as the last one ran in 1963! So diesels it was. I bought a few of the early Q kits resin bodies in the early 1970's and built these up. At the time, I used propriety 'OO' gauge chassis in order to get them running. However, nothing much happened on this front until a new company, Model Irish Railways, started to produce decent white metal kits of proper Irish prototypes. Bear in mind that at the time the only RTR available was a repainted Hornby Hymek and some Mk.I's along with Lima's HO scale repainted BR Class 33 and again, some HO scale Mk.IIa's. So, with a new range of models to choose from, and a growing confidence at modifying and scratch building my own models, I decided to give it a go.

The Layout

The layout was basically part of an old test track I had, now where have you heard that one! Anyway, I decided to enhance and add to this test track to form a fiddle yard - station- fiddle yard type layout. The station was to be based on a fictitious line somewhere in north Dublin. This way I could run virtually any locomotive as well as visitors from Northern Ireland in the form of Northern Ireland Railways (NIR). The general arrangement is that the station is in a cutting, with the lines arriving and departing in and out of tunnels from the fiddle yards. The front of the layout would be open with the rear having a retaining wall. As I had absolutely no experience in track building, let alone chassis building, I took the easy way out and used 'OO' gauge Peco Streamline. At the time, only Code 100 was available, so that's what it is. However, I did try to make one concession to better trackwork by using the Electro-frog points. Being a little green at model railway building, I adopted the time honoured method of baseboard construction as promulgated by the popular model railway press. That is to say, it is a Sundeala surface mounted on a 2in x 1in frame with a grid spacing of 1ft. The track was duly pinned to the baseboard, Peco point motors fitted and wired up. Now, the wiring is a little different. Each section has both rails switched, there is no common return. The reason is simply to enable me to run two locomotives on apparently the same line at different speeds and/or directions. Uncoupling electromagnets were positioned at the appropriate places. Signals are all Eckon colour lights.

Control

Connections between the boards were made using 25 way D connectors. These all appeared on the main station board and three D connections take the wiring to a separate control board. The control board is laid out as a route diagram. Each section is indicated by a different colour and switching is made by using DPDT toggle switches with a centre off. So move the switch to up and control is given to hand controller number one, move it down and controller number 2 is active. Point activation is by the electric pencil method, with the studs placed on the diagram. These are also placed on the diagram in the appropriate places. As mentioned, point motors are Peco with the accessory switch attached to alter the crossing V polarity. Signals however, are operated by SPDT toggle switches mounted on the rear of the main station board.Electromagnetic uncoupling switches are again simple Tandy push to make SPST switches with the coils coming from DG Couplings.

Stock

The locomotive stock is mainly made up of MIR white metal kits running on their own motor bogies. These are basically a white metal casting to which an Anchoridge DS10 is fixed driving Kean Maygib wheels via Romford gears. The arrangement works well but is now undergoing alteration for Templeross. Coupling was achieved with DG Couplings. These neat little fold up brass etchings are quite un-noticeable compared to the Hornby tension locks and don't disfigure the buffers like the Spratt & Winkle design. They also enable delayed action remote uncoupling. This cuts down greatly on the number of electromagnets required and allows the uncoupled vehicle to be placed anywhere you want. Click the link for further details of locomotives. Carriages are really repaints of Mk.II's and Mk.III's, which CIÉ bought in great number. They run in fixed sets, so they are permanently coupled between carriages with just the DG Couplings at the end. Click the link for more details on carriages. Freight wagons are a variety of MIR kits and suitable repaints, again, just click the link for details on freight stock. There are just two DMU's, or railcars as they are referred to in Ireland. The CIÉ one is an MTK kit of the AEC/Park Royal railcars built in 1950. The NIR one is an 80 Class DEMU built from an MIR kit.

Operation

Operation of the layout is quite straightforward. Two operators look after each fiddle yard and drive their trains into the station. When the train has stopped, it is picked up by the other operator who will take it into the fiddle yard, run round and dispatch it back. Shunting can be done by either operator as and when necessary. Some trains, of course, terminate in the bay platform. A railcar would simply drive in and back out. A short locomotive hauled train would uncouple and run to the buffers whilst another, having come from the spur next to the signal cabin, would couple up. Most freight trains pass straight through, but some will drop off odd wagon, involving some shunting in the two sidings.

Conclusion

This has been the first layout I have managed to complete and exhibit. It also appeared in Railway Modeller as Railway of the Month in December 1996. It has been great fun, but there have been problems. The first is the baseboards. The Sundeala is fine for a while, then it starts to sag between the supports. When this happens, the couplings will either not couple up, or become uncoupled in motion because of the height differences. I would recommend plywood in future. One thing I didn't consider until asked to do an exhibition, was the transportability of the layout. Basically, it isn't. Baseboards should be of an easily transportable size, say 4ft long, with adequate protection given to the scenery on those wet and windy days. The next problem is the track gauge. 5'3" equates to 21mm in 4mm scale, so using 16.5mm track puts you out by nearly 15 inches! My new layout will feature handbuilt 21mm gauge track to P4 standards. As a result, the rolling stock that I will re-use will also have to be regauged. The baseboards will be a new, non-sagging none warping, easily transportable design. Hopefully!

So, that's it. I've built one and it worked. Now I want to build a better one, and that is Templeross.