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.

20 hours ago, ttc0169 said:

Duly ordered from the transport treasury. 

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!

On 1/9/2025 at 9:10 PM, Galteemore said:

That’s my biggest ever piece of rolling stock more or less done. Thanks to @Paul 34Ffor significant information input, and @Northroader for the correct bogie sides, which I have squeezed out to 36.75.  Very unusual coach, with both compartments and open sections. As with all my models, I’m quite disappointed with it in many ways but nor is it a complete failure, I suppose. Roof looks better in real life and a little more filler some weathering will smooth things out. The roof was horrible to do - a high arch - so ended up making a balsa layer structure and then sanding to shape.
Corridor connections are temporary until I can get the correct ones sorted. Should look ok with the PP….shout out to @Mol_PMB and @Maynerfor construction advice.

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

36 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

The waistline, both on these and the A / C classes, appears to have been completely arbitrary (like the dayglo orange-red on locos in the 1990s) with no relation to any other livery details.

I have seen pics of silver locos with red buffer beams too, but never a green one without at least some red on the buffer beam area.

The one thing I have never seen is a B101 model with numerals of exactly the right style and size…. especially on a loco that is otherwise plain silver, plain green or (mostly) plain black, inaccuracy in numerals or lettering sticks out like a sore thumb, unfortunately.

The initial pic, I should add, is possibly one of Cyril Fry’s. If not, it’s one of my dad’s.

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

26 minutes ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Fabulous photo, @leslie10646 will be delighted!

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!

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!

Clan Line on the fast lines at Goring tonight, after dark.

Not great, rather quiet at speed (I can hear the "music" at the Reading festival more clearly - I have no idea what the little green dots are!

I know the feeling, John, I've been selling off my King and Country vehicles and soldiers because the family won't want them and I'm now convinced that WW2 should not have happened (or WW1, for that matter). At a 50% profit usually and I've had ten year's looking at them. Principally, to make room for more locomotives in my display case - mainly Modern European ones I like and have travelled behind, bought from eBay at "a good price".

Like you, I admire "The Lads" efforts but when all's said and done, I'm in my eightieth year. So no "800" (a crazy choice in my book, but will sell for folk who want another glass cabinet model) or ICR - fine units that they are - and the models will be -  they have no place on a fifties layout.

All that said, there are three Irish locos on order, as I subscribe quite heavily to @Old Blarney's excellent dictum -"It's my layout and I'll run what I like on it!

Very astute philosopher, is our Mr White!

Good luck with the Show!

I had planned to attend as I was to be over for the RPSI steam on Sunday, but I returned from Austria barely able to walk, so I'm still in England.

Three Month Interrail Ticket Part Two:

I'll do Part One some other time (nearly three weeks in Switzerland).

Not having been to the Austro-Hungarian Empire for two years, it was off to Jenbach in the Tirol for ten days in August - I had to pay for Eurostar, but otherwise the travel was free and there was plenty of it.

We arrived on Wednesday 6 August and next morning got going slowly, so that it was 11 o'clock when we got to the station to find that OBB are going to use "VECTRONS" on the through trains from Munich to Italy via Innsbruck.

Then to posh Kitzbuhel using a Railjet to Worgl (11m48s, max a steady 100mph) then a CityJet electric unit. The plan was to catch the Westbound Eurocity which is one of the few loco-hauled trains over this "Giselabahn" line which was celebrating 150 years. Great line with much curves, two hairpins etc etc - NOT for speed! So here is the EC entering Kitzbuhel town station (the cafe here does brilliant Gulaschsuppe with a roll for €6 - no need to eat for the rest of the day!).

I video-ed most loco-hauled trains entering (no defensive driving here - they came in hard and stood on the brakes!) as it was the sure way to get the (pretty small) number - the First Class was often at the other end of a seven coach train and the train might be off again before I got the number on getting off!

More later.

3 hours ago, Northroader said:

Put “NCC” on the tender, and folks will be none the wiser.

Nice one, Bob!!!!!!

its would certainly storm up the Bleach Green bank with the 8.5pm Goods!

2 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

I think a real elephant would be more appropriate there!

There's no way I am going to model the Bertram Mills Circus train!

Even though I have a Class UG to pull it - I believe that's what they used for motive power in the 1960s tour they did in Ireland?

4 hours ago, Galteemore said:

Looks fabulous Leslie. But would it fit on the Dundalk traverser?

I was going to say that it would be maintained, as a friendly gesture, at Inchicore.....

But she'd wreck herself going through the Phoenix Park tunnel?

2 hours ago, airfixfan said:

New koco for the Fintona branch!

Good idea, Jim, but she's only for TRUNK routes!

Now -  tongue firmly in cheek - new motive power for Portadown Junction!

I had a ride behind this locomotive - a Swiss Class C5/6 locomotive built for the Gotthard railway in 1917 or so.

Nicknamed -  "The Elephant"

I bought the model as I'd had a short trip behind it on the main line from Brugg to Frick last June. At CHF 80 for a fifty kilometre round trip it literally did COST ME A POUND A MINUTE!

I'm hoping that by buying the model (for the Glass Case)) I'll be satisfied and NOT succumb to paying CHF for a 40 kilometre trip on the Gotthard in three week's time!

Real Time Trains suggested a couple of interesting workings yesterday, O I grabbed my walking poles and got to the Cursor Bridge in good time -- but no trains - they were still in the Eastleigh area! So a slow walk from Lock 25 down to Lock 19, checking RTT every couple locks  - the first train was sitting in a loop near Eastleigh, the Light Engine was still in the sidings. At Lock 19, I discovered that the first train was on the move, so I came back a lot quicker! Still no train - it had been looped again. I think that there was single line working in the Winchester area. Anyway, it was overtaken by the Light Engine and this is what turned up! Patience, it's what's on the back that's of note - and making some noise!

The Ultrasonic train heading back to Derby, possibly for the Rail 200 event there? I whipped round and got a distant, but nice sound, shot of it going under the flyover carrying the Up Alton line.

Does Accurascale model 37.116 in Colas colours? Feel free to use the video ;loads, to sell your lovely 37s!

12 hours ago, Rob R said:

Could I please post a request for the "A" class 060?

Investigating a possible SLNCR project..........

 

Thank You

There is a model of such a loco on this site, I believe, so the builder must have some info.

Hint hint @Galteemore

31 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

While we're on annual reports, the 1962 report includes a fairly well-known photo showing the first train in the new black and tan livery:

On close inspection, 3 of the 'carriages' behind A6 are actually powered intermediate railcars, newly converted from the Wedgeheads. The other bogie coach is state saloon 351. 

It seems they scraped together anything in the new livery to pose for the photographer - it's certainly an unusual train formation!

The first few powered intermediate conversions were definitely outshopped in green (illustrations linked upthread) but it looks like the last few came out in black and tan.

Good find, @Mol_PMB! It goes to show that you can get away with almost any combination of your layout - it will have happened somewhere, sometime!