John
Jonh Byrnes involvement goes back to his friendship with the Wrenn brothers, Cedric & George, They were friends and when Wrenn decided to stop their involvement with Lima they introduced John to the MD of Lima and this is where the HO Irish items were born.
John was the General Manager of Lexie Keady Ltd at this time. Together with Lexie they travelled to the Nuremburg Toyfair in 1974 and obtained the agency. John suggeste dthe repainting of the Cl 33 & Mk 11 coaches into the Supertrain Set and later the 4F & Mk 1 Coaches into the Old Irish Mainline set. When it was discovered that OO was the gauge of choice these items were in 1975 in OO gauge
Lima produced some sets during the 80's and these will be covered in a later thread
Paddy did not arrive on the scene till 1997
Lima first produced their N Gauge items in 1968, so I am presuming that John Byrne also was responsible for the Passenger & Freight Irish sets that were available at the same time as the HO sets.
Next item in the history lesson is the Lima Mk 111 restaurant coach
Item # L305340
A repainted BR Mk 3 coach, not prototypically correct but not too far off.
Only 300 of these boxed coaches were produced
Coach #7403
In April 2009 one of these ladies sold for €611.50 on EbaY!