Galteemore

Yes the days when you could tell a train apart from a bus in Malahide

Well done, those look terrific ! Nice and subtle.

Collectors have their own way of looking at things ...I bet this lady would pay a high price for this set which most of us wouldn’t give house room to. Having sold a lot of my children’s toys on the Bay (with their permission!) I am often amazed at what is considered ‘collectable’. I don’t get it myself, but then some might consider my counting and stamping out individual rivet heads rather odd.....some of us like researching trains, some of us enjoy collecting trains, some of us like running them, and some of us like building them. Some of us will have gone into palpitations because I said ‘train’ and not locomotives/rolling stock/railway infrastructure. And in any one of these scenarios the red mist of excess can descend. Which reminds me, I have planks to count...

Taking shape nicely. That yellow sign is another ‘signature’ that marks it out as a specific location and time. Making me home sick now - haven’t been able to get to Larne for almost 2 year now. Maybe this year...

Not sure - here’s his phone no (UK) 01543 483045 and email atroposltd@aol.com He was scaling back some of his Welsh stuff a few years ago - don’t know what status of his Irish stuff is.

Looking at my copy of the book, David, it appears that the rear part of the vehicle - furthest from the engine - was probably used as the pay office, with staff receiving pay at the rear door. I’d imagine a desk with a lifting counter across the doorway. Probably with racks on either side. A bank in one of the heritage villages such as Cultra or Beamish might give some inspiration as to the style of Victorian cash handling. @jhb171achill may remember banks like this - I know my dad does from his working life. The rear compartment with conventional seating and perhaps a toilet as you say. The safe may have been in either compartment - in such a small vehicle it’s equally vulnerable wherever it goes! Given the amount of interference that went on with the railways 1919-23, I’d be interested to know if it was ever stopped and robbed - it seems a very vulnerable and predictable target with such regular patterns of use. I wonder if they included a Royal Irish Constabulary/Garda Siochana escort - Irish Army more likely than police post 1922 I suppose given their armed status.

Thanks Jim - I think they kept the low building to the right of these two old views ?

Sheer size of the drivers is also an issue - 6’8” !! Even bigger than an 800 class ....although to be quite honest I think stripping off the air pump, adding a smoke box door wheel, flying snail on the tender and lots of weathering, and she would look very passable indeed as a ‘generic’ Irish type 4-4-0.

Nice view of the late Olderfleet hotel too !

Those Robinson WLW locos are beauties. Even the 4-4-2Ts have a real grace.

Wonderful Jim, I can almost hear the steady beat of that EE power unit. Nice to see the containers at stage left. All helps set the scene for modelling.

Excellent stuff. Recreating a real locale is challenging but doubly rewarding. You will find yourself learning much in the research and the building.

Not a million miles off a GSR/GSWR 301 class/D11 - in original form. Those Wainwright locos are things of real beauty and even those of us who prize the Irish 4-4-0 as the epitome of loco elegance must stop and pause! The big problem is the splasher design which doesn’t fit with much Irish practice.

It can be quite deceptive! The Clogher Valley tanks don’t look big but FourDees had to scale them down to fit 009 profiles: their website has an interesting contrast profile of the scaled down versus actual scale.........https://www.fourdees.co.uk/clogher

Some small Irish 3’ stuff will work out ok on 009 track - other larger prototypes will not! The Lough Swilly mega-tanks for instance, really need to be on 12mm track.

Excellent. Colin Boocock’s ‘Irish Railway Album’ contains a shot taken around the same time, inside the works, of the repaint under way.

The ‘black’ one is in Hull and the livery has a real patina of age. Wouldn’t surprise me if it was last painted in the 20s. As for the poster’s original question. A WT body to go on an LMS 2-6-4T chassis is probably the closest to a sweet spot. The Jeep shape is a subtle but distinctive one, and is not a simple conversion from any RTR body, so a printed version is attractive. Almost any Irish layout set from 1970 on can justify one painted up as No 4. And an NI based layout set from 1950 on could have almost as many as you like!

I think No 30’s BCDR livery was applied at York Road in the 60s. The loco had a lucky escape into preservation at all, at one point being hidden in Cookstown Junction shed by the UTA CME when the price of copper went up! She was recovered when the precious metals market was trading at less exalted levels. Funnily enough the York Road painters got no 74 turned out perfectly in NCC colours!! In fairness, some early preservationists were so exuberant at having saved locos from scrap that ‘accurate’ liveries took less priority than they would today.. The Keighley and Worth Valley is now seen as the epitome of 50s LM region authenticity. Fifty years ago it was operated as the ‘Worth Valley’ railway with its own livery to match....-and the less said about the Caledonian Fairburn the better, although GN men might think it a WT improved !!!

I suppose 100% of the 3’ NCC Portstewart Tramway loco stock survives . I do agree though - one of the huge LLSR tanks would be nice - as would one of the classic little NCC 2-4-2Ts.

Agreed, John - I simply put in a T2 for variety! A 2nd or even 3rd WT could have been acquired - a number of Jeeps lasted until at least late 1971 in storage. Funding was the problem - it was enough of a stretch to pick up one. The RPSI were also wary of taking on locos that required a lot of work in those days. Until the early 80s, perhaps, Whitehead had very basic overhaul facilities.

In terms of suitability for current loads and steam diagrams ( the real RPSI money spinners are the Dublin short hauls) etc the Q class 131 is about as spot on as you’d get - bar the turning issue. A Glover tank would be even better, arguably....image from Mike Morant

I’ve had this conversation with my dad, who’s been in the RPSI since 1964. He told me the initial plan was simply to save a GNR rail bus! They have managed instead to put 3 GN 4-4-0s back in steam....we could have been a lot worse off. I do think it unfortunate that CIE didn’t set aside say 6 locos that may have been a representative ‘national collection’ as the UK did. I think the absence of a GSWR 4-4-0 and MGW 2-4-0 is especially unfortunate.

At least you now know who all the other script contributors were ! Seriously, Patrick, having had my own material diluted at times for public consumption, no one here will hold you accountable for RTE turning your silk purse into a sow’s ear....

And Finn McCool built it to bring basalt to Staffa ....the prototype of the Boris Burrow

Trackwork flowing very nicely in these shots, David. Nice to see the signalling being enhanced too. The Shell wagon looks right at home- sustenance for the Belmullet trawlers ? Please tell me that really is an SLNC large tank poking into view and I’m not hallucinating....after 9 months I’m seeing the things everywhere !