Ballyconnell Road

3mm/1ft scale, 15.75m gauge

Stephen Moor, Mick Rawlings & Andrew Shillito - Members: 3mm Society

Around 1866 the Irish North Western Railway Company nearly extended the already completed Bundoran line into the important town and port which is Sligo. minerals known as bayrites had been found locally and the route neatly filled a gap in the railway map of Ireland.

It formed a far flung outpost of the Great Northern Railway of Ireland since that company's formation in 1876 by merger of the INWR with other local railways. Now it is 1955 and a few tourists and remnants of the mining industry are barely justifying the continued operation of this otherwise local route.

All this in 3mm/1ft (1:101.6) scale on 15.75mm gauge to portray the Irish broad gauge of 5 ft 3in. Even though the track gauge may look similar it is not OO! The layout is 7ft 3in. in diamter with storage roads to the rear.

Built to finescale standards by the team with assistance of kits and bits from the 3mm Society, Worsley Works, Finney & Smith and Bill Bedford along with a good bit of old fashioned scratch building. Help has also been forthcoming from the wagon paint shops of John Sutton.

The track plan was prepared using Templot and the track was mostly built by Steve with ply sleepers and plastic chairs with PCB and soldered construction in the Fiddle yard, the layout was ballasted by Mick, and the electrics were completed by Steve.

Andrew did baseboards, buildings, scenery and coaches.

We have all built rolling stock although Mick has built most of the locos and wagons.