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186 worked for NIR in black - with various red bits. It was actually SLNCR livery ! 27 spent much of her UT career looking very dowdy in faded SLNC colours. Around 1965 she got the full UT livery makeover and looked very splendid !

Hi Folks, I'm on the hunt for the 071 Black and Silver 0071 if anyone is looking to move one on. Thanks very much.

A photo I took on my first visit to Whitehead. It’s not a prize-winning composition but it’s interesting to compare the two locos which have many features of size and appearance in common. The boilers in particular. I’ve had some super trips behind 186 since then, but 27 has only moved a few hundred yards in all that time. (neither are UTA green, I’m afraid, so well off topic! I think both worked for UTA in black though)

Which is deeply ironic given that Lough Erne is of immense historic value as the last standard gauge steam locomotive built for an Irish railway. 105 doesn’t count !27’s tragedy was that it was always too big or too small for what the RPSI needed. It will almost certainly never run again and should be in Cultra but it’s in such a state now that even cosmetic restoration would be horribly expensive.

Last time I was in Lapland it cost me €20 a dance........

184 will look great when finished. The paint on it is based on a swatch taken from No. 90, which is in turn based on a swatch taken from a model in the Science Museum in London that has original GSWR paint. Always nice to see some inter-society cooperation! We are almost at the point where every 5'3" Irish steam loco will be in restored condition apart from Lough Erne

It always worked perfectly on the hottest and most humid days of summer in those abominable things..............

More like drying my backside after finding an unexpectedly damp seat.

HI All The Next batch of C Rail OO 40ft Hc containers are almost finished . Maersks new all Blue livery and a run of MSC 40ft hcs in Sand Regards Arran

Great collection.

In 90's current state, it was never in any GSWR livery other than plain grey, as when it was rebuilt the lined black was displaced by austerity grey. But in its earlier iterations, the following. 1. As built: the way it is at Downpatrick. Dark olive greeen with light blue, red and yellow linibng. As Castleisland Railway No. 1, it is unkinown what sort of numberplate it had, but once into GSWR ownership, a standard Inchicore one with black background. 2. By the 1880s, same dark olive green but with black and cream lining. It is possible it carried lining only in cream at some stage. 3. After 1901, black lined in red. Numberplate background changed from black to red. 4. After 1915 or so, plain dark grey, including numberplate, which earliest photos of this appear to show just completely painted over. 5. Mid to late 1950s with numberplates removed and painted pale yellow number. 6. Last year or 18 months or so in traffic: appears to be repainted black with same pale yellow number. As you say, jury's out on the black. Personally, I tend not to count liveries applied to locos after being out of use, e.g. as ornaments (Fermoy and Mallow, both of which were completely makey-up livery, as was the hideous, gaudy Isle of Man-esque bright green they painted it up in for the 1996 Inchicore Open Day; or in preservation if unauthentic. Good to see DCDR going back to basics with it! It might be added that the three RPSI locos of CIE / GSR origin - 461, 184 and 186, never carried anything buit plain grey in their current state, though 461 may have been black for a short time before withdrawal. In RPSI operation, all three have carried incorrect black liveries, but 186 is now displayed in correct grey; whereas 184 and 461 both spent periods in CIE lined passenger green just to see what it looked like. 461 still carries this - personally i thought it looked quite well, though the green is not right, and had it carried green it would have had a pale green painted number, not a red numberplate.... A trusted volunteer friend tells me that they are cosmetically doing up 184 in the "enthusiast rail tour" livery that CIE put on it about 1960 while stuill in service - an unusual one-off.

Yes 90 appears to have had many fictional liveries GSWR (current) GSWR black lined (potentially) GSR Grey CIE black (jury still out on this) Fermoy it had a fictional lined green It seems to have been painted at some stage in mallow as I’m not entirely sure it’s the same green it was then painted black by Westrail it went into a different fictional green again for inchicore 175

A few photos taken outdoors in overcast daylight: And indoors but with a brief glimpse of sunlight (dark lines are shadows from window bars) Compared to the photos in artificial light there’s a massive difference to the appearance of the sky. This was in artificial light: I suppose the real test will come when I have got the layout’s own lighting installed. That’s a long way off!

184 the day I visited whitehead a few months ago, boiler cladding being re-applied.

Is this tank now preserved somewhere? Spent many years at Colbert, very nice with its triple chambers. Seems to be the sole survivor of a mysterious fleet which are avoiding all my research attempts!

Indeed that’s what I thought it was! super!

Some info here:

this technically grounded body, I believe to have been scrapped a few months ago. Anybody know its origin and what it was used for?

Airfix 1/48 Hurricane completed . Oct 7th 1940, Battle of Britain was nearing its climate, Pilot Officer Ken McKenzie (born in Belfast) of 501 Sqn, after expending all his ammo, he used his wingtip to knock the tail plane of a Me.109 causing it to crash into the sea. The RAF pilot made a forced landing near Dover. McKenzie eventually shot down 13 German Aircraft and was shot down in 1941, pretending to be mad was repatriated to England in 3 years later he died on 200 aged 92. Awarded the DFC he was a true hero.

Brilliant Jason- 146 looks stunning there. Excellent all round

I once thought of modelling the Irish Broad gauge to 8.57mm scale on Gauge 1 track to run on my Large Scale(1:20.5) scale garden railway (45mm gauge). Like Sam Carse moellers of the NZ 3'6" gauge tended to chose a proprietary track gauge and vary the scale to acheive the correct scale/gauge ratio. With few kits and an absence of any broad gauge Irish RTR Gauge 1 is essentially a scratchbuilders scale for the G1 modeller. One of the main differences between modelling in larger scales like Gauge 1 and the smaller scales is that large scale modellers tend to bring locos/stock to run at club/group meetings and each others railways https://www.g1mra.com/joining-g1mra/local-groups/. In the end I did not pursue the idea of modelling the Irish Broad gauge in 8.57mm as I already had more than enough 4mm modelling projects than I could manage and instead decided to focus on American 3' gauge using proprietary 1:20.3 scale in the garden. At the time I would probabably scratchbuilt or used etched brass/laser cut ply to produce locos and stocks, these days I'd probably use 3D printing for chassis, bodies and mechanisms similar to some 9mm Scale NZR modellers

OCD? We know of the A, B, C, D, V and Vs classes. But when will IRM do an "O" class?

Works for me!

Those are all rather late in the alphabet. Wouldn’t they have to start with the A class and work up through B, C etc to soothe your OCD?