Irish Padre

Very nice Noel. Better shut that gate or one of the ‘bastes’ will jump onto the running line. Loads of atmosphere building here.

Very nice. Lovely camera work too!

Very nice. Check out Laurie Griffin’s range of loco chimneys ...google LGminiatures

Delightful. How Mac Arnold and Des Coakham would have loved this. I think a video of the Golfers’ Express is called for !

That’s lovely. Really captures the W H Mills look. Nothing says GNRI quite like polychromatic brick !

Fantastic - although that noise is giving me flashbacks of my school commute !

I suspect part of the rationale will be that conventional track cleaning methods often leave tiny scratches on the rail head, trapping dirt. The graphite provides electrical bridging over those crevices. I think best practice would be to still clean the rails regularly but use the pencil afterwards - bit like waxing a car when it’s been washed.

I’m not an expert but I stand up. So at least part of my technique is right ! I have a jeweller’s table, which is higher than I’d expected for working height - probably says something about how some professionals prefer working with desk at about elbow level.

Although of course the V2 rocket was also known as an A4 - Aggregat 4 ....https://www.v2rocket.com/

A photo may help...

Or a helicopter . One squadron I worked with in Afghanistan adopted ‘the Lynx effect’ as their own motto...

Yes. One of the famous ‘Treaty Ports’ - tiny enclaves of U.K. garrisons left inside the Irish Free State after 1922, and handed over with classical British timing in 1938, just before they were really needed! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Ports_(Ireland) I doubt that locos were used.

Sorry - missed the NG bit. Now you can see why I struggled at Cranwell !

My time at the RAF College Cranwell didn’t do much for my impressions of Lincolnshire as a county associated with leisure. Anyone mentioned Holyhead Breakwater Railway yet ? https://www.2d53.co.uk/holyhead/Breakwater.htm

That Rhyl video is lovely - that ‘Railway Queen’ sequence captures much of the magic that surrounds those early miniature lines.

The short lived Glenariff Iron Ore 3’ gauge railway, Co Antrim, active in the 1870s. Its two locos afterwards briefly served on the Londonderry and Lough Swilly.

Lovely fine work - good crisp finish.

Larne Harbour aluminium railway ,closed c1960. and Warrenpoint/Rostrevor Tramway

The sea is just to the left here! Carnlough Limestone Railway, Ireland, within sight of the Mull of Kintyre. Steam loco ‘Otter’. The line was eventually cable hauled and lasted till c1970. The scene hasn’t altered much.

RAF Baldonnel just outside Dublin had an NG railway. http://www.lucannewsletter.ie/history/frailway.html RAF Masirah in the Gulf had one until relatively recent times https://raf-masirah.weebly.com/the-railway.html

Giants Causeway 3’ gauge in Ireland

This is enlightening - be warned - it will end any romantic notions of steam operation - well it did for me !

Slow progress ...included taking 4mm out of the boiler which was too long . That was fraught..... But on we go. The end is in sight although as I remember from Duke Of Edinburgh expeds in the Mournes, the top of a mountain can play tricks on your sense of perception....you aren’t as close as you think ! Adding a capuchon from brass ring means an NER chimney is transformed into the GNR one Enniskillen acquired in the early 50s. Sawn off and squeezed in a vice, a 3mm brass d ring for a handbag makes a passable water balancing pipe - and a very convenient brace for the cab steps. The ‘piano front’ in the top photo has been tidied up since ! Body almost done now...... brakes and sanders next....

Given the track record of Trotter products, you’ll probably buy one only to find it’s P4...