While attending the Llanfair Garden Railway Show in 2014, I visited the Atropos stand and enquired about their Irish rolling stock kits. I was informed that these were being discontinued, so I decided there and then to buy one example each of what was still available. I came away with the following; 1 x Schull & Skibbereen (S&S) 12ft van, 1 x S&S small livestock van and 1 x Cork and Muskerry dual purpose cattle/goods van.
These kits are all scaled to 16mm to the foot or 1:19, meaning they are a bit overscale for my 1;20 scale railway, but being models of the smaller Irish vehicles, their modest proportions will fit in well with my existing stock. For example the 12 foot van scales out at approx 12 ft 8 in long by 6 ft 6 in wide, about the same size as a TBLR standard goods van.
I decided to start with the simplest kit - the 12 ft van - and began work in March this year, progress has been a bit slow. I will not give a blow by blow account of how I built the kit, it is no longer available so a review seems a bit pointless. It is however a very fine kit, comprising pre-cut wooden parts and a wealth of brass fittings; the instructions and parts list are very detailed and are accompanied by a set of superb scale drawings. If one follows the instructions to the letter, and periodically checks the work against the drawings, one cannot go wrong. So far I have completed the underframe and the van body, the working sliding doors are next.
These kits are all scaled to 16mm to the foot or 1:19, meaning they are a bit overscale for my 1;20 scale railway, but being models of the smaller Irish vehicles, their modest proportions will fit in well with my existing stock. For example the 12 foot van scales out at approx 12 ft 8 in long by 6 ft 6 in wide, about the same size as a TBLR standard goods van.
I decided to start with the simplest kit - the 12 ft van - and began work in March this year, progress has been a bit slow. I will not give a blow by blow account of how I built the kit, it is no longer available so a review seems a bit pointless. It is however a very fine kit, comprising pre-cut wooden parts and a wealth of brass fittings; the instructions and parts list are very detailed and are accompanied by a set of superb scale drawings. If one follows the instructions to the letter, and periodically checks the work against the drawings, one cannot go wrong. So far I have completed the underframe and the van body, the working sliding doors are next.
 The parts laid out |  Underframe |  Van body |
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