leslie10646

Ivan, she was restored with No.207's tender because the Society's hope was to run Belfast to Dublin, or vice versa, NON-STOP. Received wisdom was that you needed the 4,000 gallons of the Class VS tenders.

It wasn't a happy marriage ans the coupling of loco to tender caused a rough ride - at least that was The Word in those days. She was reunited with a more appropriate tender later - certainly non later than 1975 or so.

A long way to go for a sarnie and quiche,  but well done supporting a wonderful institution which is common to both islands.

I was reminded of this when a RNLI crew from somewhere in South West Ireland were on the boat to Holyhead - heading for Poole to pick up their new boat!

I was very sorry to have had an e-mail to inform me of Ken's passing. I only had one opportunity to meet Ken when he picked up one of Bob Sankey's trains - see

As others have related, his skill as an innovative modeller was impressive and we are lucky to have his thread to remind us of his Works.

A privilege to have met him.

Rest in Peace, Ken, you'll be missed.

Ah, Ernie, a Man of Taste. Young sounds as he did forty years ago!

One of my favourite Neil Young tracks tells it all - "A Man needs a Maid". My Filipina Amah in HK thought that it said everything!

You need a maid, then you can get on with the modelling, writing up logs, scanning lsides .......

Very nice, but as I asked before, where are the locos named after Belfast-built ships:

Vide:

50 033 Glorious, 50 041 Bulwark , 50 043 Eagle, 50 050 Fearless?

Call yourselves an Irish company? Tut, tut!

Of course I don't want to buy one, but having a rant is fun!

Patrick,

Yes, we'll miss the pics and videos - you were my best salesman

All the best with the move and I hope that the caring goes as well as can be - good for you both, for doing it!

Brave man, Denis!

Good luck!

14 hours ago, StevieB said:

Do my eyes deceive me or has the UG got a twisted right hand footplate? Otherwise an excellent buy.

Stephen

It looks slightly out - but I hope it's an illusion as I heads-upped a pal who has bought it - surprise, surprise the Class U has gone too!

43 minutes ago, hurricanemk1c said:

S7 1004 Wolfratshausen - Kreuzstrasse 1138

S2 1012 Petershausen - Erding 1142

S3 1024 Mammendorf - Holzkirchen 1146

 

Plenty of long S-Bahn trips in Munich with no toilets, overhead racks, charging points, tables....

Interesting that - Richard McLachlan is always telling me that unich is the Centre of the Universe and that Utopia is well behind it!

As for lack of loos, the Reading to Waterloo line is being run with 455 units which are loo-less - about an hour and a half's journey.  Why? Because they are reducing five coach 458 things back to four coach units - they don't need the capacity now that British "workers" work from whatever beach they're on this week!

Third World country would be an exaggeration!

I agree with the others about the Strabane shot, but it was the Clones one which is a real gem. Thanks, again, for letting us see them.

1 hour ago, LNERW1 said:

I think I recognise this formation-the TikToker Francis Bourgeois (A trainspotter btw, for anyone not aware) chased something akin to this from Willesden to Newport Sims (I think) in a video posted to his YouTube channel last year.

Quite probably, as they were scrapping perfectly good EMUS by the hundred then and we had a weekly visit from a Class 37, or some other rarity pulling them off to become razor blades ......

They could have electrified a few isolated lines for sixpence a mile, if they'd done it the Scotrail way and re-used them - the Newquay branch jumped to mind!

Didcot today to get a run behind a "new" loco.

Ex-Lancashire and Yorkshire No. 752 as rebuilt by John Aspinall (of Inchicore fame), running at Great Western Society at Didcot.  The new "livery is fake as she was never a BR loco!

Then on the other Didcot line, the "Flying Banana"was performing - remember that this was the predecessor of the GNR(I) and CIE AEC railcars. A long sequence, so may take a minute to load!

1 hour ago, Flying Snail said:

I meant 'they're the bomb' not that 'they'll bomb'. 

Don't worry @leslie10646, I hopped on board and ordered a few packs of the flying snails and broken wheels faster than Slim Pickens jumped on that H bomb in Dr. Strangelove

No, I didn't say they would Bomb - obviously my bad English (second language!), they'll do very well.

As for Dr Strangelove, great film, I pray that you guys never see The Bomb ever used again.

At long last! I stopped making the kit two plus years ago and had to chase people away with various cock and bull stories!

The prototype looks splendid, so well done to your Chinese toolmakers.

Regarding the @Flying Snail comment about "Bombs", this one won't bomb as they were very, very common for decades and every layout should have one - dozens in the case of @jhb171achill.

That said, it was, most mysteriously, my kit was a poor seller - just 130 or so - compared with 370 corrugated wagons and over 270 9and counting "Double Beets"!

Good luck with them lads - off now to decide which livery I want!

Interesting that you   chose "Hosanna" - all of the hymns in church today had "Alleluia" in the chorus .......

A special treat (as usual badly filmed) today - a DIFFERENT Class in heavy rain at Goring: The Branch Line Society's tour Return of the Shedi, proceeds to the Martin House Childrens' Hospice (catering by the Mos Eisley Cantina). The Star Wars theme continues with a May the Fourth be With You tour tomorrow. The trainset is the LT 4TC set (previously used on the Southern with the push-pull Class 33.1s (I cleared that class for haulage - did I really admit that?).

D6515 in original BRCW Class 3 colours  - a "Crompton" (referring to the electric motors, the diesel is a 1550hp Sulzer). She was shown as topping and tailing with a Class 66, but that obviously came on the back later. No less than FIVE diesels planned for use at some point during the day. Certainly a novelty for Goring - everything else ( I saw eight loco-hauled trains in an hour or so) was Class 66s.

Now, not to let the Container Anoraks down (are you awake in the Canaries, DJD?) - a Class 66 doing the work of forty lorries!

Thanks, George for the pointers to DECENT film of the train I tried to video on my "Stills" camera! Much better with a video thingy.

Yes, an Accurascale all bells and whistles (and lights) version would be hard to resist.

For younger viewers - the Bulleid Pacifics as built had lighting all round the motion and working parts so that the crew to see the motion at night when oiling round, or just checking that all was well. It was "all mod cons" in 1941.

The story goes that as a Southern crew came into Exeter St Davids at night off the LSWR line to the West (SR used the same tracks as GWR for a couple of miles), they made a point of SWITCHING ON ALL THE LIGHTS to make the GWR men jealous! The GWR guys had to go round with an oil lamp!

Sad news to hear of Neil's death.

We in the London Area of the IRRS published  his definitive history of the SLNCR in 1970 and then produced a second edition (in 1981) - not many Irish railway books have been accorded that honour?

I only met Neil a few times, but he is omnipresent in my life, as a painting, based on one of Neil's photographs, of a VS climbing over the Bessbrook viaduct on a Dublin-bound express  hangs on the wall at the end of my bed!

I thought I recognised these - I used two in Steaming in Three Centuries. The Islandbridge one was considered as a Frontispiece, but is in the colour section, along with the Athy shot.

I've still got a few copies!

And, no, Ernie, I am not going to pay you retrospective royalties!

Not to be outdone, I returned to the lineside tonight in POURING RAIN - you can hear the rain beating on my hood!

Not every day a Bulleid Pacific passes within a mile of the house! Like @Galteemore, this is my "home line" - where I timed engine doing 97mph in 1967.

A very grey scene, but not lacking in atmosphere - she was four minutes early with over 400 tons behind the tender. At least it shows that SMOKE DEFLECTORS REALLY DO WORK!

Ten o'clock this morning saw me risking my life on the single lane bridge over the railway at the summit of the long climb to Mile Post 31 on the London and South Western Railway mainline. Why, well, the Engine of Engines, "Merchant Navy"  Class 35028 was heading a VSOE Pullman to Bath. This is the last 20 seconds to the top - I filmed her for the previous minute as the line is straight here. You may wonder why I didn't show the whole train. I stopped videoing, hoping to get a "going away" shot, but when I turned round, the deep cutting was literally filled with steam from the hard-working loco!!!

Enjoy, it's worth 20 seconds!

52 minutes ago, BosKonay said:

Three in a pack means just €26 each with free post when you buy two or more (one of each type?) and 3% cash back in points. When larger market UK 4 wheel wagons from others are £35 + each we are working the volumes hard to make these as good value as we can. 

Hear, hear! A lot of (interesting) wagon for your Bucks!

3 hours ago, GSR 800 said:

How was loading achieved, lobbed under a grain silo and filled?

Under ones like these at Clara, I assume. The Ranks siding. IRRS St Pat's Day Tour 1963.

                                                                                                                                                     Lance King Collection Copyright Irish Railway Record Society

Emm? Thinking out loud .........

This is a "H" Van with bits. I had thoughts of doing one  as an easy win based on my H Van kit.

BUT, I did the H van first! Have I missed an announcement?

So, we know what's next .....

I wanted them, so:

Order in, 9 minutes after announcement - am I the first?

Good luck with them. Good choice.

13 hours ago, IrishTrainScenes said:

Also... Is 1hr 55m (115 minutes) journey from Belfast to Dublin possible?

Fastest was 1hr 37m (97 minutes) with a steam loco.

A few years ago NIR set up a C3K non stop to Dublin taking 1hr 43m (103 minutes)

.

Definitely! That was the non-stop schedule some years ago (might have been the 1980s when the track wasn't as good as now?). Then they added in all the stops!

I footplated an 071 with the late Willie Graham, when, despite his reputation as a bit of a tearway, he drove with exemplary professionalism, even slowing where he knew there were bad bits of track. We did it easily.

Bring back the 071s?

Indeed! An interloper in 1963!

Lance King Colllection, Copyright IRRS