h gricer

I could spend hours trawling through the photos, Michael Costelloe colour slides of the Valencia line finally scanned, I remember Michael Costelloe giving a slide show of these colour slides of the Valencia line many years ago, Ciarán has done a nice job enhancing them, photos of that beautiful scenic line that should never have been closed. Yes I did notice that appearance Flange at Youghal and photo bombing me in the process LOL, the photos with lots of people in them we only appreciate them now, so many have passed on, hg

I vaguely remember that, my good friend the late Davy Boyle gave me spare slides he had of that filming in Enniscorthy, the semaphore signals were converted to German semaphores for the filming, a Maybach E class locomotive was disguised as a German shunter, Davy and some other gricers, maybe the late Tony Price and of course the late Joe StLeger, I'd be surprised if Joe wasn't there, went to Enniscorthy for the filming. Another film which I do remember, back in 1992 outside the Phoenix Park Tunnel, filmed early on a Sunday morning ''Into The West'' with Gabriel Byrne, Frank Kelly and Brendan Gleeson as the heartless Garda inspector, the train scene at the Tunnel with the 2 lads and white horse inside a fertiliser wagon, a made up goods trains, I think the locomotive was 165 or 185, not sure, I'II have to look at the movie again.

Indeed, Jim O'Dea was a traveling salesman and travel the length and breadth of the country in his Morris Minor 850, he travel on the last train from Valentia to Farranfore in January 1960, he gave many slide shows of his travels, photographing the interior of signal cabins and diagrams, his favorite signal cabin I recall was Enfield on the Sligo line, I met him there in 1987, the signalman in Enfield the late Colm Pender??? I think his name was, a real friendly gent and was always welcoming to enthusiasts, he loved O'Dea for his knowledge and sometimes would bring him a surprise photo, it's one thing I do miss on the modern railway, the mechanical signal cabins and of course the friendly signalmen.

Carlow Kilkenny regularly got bag cement, I remember one particular Saturday 29th April 1995, driver Tony Cook arrived into Kilkenny on the 15.00 passenger from Heuston with 076, driver and guard proceeded to the yard and started up 072 in clouds of blue smoke which was attached to 10 bag cement wagons, on route back to North Wall they attached another 10 wagons at Carlow, interesting too, in the whole 20 wagon rake there was only 5 ''curtain siders'' the other 15 wagons were made up of the old type, chains and wheels, a nightmare for depot men, a pub quiz question back in the day, ''how many wheels on a bag cement wagon'' answer 18 wheels, 14 used for opening the doors, them chains pull the arms off ya. Back to Saturday 29th April 1995, a very busy day for Bell Ferry liners, the Aclass locomotives had just been withdrawn, 078 and 082 worked the Bell liners, and everything went into Kilkenny as the Lavistown Loop was under construction at the time, but that another story.

There was 4 of these stored in Dardinell sidings North Wall for many years 113 115 116 118, they were loose coupled and dated back to 1925 according to the plates on them, I remember taking photos of them at the Stonebank there week they were removed in October 1997, that's an interesting photo of 114 at Inchicore, the 4 in North Wall were sold to a farmer I recall.

Just over a month after 201 arrived at Dublin Airport in June 1994, 202 and 203 arrived at the Ocean Pier 21st July 1994, 183 haul 203 up Alexandra Rd to North Wall and Aclass 036 hauled 202 to North Wall, these were the only 2 201class locomotives to arrived at the Ocean Pier, the rest arrived at North Wall Quay Extension. 204 205 210 211 arrived at North Wall Quay Extension 20th September 1994 on board the ship Stellamare, 182 hauled them from the quayside. The Stellamare came to a sad end when it capsized in the Hudson River in 2003. 162+182 hauled 205 211 to Inchicore, 162+182 hauled 204 210 to Inchicore. 6th October 1994 212 213 214 arrived at North Wall Quay Extension on board the ship Plitvice, they were unload and sat on the quayside overnight and hauled to Inchicore the following day. 31st January 1995 the ship Stellanova arrived with 223, 149 hauled it from the quayside, the above are from my photographic notes., March 24th 25th deliveries are documented in the 208 and 209 thread. Regards hg

Yes wing mirrors were installed on 212 as seen here https://www.facebook.com/groups/1749560248594378/permalink/2591484944401900/

While looking for something else earlier Josefstadt I found the slides I took on this trip, it was Saturday 7th July 1984, our train from Cork to Cobh and back to Cork was Aclass 005 5 coaches and small van, our train back home was 076 17.30 Cork Heuston with newly introduce MK3 coaches, I remember when we were out at Haulbowline the guy proudly telling us ''this was the only 4'8'' gauge railway in the whole of Ireland at the time.

Friday 24th March 1995 228 229 230 231 were unloaded on North Wall Quay Extension, 231, 229 were hauled to Inchicore by 157, 228 230 were hauled by 143 to Inchicore. Saturday 25th March 1995 the 4 Enterprise locomotives 206 207 208 209 were unloaded, when 209 was unloaded it a broken window and unfortunately wasn't uncovered much to the disappointment for a small number of enthusiasts that showed up including myself, it was hauled to Inchicore with 206 by 187, 207 was unloaded and lastly 208, a number of officials from NIR waited patiently for the unveiling, what were we going to see, the blue cover, which all the 201s had was slowly removed with ropes, the NIR officials supervising the entire operation, and there it was, a beautiful 201 class locomotive in this deep blue with large letters NIR on both sides, it was hauled from the quayside by 187, 207 was the last hauled from the quayside, 187 hauled 207 and 208 to Inchicore with a brake van on the rear, I was there both days, 208 209 didn't last long in blue, 209 was painted in Enterprise De Dietrich livery in March 1997 and 208 in June/July 1997.

It's one of them anomalies on the railway, Kingscourt just over the County Cavan border and actually in Co Cavan, so the last locomotive to worked there was GM 141class 175 Co Cavan, veteran rail enthusiast Norman Foster actually travel on the train (weedsprayer) so he obviously appreciated the significance of the occasion

I was referring to ''Irish'' GMs 121s 141s 181s as in airfixfan's quote, they would have worked to Kingscourt, the Metrovicks (Crossleys) of course did work to Cavan but they wouldn't have been classed as ''GMs'' at that stage.

They certainly worked to Kingscourt on the gypsum, Kingscourt is in County Cavan.

On Wednesday morning 9th April 2003 215 was involved in a spectacular derailment at Islandbridge outside Heuston Station while shunting the A/B MK2s, by 11.00 the loco was leaning at a 45degree angle, 2 enormous Mc Nally's road cranes were brought in to stabilize the situation and prevent the locomotive from toppling over, when the H&S crowd arrived they requested ''sightseers and press photographers'' to leave the scene, not before photos appearing in the following morning's tabloid newspapers.

Yes there was a whole discussion thread on this, when a photo was produced some posters mentioned ''photoshopping'' which was totally ridiculous, locomotive 086 most certainly did get this treatment way back in the summer of 1990, when it was eventually painted in the full IR livery it still stood out as the IR was so big and out of place, it stood out from the rest, the IR was taken off a push/pull and stuck on to 086. Regards hg

I received my copy, it may sound crazy but I would actually pay €50euro for this book, it's a hard back high quality publication, the photos are probably the best reproduced steam photos I've ever seen in a book and I've purchased a lot of books in my time, the reproduction quality is just outstanding, the restoration of some of the older photos particularly the John Macartney Robbins photos is just incredible, the guy is dead nearly 70 years and in a strange irony his photos are coming back to life, like all books you get what you pay for, I can see this book being flogged on eBay for crazy price, a diesel book is in the pipeline with similar quality I hear, I can't wait. Regards hg