leslie10646

Now that I am back home beside my railway, I have dug out my previous Flying Snail Bagged Cement wagon: I have requested a repeat of this, with a new number 2211. Now, the Broken Wheel version will take a little more research. I have photographic evidence of a Orange / White "Wheel" on this type of wagon, so I'm looking into that (costs more, by the way for the extra colour!). If I do that, I'll drop the "Return to Drogheda", which my evidence suggests had been obliterated by the time they got wheels. I supplied about twenty of this wagon to Mark Cuffe - did any of you buy one from his famous shop? Maybe he's still got them squirreled away!

Just a holding reply, as I'm doing this distantly from home, where I have samples of the earlier wagons! Noel, they ARE RTR, with NEM pockets / Dapol couplings. Dave, I'm 99% sure that the body can be removed from the chassis by undoing a screw. I'm editting this to say that a screw does allow the body to be removed from the chassis. Also, Dave, if they sell out, I'll simply do another run with a different number. And I'll thank you for provoking me to do another run. There are 350 out there already in different guises!

Careful, lads, I'll have to start a spreadsheet to keep a count! Thank you for the support. I'll stick to the hundred, though, as it allows me a rerun with a different number! Much appreciated.

Hhmmm, very laudable, but at £80 day return from Reading ....... Mind you, you do get 400 miles of interesting travels - I was even offered the trip via NEWPORT!

To which Dave (Dangerous that is) replied: Leslie, I would bet my kidneys that at €15 per van RTR, your only problem would be people complaining that they sold out too quickly. You'd have people buying them in tens and twenties, not just ones and twos. Well, Dave, you got me thinking seriously, so if this wagon doesn't sell, my "boys" will be after you! I've started the ball rolling, but the files on my computer aren't as good as they might so you'll have to wait for an example picture of the CIE version, but this was the GN one - The CIE version omitted the "Return top Drogheda" and had an "N" (meaning ex G N R) suffix with the number. Then instead of the GN, a Snail in the top left quadrant. The black (metal) underframe is standard Dapol, who won't do it otherwise. It CAN be made grey, given a bit of patient work. The only other difference from a pure Irish wagon is the width, it will be a little narrower (being modelled on a "narrow gauge" wagon) than the correct Irish size, but what a couple of millimetres between friends? My next question is with a Snail, or a Broken Wheel? JB will remind me that the Wheel came in about 1963, which means that the wagon in either form is great for your IRM "A" Class whether silver, green or BnT. Or do I do a hundred of each? Answers by reply, e-mail, PM, or whatever, but please, not rude! The bad news is that the new wagon will be more like €18 a go. Whadda ya think?

Rottweil is home of Eisenbahn Freunde Zollernbahn (aka EFZ). They have a big depot opposite the main platforms, not that you could see much as there were fifty-plus hopper wagons, dumped out of use in a loop, blocking the view. We were supposed to be travelling to the Bodensee (Lake Constance) behind a 2-10-0, but what appeared from behind the hoppers - was NOT the promised 2-10-0 (an engine I'd a few runs with already), but their former East German Deutsche Reichbahn Class 01.5 Pacific. Much better, as quite a bit of the line offered a chance to run at speed, I wasn't complaining. Just four coaches including a diner and not full, either. At €44 for 200kms, it was quite a bargain. She ran chimney first to Villingen, then tender-first South on the Schwartzwaldbahn main line to Singen and its final destination of Oberlingen. This meant that we had a chimney-first run back up the long climb from Singen to near Immendingen, when we enjoyed twenty minutes of noisy effort climbing some 600 feet in 10 miles or so. Descending in the high fifties (mph), we just touched 60mph. Villingen, where the train reversed to return to Rottweil has a fine array of semaphore signals, to accompany your photos of the locomotive. It had been nice to travel over some new "Steam track" during the day, but I first travelled over the line between Rottweil and Villingen in 1970 behind a little Prussian T18 (DB 78) 4-6-4 tank. Good memories.

Saturday, we moved on to a place called Rottweil in the Black Forest. A nice old (50 years) seen in TEE livery was seem en route. Usual 460-hauled intercity to Zurich. Where we connected into this new German “Kiss” unit on to Singen. which had a very comfortable First Class, with a very odd, asymmetric folding table arrangement. The route took us by the Rhine Falls at Schaffhaussen. We checked into our usual hotel in Rottweil and had a look around this very picturesque Black Forest town - you can where Faller got some ideas for their famous building kits! And that was Saturday, the real reason for being there was what was happening on Sunday - now read on .......

Totally shattered after yesterday, so just trainspotting in Spiez. Most unusual sighting was this OBB electric on test! Spiez is a crew and loco changing point for freight through the new (and old) Lotschberg Tunnels. Traax, Eurosprinter, Vectrons, BLS 465s, etc, etc. Note the 1970s BLS BoBo No.190 hiding behind the Vectron. Sexy new trains like “Gauge-changing” Golden Pass Panoramic Express pushed by a BLS Class 465. These off the iPhone, better stuff on camera which must wait until I get home. Suffice to say that the number of locos it would take to recreate this in model form would bankrupt everyone on this forum. It’s a great train set!

Without reducing John’s excellent synopsis, The simple answer, Dave, is that they are all “valid” numbers for the boiler type. Some ran with the 4’4” boiler to the End, vide No.184, but many received the belpaire Z boiler. It’s all in The Book! The tender combinations were too numerous to mention, but I think that the six which ran the 1964 Grand Tour all had large tenders.

Hi Dave Thanks for giving me a good laugh, for - Those prices are laughable. I sold them for €15 tops when they were in my catalogue. Tempting to do a rerun! The cement van is very close to the Irish original. Maybe another run of it in CIE colours?

Today was a trip to Lugano todo two new tunnels. Guess what? My train didn’t come and I hastily replanned to get there by the Centovalli Line. that’s a remarkable run, although one wonders how it came to be built. A day of quick connections, so few photos. There are still some 1970s electrics around Spiez - And Lugano has a streamlined, air conditioned Funicular - After a late lunch in Lugano overlooking Lago Maggiore, it was 189kph through the new Gotthard Base Tunnel and back to Spiez. A relief to get away from the stifling heat at Lugano.

Well done Jim, sorting out Beaumont’s linguistic failings! JB, while I doubt if too many Barnesmore residents speak Swiss German, French or Italian, they might have a dig at official Swiss language No. 4 Romansch - if you studied Latin at school, you’d have a go. certainly the parish priests could have a go at it. My suggested Strabane - Letterkenny tunnel wouldn’t take the Swiss long, having come through the 57kms of the new Gotthard Base tunnel today (20 minutes, top speed 189kph).

Get the Swiss in, they’d build a Strabane - Letterkenny line as an underground Neubaustrecke and Bob’s uncle! Strabane to Letterkenny in 15 minutes …… Switzerland has railways everywhere, hourly, connecting services - all serving a population just twice that of Ireland (and a lot of tourists). What price catenary over Barnesmore?

Wednesday! Must have STEAM. To Interlaken to join the Lotschberg a 1914-built paddle steamer, renovated in 2000. This has impressive pistons, valve gear etc and a perfume (mainly hot oil) all of its own. E3004A47-3B45-4C97-B174-1CE1F4002ADF.MOV To Brienz, then Zentralbahn to Lucerne. Quick visit to Jesuit church (yes, you read that right!) an understated beautiful Baroque church. Candle lit, back to station to join train over old Gotthard route to Goschenen, up the Schollern Gorge on the little rack railway to Andermatt and finally along the Glacier Express route to Brig. The fast train through the Lotschberg Base Tunnel was cancelled, so had to use the local over the old route via Kandersteg and the original Lotschberg tunnel. We’d missed our bus, so train-spotted more freight in half an hour than runs in Ireland in a week. as PEPYS USED TO SAY - “and so to bed”………

I started to run the video on my iPad and had to stop when I got complaints about the noise interrupting Swiss Air Defences! Sounds great will order one for A30. well done

Oh to live to be a hundred - I need steam over some of the proposed reopenings. INCLUDING Strabane to Derry - I chickened out of a run there in December 1964 - I did the rest of the line with S Class, moguls and tank engines. It should never have closed.

A day off from Interrailing today to go into the Bernese Oberland for my favourite walk. Metre gauge rack and adhesion line to Lauterbrunnen where you change onto this cable car (takes 100 people). Goods and luggage are carried underneath as you can see. The return trip had bales of laundry from the Murren hotels. A little train takes you along to Murren then after coffee you WALK back. Thunder and lightening interrupted our walk but the sun did pop out to allow me to photograph the little train in front of one of God’s Masterpieces - Eiger, Monch and the Jungfrau in a line. I should mention that this view accompanies you along the whole 90 minute walk. I should mention that I’ve typed this lot on the balcony with another electric storm in background.

Monday was Montreux on the “Golden Pass” line.I’m staying near Spiez on Lake Thunder, so first I rode to Zweisimmen on a Bern Lotschberg Simplon electric unit and then I chose their lovely Belle Époque train: Haulage was different! I did a circuit via Lausanne where a new Metro saves your legs down to Lake Geneva. Then after nosh via Neuchatel ( I’d never been along its Lake) after another change, Bern and on to Spiez.

In Switzerland Interrailing. There is some steam if you know where to look! This little loco was running trains between Bauma and Hinwil last Sunday Not the most comfortable seating - But they know how to deal with kids!!

A Masterpiece, Alan. Congratulations.

Ah, a new form of "Whispering Death" which is what PW men called the (lovely) Wessex Electrics (Class 441) on the LSWR - you see the motors were in the middle car (of five) only - so if they were coming towards you (at 100mph) you heard nothing, until you heard the words from St Peter "Name please?" .......

This is British India Line, 35018 departing Brookwood (where I alighted this evening) with the "End of Southern Steam" railtour which she had just brought up from Weymouth. It is EXACTLY 56 years to the day that the last service train hauled by a Bulleid Pacific departed Weymouth. I saw that train departing Bournemouth! I was in a cafe having lunch - it wasn't expected to be steam at all! So my personal last service train with a Bulleid was the previous day. Never mind - if you had told me in 1967 that in 2023 I would be travelling behind one of the Blessed Oliver's locos I would have sent you to see a good doctor, yet, here we are! Enjoy! Incidentally, she is the SIXTIETH Bulleid Pacific I have ridden behind. BEWARE, it's nearly 200Mb, so first time you watch, it'll probably pause a couple of times while it continues the download - after you've got through once, just start it again and it'll go through non-stop! Lovely sounds! BIL at Brookwood.mp4

Sorry, mate, just as in Dublin etc in the 1960s, the beggars were watching British TV without paying a licence! The height of some of the aerials was breathtaking - was RTE THAT bad! Mind you BBC was better then.

Interesting group, thanks, Ernie I see a line of horseboxes on the right of the Junction shot! What a drag that the Dungarvan line was closed before the RPSI could run a train over it (apart from one end!) - it always looks delectable in the shots you put up. I wonder what was under those tarpaulins on the corrugateds in the Kilkenny shot?

Bob, she sure does! Without the unintended gradient (I'll have to buy two identical tables!) she'd be as happy as a Sylph.