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Hear @jhb171achill on his favourite subject! LIVE & ZOOM : 18.00 – 20.45 Fri 21 April 2023 “Rails through Connemara” by Jon Beaumont Please note the 18.00 start time Lifetime enthusiast, preservationist and author, Jon Beaumont, draws from his recent book about the life and times of the shortlived Galway-Clifden line, open from 1895-1935, setting it in the economic and social circumstances of the time. The line was opened to support (abortive) plans for a major fishing industry and a transatlantic shipping terminal at Clifden. Compounded by the burning down of the railway hotel at Recess in the ‘Troubles’, the line struggled to an early demise, even though it had stimulated early development of a local tourist industry. Jon will show many rare photos. Live Meeting This meeting will be held live in our excellent new venue, The Gallery at Alan Baxter 77 Cowcross Street Farringdon (through the gates, across the courtyard and down the steps!). Do come along in person if you can. Zoom meeting The meeting will also be available through Zoom. Further advice and an access link to the meeting are given below. ZOOM ADVICE Joining : The meeting will open at 17.30 and you can join any time after that. Communications : The Chat facility will be available throughout the meeting for comment and (if necessary) communication with the IRRS (London Area). Post-meeting informal discussion : The Zoom meeting will close as soon as the live meeting is concluded and the usual post-meeting informal discussion will be for Live attendees only in a nearby pub! Zoom failure : If there is a Zoom system failure either before or during the meeting, we will e-mail everyone on our London Area e-mail list with an update – so watch your Inbox if the meeting does not start or fails part way through. ZOOM LINK Open the Zoom app on your device and enter : Meeting ID: 822 0522 0061 Passcode: 110028

Patrick, it is some years since I explored the line with the late Des Fitzgerald, but i think that you are right that three remain. My memory is that one at least was invisible until you had gone down a minor road which ran under it! Driving South yesterday, I of course saw the Dromore viaduct beside the A1 near Dromore - another remarkable survivor!

Hadren has answered your query pretty completely. The IRRS has digitised the drawings for the U, UG, T Tank, VS and V to name a few. Most are available as rather fine A5 books which would allow you to build a 12" to foot one! Also available as digital files. For a price, of course, years of work has gone into the project! PM me and I'll give you a link to the custodian, Richard McLachlan. Leslie

Well spotted, David. The line resulted in several remarkable viaducts which still stand today and are fairly easy to photograph. On my return journey yesterday to Dublin and then Holyhead, Richard McLachlan kindly ran me down to Greenore (after a meeting in Dundalk with DN&GR expert John Martin). It's brilliant to see 2/3 overbridges beautifully maintained along the old route. Greenore itself was a revelation - we were too late to visit the famous LNWR Co-Op with its tearoom and model railway, but the sight of the original terraces of houses and the water towers of the station made the trip worthwhile - oh and the lovely scenery along the Cooley Pennisula. What a lovely place to have a railway! As stated earlier, I was too late to complete the journey to Holyhead by the original LNWR steamers!

@Patrick Davey, thanks for the photos of the exhibition and for calling by! Thanks to all who made the long trip so worthwhile, my best sales for the NDMRC exhibition (in well over ten visits)! The six and four plank limited edition sold out! Thanks especially to the team at NDMRC, led by the estimable Exhibition Manager, Ellen, who did a terrific job all around. Having driven through the night from Holyhead with Richard McLachlan, I slept right through the day! Absolutely knackered!

Good to see a few regular contributors from here at Bangor today. Thanks to those of you who made it a very worthwhile day - it might cover our ferry fares! Mind you, there's no price on seeing old friends! Good craic and i hope for more tomorrow! Thanks again to those who came by. Leslie

Folks If I may be so bold, if any of you want me to reserve stock for you to pick up at Bangor, please say so. I've just finished rooting out every kit I have for some of the lines, and while I have decent stocks of some wagons which are sold singly (like brake vans) in the case of some others, my stock is in single figures. I will have stock of almost every kit I have produced. Just let me know, please Pay when you pick them up, of course - sterling or Euros. Looking forward to seeing some of you there.

Of course they will be run, Noel. I run my €500 (steam) locos!

Just to get everyone wound up again on this subject ........... zzzzzzzzzzzzz (Sorry fell asleep, it's hard to keep your concentration with these long-running sagas) It's obvious it ain't anything Northern, or they wouldn't be doin' it in Wexford. Where's Wexford, by the way? ...... Happy Easter, everyone and Thank the Lord for Bertie, (Tony - did I really say that?), Bill and the remarkable Senator Mitchell who managed to get our "politicians" to Give Peace a Chance. Christos Anesti

Mayflower in the Meadows near Goring today! En route to Worcester. After she had gone by, I found the line is accessible on the other (sunny) side! TURN THE SOUND UP! MAQ03931.MP4

Yes, Ken, definitely a "Wow"! Good luck with it - especially as my own efforts to progress to doing a horesbox have taken a big step backwards. Best wishes and prayers, as ever, for success with the treatment.

After JB's relocation, I looked myself up and I'm shown in Surrey, but about thirty miles from my official residence. I note a nearby area is called The Scrubs - and maybe that's where I should be? (Slang warning here - you need to know the colloquial name for one of HIS Majesty's homes for dodgy characters).

Great stuff, Ballinacraig. Thanks for sharing it.

Hi John, sorry I didn't see this. I have no idea, but one certainly should have being the reason that No.4 was still around when we had money to buy her! Galteemore might now? Back to my website for a moment - imagine my amazement when I put in "provincial(space)wagons and got my site at the top of the list - maybe Wordpress is better than I thought!!!!

Okay, guys - April Fool jokes end at MIDDAY! Leyney, I would have thought that a C Class was a really major exercise for The Boys, as only the cab was the same and it was just as useless as the A Class until GM re-engined them - mind you the British electrical bits seem to have been fine and lasted for ages. Like it or lump it, the Yanks knew how to build diesels. Even the Germans run Yankee ones today (mind you they started over here in UK). JB, as the Customer always knows best, you can have a three wheel beet wagon from me any time - I'll snip through the second axle of the next kit I sell you and provide one and a half axles worth. Always keen to oblige! GSR800's idea for a boxed set is very prototypical. Ron Pocklington told me that sometimes it took three A Class to take a Cork express. One would break down half way down The Gullet, the second would fail on the train and the third would work the train ..... So having an 800 around would be useful?

Little details like these carts really make a scene in a rural area, like a little grey Fordson tractor (who remembers them?) Me, now that you ask. When I was fourteen or so. My cousin sold it to a collector, so it may still appear at "events".

Wot, no West Highland Terrier? (Glasgow Eastfield's symbol). I'll save my money to create more unusual wagons ......

Yes, Ernie, you did well getting this collection. It was obviously taken by one of the LCGB party led by Lance King in June 1957, for HIS shots are of the same trains. His shot of "Armagh" is in the BACKGROUND of a shot of SLNCR Railbus 2A - he missed a fine opportunity to catch No.203. Instead the IRRS collection has two shots at the shed with BLACK engines! Thanks for sharing them!

Moxy, you're correct about the 1964 Joint Tour. But I have Lance King's shots of the 1962 IRRS St Pat's Day tour to Youghal when six wheel van No.18 in BnT was pulled along behind No.207 Boyne at no less than 78mph (in the Goold's Cross dip).

Brilliant North Africa diorama, Darius. A lot cheaper than King and Country!

Ah yes, Darius, I have to differentiate between the two of them when I'm searching Realtimetrains to see what's happening and if it's worth the £4.40 car parking to go and see. That said, the platforms are safer to walk on than our local ploughed up pavements

At last I have made a little progress with my Wordpress Site. Nothing to get too excited about - FOUR pages with two pictures of wagons, but at least it now answers to - provincialwagons.com and the contacts bit gives my e-mail address. More pages up next week after I've finished dog-sitting!

For the Canarian Container Man - On man driving thirty plus artics and even has time to beep us! Very windy day - sorry! Containers.mov

ACCURASCALE wagons seen at Goring! The things people will do for publicity? Hauled by 59.309 from Crewe to Arlington works at Eastleigh!

A bit like this? It is a PP and the examples of these LNWR coaches were bought by the GNR.