Watch this page for latest information on Old Blarney - a OO gauge Irish layout, owned by David White of Perth & District MRC, constructed aided by our members utilising an existing fiddleyard and available for exhibition.   

Description.

Old Blarney is a fictitious location somewhere in Ireland where the grass is 40 shades of green, there is a never ending supply of Guinness and a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

The layout is double track throughout with a medium size station, single road engine shed, coal and cattle sidings. The station track plan is based on an Irish single platform style where passenger trains for both up and down lines use the same platform face to serve the paying customers. This creates unusual crossover movements for passenger trains on the up line. The station also boasts a second platform to serve "the betting classes" who make their way in droves on race days to the grandstand at the race course which is another unusual feature of the layout.

Much of the scenery is built using shaped polystyrene blocks, then covered with plaster then painted a base colour.  It is intended to make use of commercially available buildings and trees such as those from the excellent Harburn Hamlet, Hornby and Bachmann ranges and The Model Tree Shop. Below you can see items set out in their planned locations.

Being based in middle Ireland, locomotives and rolling stock have a cosmopolitan nature with designs and liveries from GNR(I), NIR, GSR, CIE, Irish Rail and Larnrod Eireann on the roster. Rolling stock from the 1940's to the present is available to run with steam and diesel locomotives available to haul a wide variety of passenger and freight trains from the bread and butter cattle traffic to the contemporary timber and bulk cement trains.

 

  

 

 

Courtesy of Mr David Hennessey, here is a YouTube video Old Blarney at Model Rail Scotland 2010.


 Awards:

Winner of President's Shield at Falkirk Exhibition, November 2010 for general modelling.

Winner of best in show voted by the public at Kendal Exhibition January, 2013

Winner of President's Shield at Falkirk Exhibition, November 2014 for general modelling.

The Kerr Trophy for best in show voted by the public at Falkirk Exhibition, November 2014

The John Wood Memorial Trophy, voted best in show by the trade at Cupar Model Rail, July 2015

Moray Model Railway Group Challenge Quaich 2017 for scenic modelling. 

The Kean Kennedy Trophy, Moray Model Railway Exhibition 2017 - public vote for best in show.

Magazine Articles:

Model Rail Magazine Issue MR157, June 2011

Hornby Magazine June 2013