leslie10646

As promised, the estimable Andy with his latest creation. A W&LlR train hauled by "The Countess" enters Llanfair Caereinion with two of the fine saloons as they were in Cambrian Railway days (built by a friend of Andy's). Then, below, the terminus in full with a GWR liveried train about to depart behind No.822 (The Earl) with two of the saloons in GWR colours. Both locos were 0-6-0Ts. The station area is modelled to scale length - not too many layouts can say that! The road (the A458, believe it or not!) behind the hedge is well-known to the McAllisters who travelled it many times en route to holidays in Porthmadog. The boys and I travelled on the railway, of course!). A close up of the departing train which shows Andy's version of the saloons to advantage. Replicas (the originals were broken up in 1936) run on the railway today. A great way to spend an hour on a sunny afternoon (if you can find one in Mid-Wales).

The photo above was taken by Richard Ellis Hobbs who came by with Robert Shrives. The Warley Display case included three Provincial wagons double beet wagons built by Robert. Just 232 of these wagons now running on layouts around the globe! Thanks Robert. (Further Irish interest on the shelf below I see!). Other visitors included the esteemed Mr Murphy and Andy Cundick who was showing his new layout "Llanfair Caereinion" - The Welshpool line as it was under GWR ownership in the 1930s. See next post.

Many thanks Darius for posting those photos of layouts I simply didn't have time to see! Richard and I were so busy on Saturday, we never sat down. Great to meet Darius at last - here I am with the Modelling King! The photos on the monitor are a slide show by the late David Soggee, whose immense slide collection has just come into the possession of the IRRS - our thanks to the Family.

Oh, Come on, David, the mixer is for grinding up surface scatter, as recommended in all the Good Books. There must be suitable Biblical quote, but I can't think of one offhand. (Parable of sewer, perhaps .....). (Filling in the car parking form for Warley has addled my brain)

Good luck with your new loco. The ONLY Class of diesels which I "cleared" for haulage - mostly when they were on the Exeter semi-fasts from Waterloo - plenty of 100 mph runs coming home in the late evening. I even occasionally managed to travel behind one going into work, after a change of train at Woking. Getting the last loco (Basingstoke to Overton - I had nipped out of work to get it, after a tip-off and had to get back quickly) was quite a pantomime. Happy Days.

It’s that time of year again and I'm packing ready for the weekend. To remind attenders! The only “Irish” layout this year is the organising Society’s “Inver” which is on Stand C41. Robert Shrives of this parish will be showing his beet wagons built from a kit from a well-known provider – you’ll find them in the Warley Society’s Showcase at Stand A6. Andy Cundick (also One of The Elect) has his Welsh Narrow Gauge layout “Llanfair Caereinon” on Stand B107. Looking forward to seeing it as it was a great favourite with the family! Meanwhile, you’ll find the Irish Railway Record Society on Stand C22 where Richard McLachlan will be showing his famous digitised drawings of many aspects of Irish Railways from buildings, track, and locomotives to coaches and wagons. I will be selling some Irish books, the Society’s noted Journal – AND YOU CAN EVEN JOIN The Society. We hope to see some of you at the weekend. Leslie

Normally, George, I'd agree with the "but GW" bit. But, the inescapable fact is that GWR locos LOOK nice. Leslie (GWR Soc Member Number 2371 - I think?)

Hear, hear!

Another "fleet" which were two and three car units were to be found on Deutsche Reichsbahn - the "Flying Hamburger" and its cousins were two and three car units and built in some profusion. I think I am right in saying that they were multiple units in that two (two car) units would run in tandem part of the way to their destination and there split with one unit going to one destination, the other to another. Exactly as the present-day ICE units do. I woujld quote the routes, but I'm not at the house with my 1939 DR timetable in in! They were pretty extraordinary for their time averaging around 70mph for some end to end journeys. In multiple unit terms (rather than "railcar") the UTA were pioneers with the MPDs which ran in many combinations, at about the same time as the GNRB built the BUTs at Dundalk - although the GNR didn't pull goods trains with them!

Just like the colour of The Blue Danube!

Best wishes and prayers for Mrs Garfield. Eighteen years? I still worry about mine 48 years on ...... Mind you the 48 year old has 350 clever folk working for him in Swords. As for the granchildren (one and three) - yes, glad not to be under the same roof at nights.

As Galteemore says above, a six wheel full brake - a similar one was on the 1964 Grand Tour and I have shots of one in BnT on the IRRS St Pat's Day tour to Youghal when it had the honour of being hauled by Class VS 207 Boyne. So well done Hattons for doing their homework ( or using the right Consultant!) and producing it in this livery.

You're right about the Display Case point. I have no reason to have - Kernow's Bulleid diesel, a West Country pacific, a T9, Pullman coaches, a S15, a Q1, 18.201 (a 100mph East German Pacific); Chinese QJ (2-10-2), a SS8 electric, a DF5 diesel and a WD in Kowloon Canton Railway colours. I even have a Swiss Re4/4 in KCR colours (they had two); finally some Rhaetian Railway locos and coaches - except to have them in a glass case where I can ogle them? Actually, with the exception of the Bulleid diesel, I've travelled behind all of them!

Thanks for that LBM; but as the Hatttons LNWR coaches have sold out on pre-order, I'll have to hope that a few folk don't take up their options - my "Wish List" (a Hattons feature) is extensive!

Niles, they only take the dough when they are ready to send and have checked with you that you still want them - READ THE SMALL PRINT! Do you really think I'd give them £260 for something I won't see until I'm 78, if I'm spared? Now you're all calculating what I opted for ....... Well there should be an addition to my Christmas Mail Train in 2023 (those of you with time on your hands can work it out!). Now, where can I find a 2024 diary to remind me I need the money in my account! As Ironroad said, well done for those who asked Hattons for them. "Ask and ye shall receive" - although I don't think it was quite what The Good Man meant!

OK, JB, I'll take your good advice! Going to their website NOW.

Mr Beaumont isn't on line, otherwise we'd have got an answer on the accuracy by now! Wake up JB! But if the dark green / Eau de Nil version is as good as Tony Mirolo's ones on "The Quiet Man" layout at Raheny, they'll more than "do". I can see a dark green set being ordered for GAA specials arriving at Portadown (ECS from Armagh?) having come over the Cavan line ......

A follow-on from the use on goods trains of the Multi-Purpose Diesels some years earlier. They used to take about thirty wagons on the "Eight-Five Goods" out of Belfast York Road in the evenings. It was commonly banked up the 1 in 76 from Bleach Green by the Station Pilot - usually a steam loco being run-in. I had a ride on a GNR Class UG one evening doing that job.

WHAAATTT!!! You're dirtying my lovely wagons? Didn't you read the conditions of sale?

I think you may be right about the normal purpose of this "horse". It looks just like the shunting tractors used to shunt unaccompanied trailers onto the boats these days. Obviously it isn't a new idea to leave the power unit behind and just put the wagon onto the boat (just like a train ferry in fact). I asked Joe (who took the photo) if he could read the script, but alas, no. Good luck with the model Larne Cabin - I visited that place dozens of times between 1964 and 1968.

Available as a kit, like two other wagons mentioned above from a well-known maker of Fine Wagon Kits........... Ah, we've got a series of wires crossed - I didn't find mty photo quickly enough! For some strange reason, I couldn't find any reference to these wagons being built in the "Recent Developments" of the 1950s IRRS Journals (or in my index). Well done IRN for providing the answer!

I'm not sure what you mean by "beet wagons", but if you mean the corrugated sided opens, they date from 1956 and the first batch was built at Limerick. My source is Irish Railfans' News for April 1956. The series began with No.12000. I think that you are referring to a statement in "Locomotives and Rolling Stock of CIE and NIR" which DOES refer to a 1945 start date for the open wagon series 11817 - 14672. The statement is confusing as it seems to cover all opens, both the traditionally built ones and the later opens with their unique corrugated sides and triangulated chassis. Some of the surviving corrugateds were double-stacked on redundant 4 wheel container flats in 1985 to make the iconic "Double beets" - also at Limerick Works! Oh and I may have news for you. One of the corrugateds does survive at Dunsandle (in 2014 anyway). I think it may be there in a "private" capacity, but someone here will put me right on that! I used Robert Drysdale's photos of it extensively in producing our kit - yes, we really did research it!

More from Jim Edgar: They might have worked them up as two laden trains or split in two between Ballymena and Ballymoney in the Down direction. I am pretty sure that there are 9 wagons on the train in my photo, but I would need to dig out the DVD to check. 8 was the normal load. The question was how likely it was to get that weight up and over Ballyboyland given the state of the rails etc. NIR sometimes sent out a Hunslet with an MV coupled in front plus a driver in each one. Once they reached Ballymoney they took the MV off and sent it back light engine. It recalled for me all those Sunday School runs to Portrush when the second Jeep came off at Kingsbog. Proper railway working I suppose. I was astounded to find out that in the days of the overnight goods CIE paid for the third shift in every signalcabin from Dundalk to Lisburn and then all the way to Derry, the full cost of maintenance of Lisburn to Antrim, the cost of shunting and clerical staff at Derry, and of course CIE maintained their depot for County Donegal at Stranorlar. Denis Grimshaw said once that in the end CIE had no problem with paying the money, but they needed to add the general container traffic to the Sligo goods to keep it running. Thus only the fertiliser trains ran on with just those costs still covered by CIE on a trainload basis. Later there was bulk timber too. Maybe I will slip a photo of the Derry goods into my slideshow at this last minute ...

Alas, Darren, I must disappoint you. The Amiens Street set which the IRRS has uncovered to date does not include the cabin. We can provide plans of Jim Meade's office in the building (well as it was in GN days), but not the cabin. If we find it ..... There are lots of photos........

I asked Jim Edgar, of Markle Videos (incidentally giving a talk at London IRRS next week). He replied: There were occasional bulk fertiliser trains from the mid 1970s until at least 1990. The traffic was for County Donegal, and was seasonal depending on the demand for fertiliser. There do not seem to be exact dates and the trains ran as required. Fertiliser for Donegal via Derry ran sporadically as a block train of bogie wagons (usually 8), and only when demand was really high. I think that is what we mean here, though there might have been the odd wagon on the general freight service for Donegal which ran via Lisburn and Derry between 1965 and around 1980. Yes these bulk trains were fairly rare but there are plenty of dated photographs of them, so not so unusual as some suggest. At times a CIÉ loco worked through. There is a photo of one train in Derry on 19 October 1976 in J M Allen's book on NIR, with CIE loco 171 in charge. Here are some photos of it in 1985. > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3025809 > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/503775 I photographed it on 22 April 1987 behind 111. You can check this out on the Markle DVD (still available!). Also in Jonathan Allen's book is a photo of it hauled by 112 on 21 July 1990 <ACTUALLY TEN FERTS>. He also included a photo taken by Denis Grimshaw on 11 April 1981of it hauled by a pair of Hunslet locos. A model with a Murphy 111 class and up to 8 IRM wagons would be pretty <on the evidence, even TEN Ferts - LM> close to what I saw. Hope this helps. Jim