Garden Railway Forum

On my first knock up of this model I just made cab roof in strips from same thickness ply but have now redone it in one piece out of 1/16", "pre-curved" overnight in the vice without wetting, not essential as it does bend fairly well with the orientation I have cut it on the sheet, but makes it less springy when clamping down till glue sets.
Think it looks much better and being thinner material also is more prototypical.
You can also see I have also added coal rack to back and step to first model, (its always the guinea pig to see how things fit)

Managed to get to foyle valley railway yesterday, its obviously still closed but Meeglas is outside and easy to view, so had a look at front pony truck again, and it was difficult to see as I couldnt get head in to look, but held camera in underneath and keep clicking till I got a good picture
The front wheel axle set does move sideways and is sprung like rear, due to the plates each side of the wheels it can only move about 1" each way. Going by the photo the middle of the axle is attached to the square sliding plate above it shown in a previous picture, this does explain the deep axle boxes.

Leonard wanted to take her out for a test run, lot of discussion back in the works as whether the steam dome should be red or black. what do we think? Mr Forbes who was watching down from the signal box also declared that maybe the tops of the water tanks should be black The red looks very pinky is this picture,
some gauges and portholes have been added, looks like also Leonard has let the fire go out

Yep, dome and top of the tanks black, but that is just my opinion

I like the black as well.

Looking through books and pictures I have, both Drumboe and Meenglas had red domes when they were sitting in strabane during the 60s after the railway closed,(see pic below) but all the running photos I have when the railway was operational, show them with a black dome.
Columbkille which was apparently freshly painted and put in storage around the closure, also has red dome, as she can be seen inside the FVR museum. So think the red domes may have been a change in the last couple of years of the railway.
Think for my model the black dome will look better to break up all the red.

Good news on the Drumboe restoration, while up at the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre AGM it was announced that funding has been raised for Drumboes stage 1 cosmetic restoration with work starting in next couple weeks and its hoped to have the engine back in Donegal Town beginning of next year which will be great to see.

Rik

Any more news on whether this engine will become a kit?