leslie10646

Thanks, but I really meant did you receive the book effortlessly and without An Post impounding it and sending you a bill! I will bring a stock of Michael's books over with me to Blackrock, as we have been "left" copies of Rolls 1 and 2 and might as well make up the set! No postage, face price.

Please let us know how you get on with this. I know another major publisher who won't export their truly wonderful books to Europe. Perha[ps Robin Fell at TT has found an easier way!

Wonderful coach, David and especially impressed with the passengers. However (and this is a wind-up) ....... The "timer", clearer holding a stopwatch and standing as timers did in the First Class corridor, would have stood a bit further down the corridor to get a clearer view of the mileposts as they whizzed by. Mind you he might have been avoiding the temptation to chat up the attractive lass standing a bi further along?

Wow, all this 21st Century technology and one of my vans in it! 1954 GNR meets Star Wars?

You missed the best bit - it's labelled Great Southern and Western Railway!

The Train is especially good, worth endless rewatches. Obviously The First Great Train Robbery (aka 1GTR) is a must for Irish enthusiasts, the book is a good read of a clever plot by Michael Crichton Train of Events is wonderful for its LMS scenes, lots of them, as one of the heroes (Jack Warner, aka Dixon of Dock Green) is a Top link driver. Closely Watched Trains (1966), is set in Czechoslavia during WW2, but is more about Sex than Steam! It won the Oscar for foreign film the year it came out. If you're into French steam and like Emile Zola then La Bete Humaine is for you - again the hero cum villain is a Top Link driver - see on YouTube - makes the 1GTR look tame! Put the following into your browser: Driving the État 231-592 in 1938: La Bête Humaine / The Human Beast Highlights Cab Ride Thanks, @Metrovik you've just used up another half hour of my life - so many mind-blowing snips on YouTube (this one's long and mesmerising!). Now, back to important Provincial wagons work.

@Branchline121 hit the nail on the head with No.207. A Woolwich mogul would have been very useful, but I understand they were rough to ride on which wouldn't sit well with modern crews. @GSR 800 makes a good point regarding the Midland 2-4-0s, but if we had one, it wouldn't be on the main line any more as she could not pull enough fast enough - like our two J15s. But she'd be perfect for Maam Cross. Jim - you could build a glass fibre "Flyaway Cab" lookalike and put an electric motor in it (with a smoke unit of course).......... Back to Boyne which is my "Win the Euromillions Jackpot" engine. Lord O'Neill would have bought her but was advised that she would be very restricted on route availability - which was true at the time. BUT with more modern track and heavier diesels the Game changed - No.85 with the same axle-loading has been almost everywhere! The saddest decision in Irish preservation history. Like everything else in the 1960s, we had no money to preserve anything. No.171 was RENTED for a decade or so. No.186 was a gift (Thank-you CIE). So was the Guinness engine - keep drinking the beer to say Thanks. No.4 was the Bargain of Bargains when we bought her - oh that we'd had the money to buy TWO!

The slide which you bought was probably taken by another of the group with Lance, hence the near identical photo - your "man" took his shot a few hundredths of a second after lance! Not eat position of the loc vis a vis the ground signal. They went on to the Cavan and Leitrim next day. By the way @Mol_PMB, thanks for the link to the Inchicore film. I'm recovering from the shock of seeing a well-known IRRS member when but a boy ....... But better still, when the film ended YouTube gave me a link to a super film about "The Elizabethan" - no interest to you, of course, seeing streamlines "kettles". By the way, can we have less offensive references made to the next most important invention after the wheel, please?

Just for the record, the article with john refers to is "CIE: First Diesel Programme" by JJ Leckey which you'll find in Journal No.86 pages 275 - 277. The same Journal has a substantial article by Dan Renehan on CIE's Sulzer locos

Ah, @jhb171achill - I have - see below! Lance King's photo at Portarlington in 1958. Copyright IRRS

Yes, I am - more, more!

Bank holiday at Didcot! Actually parked at Goring and took Class 387 to Didcot - just 99mph max. Where i found another Accurascale Benefit in form of a bunch of Class 66s - including the Class leader 66.001 The GW Society were celebrating the return to steam of 1466 (0-4-2T) which was running on the "Main Line" with an auto trailer, at the preservation site. I rode behind this engine 15 April 1968 on the Wallingford Branch when a local group took over the then BR line for the day! IMG_3088.MOV I was really there for the South Eastern and Chatham Railway Class O1 No.65, which was a "new engine" for haulage - no speed over 16mph! There were THREE engines in steam, the other was another "Auto Tank" No.1450 (now at Severn Valley). I'm pretty sure I've had her before, possibly on the Dart Valley. A good time was had by all, in record Bank Holiday heat! .......

Awaiting shots of her on her last run, for now.

Alan, for a narrow gauge, industrial (both railways I have little time for) layout yours looks top drawer. Well done!

Thanks @Tullygrainey for the great pictures which do, indeed, show some fine modelling. I see that William Redpath has got a QGT for "Portadown"? Every time I see William's great depiction of that roundhouse, I curse my inability to model - third attempt coming up this winter!