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Thanks Guys - always appreciate the input. So a pair of Supertrains definitely - I would probably get away with one of each of the Greys and B&T's going by Ernie's fantastic photo collection............... Still - it'll be PCP financing at the rate stuff is being released this year...............

Evening Gents quick question on the 121 did the "doubling up" happen much before the IE era been looking thru photos over the weekend and I didn't see any Greys, or B& T's 121's working in Tandem? Just asking as Im trying to keep my 121 purchases as efficient as possible (Im looking at the Grey, B& T and Supertrain eras ) thanks Ed

I don't think this predicted wave of baby GMS being cashed in to pay for A's and 121's is going to happen..............Irish model railway gear is turning into the bitcoin for the model railway world. I'll be putting my order into the Marks in the near future for the 121s - I think they will be snapped up fairly fast being such an iconic loco. I have been looking around for a B&T 141 and 181 plus supertrain versions of both - probably should head to a show as the online prices plus postage etc etc are fairly tasty..........given these sky high prices - do you think Mr Murphy might contemplate another limited run of the 141/181's?

Thanks a million JHB - I really appreciate it! the whole thread is brilliant. I'm looking out the window here just north of my adopted home of Limerick -watching Storm Hannah relentlessly strip away the blossoms and embryonic fruit off the Pear, plum and apple trees in the back garden....................they were doing so well up to now !! . If you are heading out tonight on the roads - be careful - this Hannah one won't be taking prisoners......... that said - with a gin and tonic in hand - Im not stirring for the night - and I'll be reading this thread as long as the electrics hold out! There is something near magical and massively evocative about all those timetables JHB - those early ones are works of art in themselves- I hope you have a designated good home for them when your time with them is done. It would be a terrible shame to see documents like that lost or in the hands of somebody who places no value on them. I guess what really hits me going down the lists of long closed stations on long closed lines is that its only the bones of 60 years since the majority of them closed for good - it might aswell be 360 years ago for all they matter or are remembered today. It's a view into a totally different way of life in a totally different Ireland than today - its an irony that the world of 1961 in Ireland would be have been far more familiar to my great grandfather who died in 1942 than to myself who was born 30 years after - this country has utterly transformed in the last 50 years and our railways and our attitude to them reflects that. The Railways were an intrinsic and vital part of daily life in lifetimes of my parents, grandparents and great grandparents. From tales of my Great grandfather smuggling guns from the Asgard down to the volunteers in Carlow and Kilkenny in the coal tender of the daily mixed goods from Kingsbridge in 1913, getting arrested at Palace East by the British Intelligence as he did a legger on Easter Monday 1916 ,and participating in a bit of auld "vandalism" to the Engine shed and points in Ballywilliam in the early 20's. My grandmother taking the daily train to Goresbridge from Borris for music lessons with the Nuns in the Convent there and my dad and his friends who used to bum lifts on the beet trains to Bagnalstown and Carlow for hurling games in the winter time. My mum was from Waterford - so we were constantly regaled with tales of the much loved Tramore train where she would go out to the resort, go on the amusements, go swimming, buy lots of ice cream and take the train back to the city and still have enough change out of two pence to buy a bag of chips on the way home!!!...............my childhood is filled with memories of tracing the track of the old line all the way down to New Ross in the back of the car,straining to see up to what remained of New Ross Station if we were stopped to let a fertilizer train pass at the bridge - dragging my Grandfather to the station in Waterford to watch the trains go by and standing transfixed in the garden of my aunty's house near Stradbally as the Dolomite trains passed by on their way to ballinacourty......................its all gone now - in the case of the Bagnalstown to Palace east - its like it never existed in the first place apart from the viaduct in Borris and some overgrown undisturbed cuttings here and there......for now For those of us who live outside Dublin, and to a lesser extent Cork and Belfast ........the railways have totally lost their relevance to our lives - its an era that has passed on. There is no big baddie to point the finger at - outside of the assassination of the GNR in the late 50's up north( that was just plain wrong ) the railways decline in rural Ireland is a result of the way the people of rural ireland have chosen to live their lives and carry out their business...better roads , better and more reliable automobiles along with containerisation etc etc played a big part in that - the railways just weren't needed anymore when you could just jump in your car and go anywhere at anytime - likewise when you can ship your goods from one destination to another in one go at any time that suits - why go through the whole rigmaroll of goods sheds and loading and unloading etc etc............Personally - its sad to see a way of life coming to an end like that - but the samething is happening in town and villages right across the country now as the shops close down as the discounters move in and online shopping takes precedence - everybody says its really sad and something must be done - but their spending habits would tell a different story..................the number of family businesses going to the wall for the chance to buy discounted chainsaws along with cheap avocados every 6 months will be a tale for ages in decades hence.......... Anyhoo - after that tangent into social history ( you'd know I was a history grad back in the day!) - back to choo-choos - What was a shame was the rapid selling off of the land and permanent way of all those closed down lines in the 60s and 70's - and the utterly derelict state of much of the infrastructure left behind. I know a lot of folks here take to the drink when the word "greenway" is mentioned around here. ......but lets have a reality check lads - the lines that are shut are never coming back - outside of the greater Dublin suburban area - there will be no new railway lines in Ireland again - the re-opening of Midleton and particularly Ennis to Athenry were Celtic Tiger Freak moments - never to be repeated - looking at the next 20 years - if the existing network minus Limerick junction to Waterford and Limerick to Ballybrophy, is retained - it will be some achievement - the 2 Tipp branch lines will be gone within 10 years - there might be an extension of the dunboyne line and more light railways in the Dublin area - and the Tipp branches will be put out to grass to pay for them -but thats it - the best the rest of the network can hope for is retention of what is there and maybe - with European funds - electricification of Dublin - Dundalk and Dublin - Cork. So how to keep the memories of the closed lines alive - Greenways would appear to be the answer - the Waterford Greenway is superb - its a real pity that the same didn't happen to all the closed lines in the 60's ..........Bagnalstown to Palace east thru the rolling valleys under the Blackstairs would have been a magificent route - likewise the Shillealagh line in Wicklow, the West Cork lines , the Kerry Lines , not to mention Connemeara and Clare ..........and the list goes on and on - the alignment preserved and the history held on to. When I was a kid - you could jump over a gate and go rambling thru the countryside and fields without a care in the world..........nowadays, in a time of insurance claims and rural hysteria over crime - you take your life in your hands doing the same - Greenways are popular because they are becoming part of the few places where us landless citizens can take a walk or cycle in the countryside without fear of being knocked down or accused of trespass...........and the tourists love them. The Trains that ran on them are never coming back - lets preserve their echoes as best we can. Im rambling on now - time for another drinkie, another peruse thru those magnificent timetables and dream again of beet wagons, Cattle wagons and how to replicate Limestone stonework in the 00 world!

Hi JHB any chance you would have Dublin - Waterford ( via Cherryville) and Waterford - Macmine Junction circa 1958-1962 approx..........? at your convenience - thanks a mill Ed

Mayner - thank you very much for taking the time to write such an informative post - much appreciated I would love to have seen Brian McCanns layout - sounds fantastic. Yeh - there will be a lot of scratch building , kit bashing and making do full stop on modelling this part and time of the railway world. Lots of food for thought there thanks again Ed

Thanks JHB. Apart from an IRRS Special which traversed the line just before it shut for good in the early 60's captured by James O'Dea - that is pretty much the only photo or image of a passenger train on that line so has nearly iconic status down South Carlow direction - there is a copy of it in all the pubs!. I'd love to recreate it - I did have a GWR tank with a couple of those little coaches straight off the pages of the Ivor the Engine or out of the Welsh valleys, as a kid, but to put together a prototypical set of some accuracy , as I suspected, will be quite difficult to do..........The GS&WR seems have had an amount of "similar but slightly different"rolling stock.....which makes it a serious challenge to model. thanks again Ed

http://www.igp-web.com/Carlow/Borris_Railway.htm Hi all Hoping to tap into the hive mind around here to help me out to try and identify the rolling stock in the above photo - While Im not bad at locations and stuff - i have to confess complete ignorance when it comes to naming passenger stock and locomotives from before the 1960s............... this train is on the viaduct in Borris on the Bagnalstown to Palace east GS&WR line - given that passenger services ceased on that line in the early 30's - i think we're probably looking at the 1920s or slightly earlier - Im looking to identify the coaches and loco - not the exact number - but the make and model would be great. thanks all Ed PS - just looked it up - the photo is on a card produced in Dublin and posted in 1908!

Best of luck with the move Lads.

Love it!

the slate grey looks fantastic - I did vote for it - but Im still blown away how great it looks. Order for the 2 packs placed....along with the divorce level number of A's I've already ordered......thats the "toy train" fund blown for this year!.................give us a bit more time before putting that much temptation in front us again lads !! all in all - brilliant and for keeping us "60s" heads in mind... Ed

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/aai-files/assets/libraries/kilkenny-county-library/reading-room/physical-landscape/castlecomer-train-station.jpg the above is a picture of a train standing at Castlecomer Station - a line that was purely built to service a coal mine. If there was ever a place you were going to see Coal Wagons on the Irish network..............as you can see its a typical GW&SR/GSR/50/60's CIE scene.....JHB is spot on........ CIE didn't build purpose built Coal wagons - either for their own fuel needs or to transport for commercial interests.....whatever could be purposed for the task was used.............. I think people underestimate how utterly broke this country was for the first 40 years of its existence after independence - we were a bit like an Eastern Atlantic version of Cuba - we embarked on a dose of self sufficiency or as close as for a couple of decades after independence - this manifested itself in a credit drought and the re-use, re-purpose and repair of capital equipment on Irish Railways well beyond expected life spans....and also getting the absolute maximum return out of every piece of equipment.......................another age completely compared to now.

Hi Ernie from the top Im pretty sure the middle photo is Bridgetown and the bottom photo is Campile - the first one has me puzzled. On that line - all the stations , Campile , Ballycullane, Wellington bridge , Bridgetown and to lesser extent Killinick were all set up roughly the same - the passenger platform in the middle of the passing loops with sidings for beet, Cattle and freight loading......Im tempted to shout the top photo as Ballycullane - but its so hard to be sure - and virtually impossible to tell these days after the wholesale unwarranted vandalism by CIE in the rationalisation of the line after the late 70's.......... No idea of the year - 1970-1977 - given the livery and the fashion - I was only a nipper then. Ed

JHB - Thank you for taking the time to put that spreadsheet together - its a brilliant concise resource. I'll be printing it off and adding another couple of columns for pictures of the real thing and who , if anybody, is making kits and models. I'm a long time lurker here after stumbling across it via IRM - I've finally decided to scratch that itch that has never really left since childhood - I was obsessed with trains and railways as a kid - more toy trains and Hornby GWR back then for a decade until football, girls etc etc took over................... But when you find yourself over the decades instantly drawn to any tv programme remotely mentioning the R word, travelling by train as a preference whenever possible (Honeymoon was 3 weeks around Europe by train and she still didn't divorce me!), find visiting Stations a delight, and when you find yourself driving along to somewhere, then something familiar catches your eye and you are tracing the alignment of railway lines , both existing and extinct as you go........................its time to admit your addiction and give in to the Dark side... I'm in the provisional planning stages (still in negotiation for land rights from the Boss!) for a layout of the South Carlow/North Wexford lines circa 1955 - 1975-80.............more specifically the Bagnalstown Yard and the Palace East line that I used to play on as a kid down the back of my Grandparents house in Borris - tho the rails had been lifted a decade before I arrived on the scene. It will be more of an "homage" than a prototypical working as I would like to incorporate as many elements of the line/lines as possible..ie viaducts, deep cuttings, rolling valleys and Mountain background and some fairly unique buildings ..lots to keep me occupied in the winter months for years I'd say!.......and lots of cattle and open wagons by the looks of things ( I'm praying for a moment of the Divine Intervention in IRM Towers too...........but A Class is a great start in our direction!). thanks again for your contributions here JHB -and thanks to all the gang here as the knowledge base shared here is fantastic - one day I might be able to bring something useful to the table Best Regards Ed