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The Stranraer Coleraine and Donaghadee Railway


colmflanagan

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  • 4 months later...

And just a couple of new shots I took the other night in a less well documented part of the railway; the little passing station of "Cultragh" in one corner. (i've done a wee bit of photoshopping on the sky) This is maybe more Scottish in looks ( I also call it "Barrhill" at times - there are no station nameboards on it anyway.) i do plan (some day) to give it a BCDR station building and signal box; in fact the waiting shelter is a model of the one on the Ardglass branch, Ballynoe, near Downpatrick; I don't know if it is still there but it was in quite good nick when I photographed it in the mid 1980s. The little box onteh near platform is kind of based on the one at Ballynoe too, both relics of a previous layout.

 

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The train is a Class 126 DMU bound for Stranraer. I think the codes are correct for this. the model is a mixture of a old MTK kit, powered by a modern Hornby DMU chassis, and two hacked Mainline Mk1 coaches. i don't expect we will see an r-t-r model as these units operated only in Scotland, but these days,never say never....the half cab ends remind me of the xGNR BUT railcars.

 

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Oh, and Ballynoe never had a TPO collection point either...

..

 

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I had to go back to your Aug 2011 post to place this stations location on the layout.  It has really developed since then and looks very good.  At you still planning to do Craigavad Station or has the location moved to the Stranraer area?

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I had to go back to your Aug 2011 post to place this stations location on the layout.  It has really developed since then and looks very good.  At you still planning to do Craigavad Station or has the location moved to the Stranraer area?

No, I am still thinking of the Cultra station building and the Craigavad cabin for it! perhaps I'll fit revolving nameboards with "Cultragh" (as I'm going to spell it just to make the point that it isn;t actually a "correct" model of Cultra!!) on one side and "Barrhill" or perhaps "Glenwhilly" on the other!

 

Colm

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  • 4 weeks later...

Just for fun (and why not?), here's a little known "historical" snippet.

 

One of my friends often chides me when i run "out of area" stock.-."Did that ever run to Stranraer??" - so i always have to find a reason, even if teh real reasons is that I just happen to like it...

 

The famous Gresley 4-6-4 "Hush Hush" was once "borrowed" from the LNER and operated a boat train from Stranraer to London. here is a picture taken on that unique occasion.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...
  • 1 month later...

hi colm, hope all is well, thought you might of had some pictures of cp in the harbour up.

 

Hi Carl, No, she's still anchored offshore, waiting for the berth to be completed.   The moving shelf is on the drawing board but hasn't yet progressed much beyond that stage.

 

 

Colm

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  • 1 month later...

There hasnt been a lot of note on the SCDR for the last year or so  -Bleach green is probably responsible for that, and what with building more UTA stock and so on in connection with that the layout has been run ( we have a sequence timetable based on Stranraer Harbour in 1962 which is good fun), and tehre's always the odd bit of maintenance and so on.

However, I have a few pcitures which may be of interest.

 

the first is a bit of a throw back to my early modelling of the BCDR - the loco is No 30, a 4/4/2 tank converted from a very old K's Adams LSWR Radial tank. I built it about thirty years ago and got it out recently, stuck back on the bits that had fallen off and gave it some oil and TLC.  The train which is about to leave Stranraer(!) is  comprised of very old  ex BNCR/BCDR 6 wheelers in early UTA livery (the end three are exGNRI coaches). All are made from the Bachmann US "Thomas the Tank"range - "Emilys coach" which i brought in fromCcanada. With a bit of tweaking they look the part, I think, even if they are not strictly accurate.

 

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I had a problem with uploading the other picture,which was a bigger file,  and then read the banner at the top of the page, so here is a smaller one. Despite being H0 these little coaches do seem to me to be very reminiscent of the old straight sided coaches which both BCDR and BNCR had, (and maybe the GNR as well.) at one time. I expect only a few made it the UTA. There'll be a piece about them in the next New Irish Lines magazine, due out in November.

 

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Coleraine colour light signals

 

At last i have got round to doing the colour light signals which were situated at the north end of Coleraine Station for many years. They were a three aspect design, with attached little ground signals and "feathers" to indicate route. However, being typically irish,they were unlike any other signals I've ever seen in GB. I am open to correction, but I don't think there were even any quite like them on the rest of the NCC. the first picture shows them in place (with 1960s bus and cars) but not yet operational. There's still work to do on this area, a proper Coleraine cabin for a start.

 

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I made mine by buying some cheap jobbies from a chinese dealer on ebay - I got five for about 12 quid, I think.  I then set about them. A new thicker plastic tube upright was fitted around the existing one, and I built up the lens surrounds from black plasticard cut to shape, with small cuircular "hoods" for the (non working) feather lights.  A piece of plastic tube with small triangular piece of black pasticard made up the calling on/shunt signals (also non working) - which stick out quite low (just above the fence level); I had to be careful with these and check clearances with my Rivarossi Union Pacific 4-8-8-4  "Big Boy" which would have cheerfully whacked them off without even noticing! The upright and ladders were painted grey, and then they were "planted".

 

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Naturally the poles were much too high for where I have them as they need to be visible below the station awnings.- so the ladders needed cutting off and I "sunk" the uprights in suitable holes until they looked right. The camera helped with this as it showed up when the heights of the two didn't match- it was difficult with the naked eye as my head is too big to fit between the tracks under the station awnings.....

 

I decided I wanted to operate them as 3 aspect whch is an interesting conundrum. i tried the little Eckon three way levers but they were fiddly and horrible to wire  to the tiny contacts which are very close together (I think they are just far too small) - they felt flimsy and I reckon they'd have given a lot of grief, so in the end i opted for using two SPDT toggle switches mounted on my panel and this allowed me to have only one aspect on at a time.  If anyone knows a cunning and simple way for a non electronics person like me to operate 3 aspect signals using a single toggle switch of some type I'd love to to hear about it.

 

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Anyway, they work now and traffic can resume.

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Excellent work there Colm.

That really does look like Coleraine level crossing. The colour light signals and footbridge finish the scene perfectly.

 

 I had to be careful with these and check clearances with my Rivarossi Union Pacific 4-8-8-4  "Big Boy" which would have cheerfully whacked them off without even noticing!

 

 

Yes. Norther Ireland Railways did have a problem with this on the Derry freights :no:

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  • 1 month later...

Just a brief update; work has begun on the berth for "Caledonian Princess" at Stranraer; I will post some pictures when there's something to see. The woodwork has been done, so it shouldn't be long now...watch this space.

 

In the meantime here is a shot of the colour light signals at the Belfast end of the station. I was originally going to have semaphores here but wa rather taken with the look fo these monsters at the other end; the nearer one is copied from a photo of the prototype taken shortly after installation in the 1930's - only the main  red/yellow/green aspects work, I am afraid. And anyway, my track plan here is different from the real station.

 

Colm

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