The Skebawn and Castleknox Light Railway and Tramway

[IrishPeter]

Do not worry - pix are on the way! I had a derailment free orperating session on the new alignment today and I am feeling fairly bullish. I will get some more Pix tomorrow and get HERSELF to empty the camera, I think my husband credit is high enough to get away with it! What I have on the camera should give us two or three more pages of Pix of the S&CLR&T! If you can stand that much...

I am going to have to find a book on building buildings next. Anyone know anything about ant-proofing?

Peter in AZ

[Pretoria]

I am going to have to find a book on building buildings next.  Anyone know anything about ant-proofing?

Build them out of concrete !  

And -- to quote from "The two foot gauge enigma" (the book about the Beira Railway) in which I am currently esconced:

"During this period .... the telegraph line had been completed using iron poles .... to obviate the problems caused by white ants. This did not, however, get over the trouble caused by elephants who found the poles to be excellent back scratchers."

[IrishPeter]

Better late than never...

http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ttac/SCLRTphotos4.html

and

http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ttac/SCLRTphotos5.html

Peter in AZ

[Narrow Minded]

[IrishPeter]

We had some heavy rain last night, so I have some canine assisted subsidence to deal with tomorrow (day off - yay!) but it is not a big job.  Due to lack of cash I am concentrating on extending the earthworks towards the Castleknox end of the line.  Unless I get a windfall I am not going to be able to afford any track until after the first of year.  On the other hand, a couple of boxes of straight track are not that expensive, and the wife can only kill me once - right?  When I have the earthworks extended a bit further I'll post some construction photos.  At the moment the road bridge just north of Aussolas is giving me some difficulty as it is a skew bridge and has to be made removeable; the domestic authority sez so!  Current thinking is in favour of a metal Howe truss on concrete block foundations.  That way I can just undo rail clamps and lift the truss out.

Peter in AZ

[IrishPeter]

The beginning of this week saw me have a major push to get the second of my four wheelers (No.6) more than halfway finished.  This was the second to the Dick, Kerr-esque design.  The first (no.5) came out wanting to do something with an old Bachmann caboose underframe, but I forgot about the strengthening strips on the upper edge of the frame.  In the end the four wheel tram ended up on a scratch-built chassis, and the caboose chassis ended up under a brake van!

Having got that one complete enough to use I started another four wheeler, this time patterned after Castlederg and Victoria Bridge No.4, except, that for S&CLR&T use, the partition is at the halfway mark giving two saloons seating 8 first and 10 third rather than 6 and 14.  So far it has been an interesting build due to the curved ends to the frame and the tumblehome on the lower panels.  The roof is going to be the really interesting bit as it has a some compound curve in the end, so will need carving out of a solid block. It may end up looking nothing like the original!  It will end up as No.2.  The three bogies - Nos 7, 8, and 9 are already runnable largely finished.  Of the three No.7 - the composite sees the most use, as it has most of its interior. I tend to fit out the interiors 'as and when.'

So my thumbs and berves can recover it is back to goods wagons for a while after this. I need more covered as these out-numbered flats at least 2 to 1 on most lines. The exception being the Antrim lines where there were steady flows of minerals and coal.
 
Cheers,
Peter in AZ

[IrishPeter]

Not much doing at the moment.

Thanks to the weather and work, not much activity outside as the railway currently buried under the snow, and when we have been snow free I have only had about an hour at the end of the afternoon to even potentially get outdoors. At least the cold has fixed the squawking kid problem. I just have next door but one's howling dogs to ignore when I am outside.

I did get some aluminium channel to start a bridge over the path that bisects the railway at about halfway along its completed length.

So I am holed up because of the weather on my day-off. Consequently I am looking at the wood stash and thinking - what wagons do I build next - goods, cattle, or convertable?

Peter in AZ

[IrishPeter]

Ended up holed up again today - which makes two days off on the trot when no major railway activity was possible.  Doubly frustrating as my dark brunswick green 1.75" gauge 'Millie' arrived today.  I am currently working on a pair of closed wagons similar to the Oldbury built wagons owned by the Co. Donegal.  My freight stock is ending up a mainly of Oldbury (CVR/CDRJC) and Metropolitan (IMR) types.  No discernable trend with the passenger stock yet, though I currently have a mad urge to either build a rake of Cleminsons, or some carriages based on the IMR saloons, which I am sure will pass.  Trouble with the IMR saloons is that they are long (37'/555mm) and tall (10'3"/154mm), so might overwhelm my small locomotives.  The result of all this deliberation will probably be a CDR 31' five compartment bogie coach, which is closer to my usual size envelope for bogie coaches, or more likely one of the TDLR 27' carriages with the inward opening doors , or another Schull style 4-wheeler.

Peter in AZ

[IrishPeter]

Also posted across at "Locomotives - Steam" but I also decided to put them here so all the Skebawn and Castleknox stuff is together.

S&CLR&T in the Snow
http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ttac/SCLRTphotos6.html

and No.3's first day
http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ttac/SCLRTphotos7.html

Peter in AZ

[IrishPeter]

This afternoon I did a little more work on the track levelling a couple of places where the 1:30 had slipped to 1:24.  This improved the running no end when I had 'Millie' in steam later in the day.

I am now winding myself up to build the road bridge and get the railway completed down to Aussolas, which station I think will be very simple - loop and a long siding to serve the goods shed and cattle bank.  After that it is on to Castleknox.

The Castlederg four-wheeler did not make the cut and has donated its running gear to a new brake van based on an old Manx Northern example.  The only major adaptions of the original being the addition of end doors and the replacement of duckets with end windows.

The most likely desin for the new passenger carriage will be a composite to match the T&DLR style brake-third you see in a lot of my pictures.  The proposed Cushendall carriage proved to be just too long for my tightest clearences, which unfortunately are on the mainline.  It seems that roughly 18" is about my length limit for carriages without there being a lot of juggling and aggro. The two 17" long carriages that I have built so far look about right with a Roundhouse "Millie' and hopefully will not look out of place with the 'Ruby' that is due to get a tram engine body sometime soon.

There should be another page of photos coming at the weekend.

Peter in AZ

[IrishPeter]

The S&CLR&T lives, and finally crossed the middle path this evening.  I am eying up where to put an intermediate station.  That will depend on how long a loop I think I need.

There is also another somewhat Schull and Skibbereen-ish 4-wheeler passenger carriage under construction.  It seems that the S&C is doomed to have 3 bogie and 5 four-wheeler passenger carriages.

No buildings yet - but the top station is currently looking very Schull like.  I have found that that arrangement gives me somewhere to put my feet when shunting.

Peter in AZ

[IrishPeter]

Having tried several different layouts for the top station I have ended back with the Schull derivative I first tried a year ago.  I am still brewing on where exactly the engine shed and the cattle dock will go.  The one thing that is certain is that one will go on the short siding at the north end of the loop and the other on the short siding at the South end.  The long siding at the back of the layout is for carriages and the one at the front for the Goods Shed and loading bank.

I have found the Skull-type layout works well for me as it puts the sidings that are shunted several times a day on the west - i.e. path - side of the layout, whilst the carriage storage, which I only need to access at the beginning and end of each "day" is at the back.  I learned back in my OO days to put the stuff you use where it will be get-at-able.

I have made my mind up about several of the buildings.  The goods shed will be a generic tin shed.  Marine ply body covered with corrugated tin (either beer can-thru-crimper or bean).  That will probably be the first building attempted.  The station building will be based on the original wooden IMR station at Peel for which there are drawing in Vol.1 of the Isle of Man Railway by Boyd.  Engine Shed will be a cross of Peel and Schull.  I might make a temporary station whilst honing my building making skills which I can later move to Shreelane, or Aussolas.  That however, will require me and a tape measure to stop at Santon whilst I am on holiday. That said, the Peel line Class 3 station is a simpler outline.

Hopefully I will get another page of pix up this weekend.  There is a bunch in the camera - just need herself to download them.

Peter in AZ

[Andrew]

Hi Peter,

Looking forward to the photos. Your line seems to have a real life of its own which I really enjoy, probably because it's so grounded in real railway history. Must admit I was alarmed by the S&C's recent European identity crisis, glad to see it's back in Ireland again! Will watch the progress on the wriggly tin buildings with interest, need to construct a few of those myself...

All the best,

Andrew.

[listerboy]

Hi from a fellow Irish modeller!

[Annie]

I really love the look of your line Peter. It's very much a railway that's a part of the landscape and that is a quality not often seen on garden railways. I enjoy seeing your scratchbuilt rolling stock too, having been a scratchbuilder of railway models in various scales myself for some years it's always good to see other peoples' handiwork and see how they've done things.

The question of how to build timber and corrugated iron buildings that can survive both weather and insects is something that's on my mind too even though it will be a while before I move out into the garden with the Kotanga tramway. We don't get snow, but we do get monsoon like rain just before Spring so everything will have to be able to survive getting good and wet.

[IrishPeter]

I do not recall making a conscious decision to make the railway go through the landscape - it just came out that way.  That said, our yard consists of the end of a low ridge and an array of granite boulders.  I basically have to go around or through stuff - it isn't really practical to move it!

Anyway, the general idea came from the Irish R.M. series of books by Somerville and Ross, who lived down in Castletownsend near Skibbereen in Co Cork, and the fact that the area had several light railways.  The West Cork origins of the authors gave me the idea for a line based somewhat on S&S.  Their creation, Skebawn, is a small town with few pretensions which seems to lack a BG railway.  So I came to the conclusion that the nearest station was some miles away, and that the town had had the misfortunate to be always the bridesmaid and never the bride when it came to the local BG railway schemes until one fine day, the 1883 Tramways Act, Clan Knox, several bottles of 'the Mischief'; and the local capacity for skullduggery got together and produced the S&CLR&T.

As the project developed the "&T" part of it grew less important so that, like the Cork and Muskerry, it ended up mainly light railway with the odd burst of tramway.  The tramway sections being where the course of the railway coincides with the garden path.

Anyhoo...

The railway specifics ended up coming from a variety of Irish lines - mainly T&DLR and S&SR, but not exclusively so. The IMR will be thrown in when I start thinking about buildings because I think the original wooden Peel line buildings sort of fit in with the Tramway and Light Railway ambiance.  I am surprised that there is not more Manx influence given my narrow gauge up-draggings.  The goods stock tends to be fairly standard stuff.  My assumption is that after an initial 'bulk buy' from Oldbury the S&C bought three wagons here and three wagons there as the need arose. However the 4-wh passenger stock is S&S inspired -extra carriages for the tramway section when it finally opened, whilst two of the bogie vehicles are T&D inspired, one is freelance, and one is derived from a Clogher Valley 24' all-first.  There may even be some Ballycastle or Manx Northern Cleminsons before long as I have always fancied having a go at a Cleminson underframe.

My thoughts about the buildings tend to be Isle of Man inspired.  I have a suspicion that something Crosby like will appear somewhere along the line, and that Skebawn will get something based on the original Peel station.  The minor halt at Shreelane will be getting something in wood and wiggley tin.  I was originally think of wooden and tin for all the buildings, but the initial round of building on Irish lines tended to be fairly substantial, so loco sheds and goods sheds may well be rough local stone structures.  

The original idea was definitely mainly a Tramway, based largely on the Schull and Skibbereen, but the Skebawn and Castleknox has developed a more 'light railway persona as it has been constructed mainly as the line moved to a safer location in the yard.  The first idea was to build it alongside the garden path, but this was abandoned for two reasons.  One, that side of the garden is vulnerable when it does rain, and secondly, the grades were horrible - up to 1 in 20!  After that I tried a line over the rocks route which was much drier, but had a high summit level meaning a sustained 1 in 24 against northbound trains.  No much better!  Version 3 went back to paralleling the path, but required too much in the way of engineering, So - after a geological survey with a screw driver or an old steel knitting needle (I forget which) I discovered I could lowered the summit level by about foot at the expense of some winding track.  This had the bonus of  shortening the amount of heavy gradient against northbound trains down to about 1 in 36.  I am about halfway through track laying on that version right now.  The winter saw me get to about two-thirds of the passenger stock built, but still only a quarter of the goods stock.

As for buildings I think some, the most elaborate, will have to live inside in the worst of our weather, but I am going to try one or two test structures outside and see how they fare.  I think detail is going to have to be sacrificed to some degree to promote durability.  If I can get small section hardwood, then I will frame build the goods shed, loco shed, and the other structures will be marine plywood shells well lathered in preservative to keep the bugs off then faced to resemble rough stonework.  If I get 5 years outside with any of them I will consider a minor victory over the insects.

Peter in AZ

[IrishPeter]

I got on with a little bit of construction work widening the embankments on either side of Rickety Bridge, so I could ease a nasty bit of gradient. The summit section is one where I keep tipping spoil in the hope that I'll eventually get the gradient consistent enough that trains will have a fairly steady climb into the summit station. I also carved a shelf for the first intermediate station.  The latest version (11.2) of Skebawn station left me with a set of homeless right hand points so they have been used to provide a siding just before the summit of the line on the short straight between Rickety Bridge and the summit.  

This is intended to be the site of a station with a small wooden building, 'platform' and siding.  The building will be based on the drawing of a 'simple wooden building' for the Port Erin line in Boyd' book.  This is a bit shorter than the genuine article as the waiting shelter bit was made a little longer in practice.  It looks as though version one was about 24' by 8', but when built they came out closer to 30' to 8' as they enlarged the open fronted waiting shelter bit of the station.

Peter in AZ

[IrishPeter]

This afternoon's "Iarnrod therepy" saw version 11.3 of Skebawn station was ballasted today, so I guess it is time for a round of photographs, so it will be out tomorrow with the camera. It was too dark this evening by the time I finished ("the nights are fair drawing in" etc..) to get the camera out. The next three objecties are:

1. More track to complete Skebawn station and push the head of steel further south.
2. Purchase the pointwork for Shreelane station
3. Start constructing buildings for Skebawn and Shreelane.

That should get me through the winter. My thoughts turned to that earlier this week as we had a bit of a storm. Nothing significant, but enough to remind me that we have only a few more weeks of reliable weather here.

Peter in AZ

[IrishPeter]

I had intended to have a major blitz on the railway at the weekend by this was aborted due to the weather - intermittent rain and snow showers, and after temps of 70-75F midweek it was "as cold as a witch's boob in an iron bra." As my wife put it.

Anyway, I contented myself with some reballasting on Thursday before the weather really deteriorated. Friday I ordered some Code 250 track from SVRR with the approprate clamps to join it to the elephant rail (Code 332) used in those parts of the yard with more foot traffic, discovering in the process that the bloke who runs it is another Limey. The idea for this winter's relay is to replace the elephant rail through the rocks, and recycle that down on the former lawn through Aussolas station. That should get the head of Aluminium down to just short of the lower terminus. I am giving the former lawn area the evil eye to see if there is enough room down there for a continuous run. I think it is going to fit, but may take more engineering than I want to put in. We'll see.

Lastly, I managed to test run the Cleminson, which was not an unmitigated success and resulted in a quick relay of the station throat. It was steering itself into the yard even when the points were set for the platform road. The Cleminson also gave me cause to undertake a fair amount of cross level checking.

Peter in AZ

[Keith S]

I'd like to see a picture of the Clemison when you've got a chance.