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After GVS closes on May 10th the Enterprise from May 13th until July 6th with have just 2 DDs sets in service in that period.

We had a few country gentlemen in the factory and a steady supply of free-range non-domestic victuals. One chap was a legitimate gamekeeper and was able to supply wildfowl, etc. One day, as I entered the foremen's' office, I heard a conversation that i understood, but would have sounded a bit odd to anybody who wasn't aware of all the underworld stuff that went on. We used a lot of epoxy resin and had a dedicated cold storage arrangement for it. Without looking at each other, one of the foremen, filling in the day's attendance sheet, asked the other "Is Jim Cook in today?" the answer would have seemed enigmatic to anyone who didn't know - "I haven't seen him, but there's a duck in the fridge". - the sheet was duly ticked and they carried on with other stuff.   We had another chap who was very much less official in his activities. Fred would supply anything to order, wild or otherwise. He was the slinger in the fabrication shop and had a 'cabin', a small steel shed in the centre of the shop, to hang his slings, chains, etc. This also served as a bonded store for stuff that he had brought in for people. The foreman of the shop was a rather gruff character, that it was generally best to avoid, I found. One day, at a time when Fred was going to 'find' some brass sheet for me, I heard some soft noises from the shed, so I stuck my head in to ask how he was getting on on that score. He had about thirty rabbits hanging up and was gutting them into a bucket. Having ascertained that my needs would be fulfilled later that day, I left the scene. I was then apprehended by the foreman - "Have you just been in Fred's shed?" - expecting some admonishment, I had no choice but to answer "Yes". He just looked at me and said "I've never been in there" and walked away, shaking his head. We had a chap who was a trendy, cravat-wearing, finger-in-the-ear folk-singing aficionado. He had a fondness for all things 'traditional'. He asked Fred, "Could you get me any real turnips these days?' - the next day, he arrived at his desk to find, on his seat, a huge sack of turnips, and soil, freshly dug from a field a few hours before, before it got light. It took him three days to get them all home. Fred never had a car (or any form of licence!), or even a bike, and lived ten miles away. He would get to work by standing in the road and stopping any passing car. If things got difficult, he would sometimes 'borrow' a Ferguson and drive in on that. I was late more times in any week than he ever was in his whole time there.   Most people in there had a 'side hustle', as the youth of today term it. Mine was selling woodscrews. I had a little display board with the various types, finishes and sizes on and would collect orders, until I had enough to get a good discount from a chap in Exchange & Mart. He would trade from the start of the tax year until he was just under the VAT threshold, then stop, so this kept prices keen and I could supply myself 'for free', with screws purchased using the discount for large orders. He would tip me off as the annual sales hiatus approached, so I could keep my customers happy.

Hi George, In response to your query on Facebook, and I will put 2 and 2 together here to solve the riddle of the query above that it is pertaining to the same query, the Banana Vans are currently stuck in customs on this side and we are doing everything we can to get them out of customs so we can post them out to European customers including here in Ireland. If you have any further queries please feel free to contact us direct and we will get you the quickest and most accurate answers for all things IRM and Accurascale. Cheers! Fran 

Recently I've been reading through the big green book, and have been considering what might have been. The GSR built few locomotives in its time, and aside from 850 and the 800s, these designs were quite conservative and of questionable use. The GSR was of course, quite a cash strapped company, but nonetheless when pushed could produce powerful, modern, even innovative engines, similar to the GSWR and their 500s. The idea for this is what could have been built or done better with the resources available. The GSR built 5 J15A's and 10 J15B's, the former of extremely conservative design and pretty crap, the latter comparing poorly to the rebuilt J15s they were built to replace. The tank engine version of the 710s were the five 670 tanks, which were considered too slow and outdated. Also built were five 342 class 4-4-0s. Pretty good locos with a light axle load, but again a strangely conservative design with their outside axle frames on the bogie. 850 was a good, powerful locomotive that I think could make a good template for a standard GSR tank locomotive. One of the main issues with it is that she apparently rolled side to side at speed. Presumably this is a topweight issue? Perhaps having the tanks with a section lowered after the motion (akin to LMS practice) could go some way to addressing this? The 800s, fast, powerful engines, though with quite limited range. I'm thinking the 670s, 700s, 710s and 342s all get thrown out. Whats needed then is a mid-sized, decently powerful tender loco with a light enough axle load (16/17 tons), along with a tank engine for suburban and general working also. If we sort out 850's rolling issue and drop the lightweight motion, we have a template for both the tank locomotives, along with a 2-6-0 mogul version of them. Replacing on a like for like basis, we could end up with 10 moguls and 10 tank locomotives of a modern, useful design for the GSR that can go almost anywhere on the network. My one concern regarding the use of moguls on services is that the Woolwich were apparently overloaded and thus needed to be thrashed on the heavy expresses. A mix of utilising Milne's proposals of shorter trains, and putting some of the 400s out on the heavier Midland trains, at least before they are split at Mullingar/Athlone could go some way to alleviating this, and thus gives more room for the 800s on the Cork line. Clements and McMahon consider the ideal standard loco for Irish railways to have been something along the lines of an Ivatt class 2, designed to exploit the more generous Irish loading gauge. 850 has a very similar tractive effort, adhesion weight, etc, but with bigger cylinders and driving wheels. Thoughts and criticism appreciated.    

Just wondering anyone here order Banana vans?