Irish Padre

It’s a Gordon Gravett trick which he advises for use on gloss enamel to give road textures etc. It was new to me too! My initial effort at DAS ballasting looked too smooth. Looking at pictures of the SLNC track revealed a subtle texture which was a kind of gritty mud - neither smooth nor gravel. The lava paint I spotted in a craft store gives some grit whilst the pepper adds a subtle mottled effect. These J G Dewing pics from Tom Ferris’s ‘Irish Railways in Colour’ show what I mean better than I can explain it!

Thank you! It’s a combination of Nevard and Gravett methods with a twist of my own. DAS clay over everything including track up to sleeper level. Then paint selectively with ‘lava paint’ from Winsor and Newton (other brands exist). Paint everything with grey/brown emulsion from tester pots. Whilst that’s drying, liberally sprinkle with white pepper. Add static grass to taste (mine was a homage to the SLNC track at Manorhamilton). It’s not quick and entombing track in clay challenges one’s resolve, especially when a bespoke Marcway turnout is involved. But it seems to have worked...

Bit more progress...

Nice work. White metal makes a solid kit but not always easy to work with!

Apologies everyone / just seen your answers! Ended up slicing gaps into the point and wiring it properly, with switched frogs. In process of bedding it in to layout now with DAS clay as ash ballast. Thanks for your advice which, as it turns out, I have essentially followed! D

Cheers JHB - I also liked the rear red plates of the 70s which looked more exotic than UK yellow! Probably my bad photography but the line actually ends, not at a shed but at a gate, the purported boundary of the Rosses Point Harbour Tramway - long abandoned by 1950! The stub of the harbour line, in significant need of maintenance, serves the station as siding space..second pic shows the gate before I painted the walls.

Thanks Damo. It’s on the list to do but for now the van is an English -or Ulster -trader visiting his Irish supplier! For nostalgic reasons it may get an IT plate - which I remember most from visiting my Leitrim family in the 70s...

Slow progress at Rosses Point but beginning to replicate SLNC ash ballast style. Quay line has clearly seen no traffic for some time....

That looks amazing!! Looks just like a classic picture from an ‘Irish Railways in Colour’ .

Track wired after many short-finding sessions. Trains are running!! Can’t upload video but here’s a few stills....test ran chassis of new loco too

Frantic progress at Rosses Point today. Track laid including the harbour branch.

Industry for Rosses Point. 1930s style low relief factory. Scratch build from card and assorted bits

Great - that will give you the quoin shapes etc anyway..,

Thanks Angus - I also post on IRM as Galteemore - we have encountered each other there. It’s actually drawn from an Alphagraphix kit of Florencecourt, albeit with an extra storey! It was my family’s home station and somewhere I’m rather fond of.

Thanks. Mix and match really. GNR and CIE ones are from an Alphagraphix kit, mounted on plastic card to give depth. Plain ones are from Invertrain. Posters and timetables from Sankey Scenics plus the other sources mentioned above.