Leyny

40 years ago this Christmas, Santa brought 8-year old me a Lima CIE Train Set. I was in heaven. Of course a few years later I realised that '215' was just a repainted BR Class 33 and the coaches were repainted BR Mk 1's, but before that penny dropped many a happy hour was spent playing with it, especially with the train wash in the siding. In terms of scale speed it would probably have left the TGV for dust which was probably a big factor in the motor of the loco burning out within a couple of years. Nevertheless it lit a flame of interest in railways, especially Irish railways, both full size and miniature that has never gone out. This thread itself is testament to the value of introducing kids to model trains at a young age, most kids will lose interest after a while but those that don't will make up the majority of your future hardcore.

Apologies if this has already been asked, but despite owning a heap of coaches and wagons over the last 40 years, I've never actually had any 6-wheeled vehicles. The layout I have is pretty tight (just 8' x 4') and my IRM A's struggle to get round it without derailing (due to the positioning of pointwork, they're a lot better going one way than the other). So how are 6-wheelers on tight layouts? They'd be ideal for GAA/Knock excursion traffic on my layout of the Burma Road, so long as they'd actually run on the thing!

I'll definitely take Irish Metro Vick Diesels and Rails Through North Kerry if they are still available. Thanks

Went over on Saturday with a buying plan that mostly consisted of picking up some stuff I'd pre-ordered from Chris Dyer but his absence (such a shame) knocked me sideways a bit. Between that and a few people I'd wanted to have a proper chat with being 4 deep with other punters, I realised when I got home I hadn't ticked all the boxes I should have. So ended up going back over today and was very glad I did. With less people around it was much easier to have a chat with the lads from MM, IRM and Provincial about what they have and future plans. Whilst I missed out on the extra 141s, the bonus was that a few Supertrain liveried Mk 2 D's had turned up down the back of the MM sofa and were going at €60 a pop, bloody good bargain that. Even though I'm modelling the Burma Road, I do one day hope to do a South East layout, so had my arm twisted into picking up a rake of Mags up at the IRM stand. Also had the chance to have a proper chat with Leslie from Provincial Wagons and picked myself up an RTR cattle wagon. All around, very good show and so heartening to see Irish Traction so well represented. I first attended this show 41 years ago and for a quarter of a century after that always came away with some level of dissatisfaction at the dearth of modern Irish layouts - some years you'd have none at all as I recall it. We have to be so grateful for the work done by the likes of the above named (and others) to make that vital first rung on the ladder of modelling Irish railways so much more reachable for the average modeller - it's been an absolute game changer.

Bruised shins averted murphaph. Was it ever going to be any other way? Gotta say she's an absolute stunner and as much as I know they only ever looked like this the day they left the Works, the thoughts of weathering that beautiful shiny finish pain me. Here she is in a very carefully selected shot which makes it look my model of Leyny station is a lot nearer completion than it actually is.

Many of you will be familiar with the shot of B145 at the link below (I've linked to this rather than attached it here as you can zoom right in on this), taken just before she left Sligo with the last ever Sligo to Limerick Goods, bringing the curtain down on the Burma Road. I've a couple of questions on the make up of this train I'm hoping somebody here can answer. Can anybody tell me what type of wagon that is behind the loco? It's certainly an odd looking yoke, like a garden shed on rails. There's also video footage of this train in the Irish Railway Archive Vol 1 DVD from about 20 years back which has a side on view of this wagon. Also, has anybody ever produced a model anything like this? If not, I could have a go at scratchbuilding one if I knew what it was and could find some drawings, it nearly looks scratchbuilt itself! Also, you'll see further down the train there are 2 20' Bell Containers. What were these carried on? With the train being loose coupled, did they have some way of disabling the vacuum brakes on the standard 20' flat and just haul them along with the unbraked wagons? Or were they unbraked 20' flats, if such things even existed? B145 at Sligo 31/10/1975 Any info gratefully received.

Getting back to A Class liveries, I spotted something during the week that could be relevant info to this discussion. In Tom Ferris' 'Irish Railways In Colour - A Second Glance' (1995) there's a photo of a green A Class arriving into Mallow on the Radio Train (copyright Midland Publishing Collection, I've scanned it in here as I can't find it anywhere online). It's dated 10th June 1958. If that date is correct and the original post on this thread is also correct, then it can only be A46. Certainly the last digit is a 6 but I've zoomed in (apologies for the graininess) and I don't think the first digit is a 4 - unfortunately the train's headboard makes it impossible (for me anyway) to be certain what it is. But I reckon that's a 2, making this A26 (or possibly a 3, making it A36). That's not the only thing. It looks to be the darker shade of green but there's clearly no lining on the front, and while it's difficult to be certain with the shine on the side, it doesn't look like there's any on the side either. So, I'm wondering was this a very short lived, perhaps even one-off, experiment in green? If it was, then might that livery my Silver Fox A1 sports actually be authentic after all?

As of now, IRM themselves still have about 2 dozen SilverA30's in stock. They're teasing us with promises of rolling stock to match, so I'll have my beady eyes out for that. If the 'buy another A' devil on my shoulder gets his way, I'll try Chris. His website suggests he still has a few examples of most of the IRM range, though I can't find contact details for him on it. He'll be at the 3-day show on the October Bank Holiday Weekend with a cartload of his stock anyway.

Thanks again for this tip Murphaph. Got to meet the gentleman that is WRENNEIRE today and got myself my coveted 018, with a few stablemates to boot! I think these IRM A Class should carry some sort of health warning, like cigarettes, warning of their addictiveness. I'm now the proud owner of 3 (018, A23R and A42) which is definitely enough for my small layout. I know I ought to stop there and fill the other gaps on my wanted list. But I'm looking at A30 and A55 like a kid in a sweetshop!

Thanks to both of you for that clarification. At the risk of labouring the point on the MM Yanks, that does leave a significant gap (1972 - 1982/3ish) for which they don't have a Supertrain liveried variant. Odd because they've 2 with the S (the only differentiator as far as I can see being the 'Suitable for Air Braked Trains' stenciling) to represent a period that probably only covered about 7 years before that was replaced with the IR white stripe livery.

I think we all know the ‘S’ applied after the locomotive number during the CIE Supertrain era signified that the loco had been fitted with CAWS to work over the CTC-signalled lines. What I don’t know and am hoping somebody here can answer is how soon after fitting of the CAWS was this ‘S’ applied? Always instantly? Given that the initial installation of CTC covered Inchicore to Ballybrophy/Athy/Geashill, surely every mainline loco would need to have had CAWS installed as soon as CTC was launched or they’d have been severely route-restricted? So was it a case that the ‘S’ was applied on the next repaint? There were Black and Tan 141s/181s around until the very end of the 1970’s and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen any photos of one numbered with an ‘S’ (eg B165S), which would support the ‘next repaint’ theory. Or maybe it was only applied instantly if the loco was already in Supertrain livery? The question becomes especially relevant when considering the Murphy’s Models 121s in Supertrain Livery. Both 126 and 132 have the ‘S’, so wouldn’t be accurate for the pre-CTC era and perhaps not for a while into it either, if the policy was ‘next repaint’. That’s a little frustrating as it seems most of the Yanks were repainted into the Supertrain livery by the end of 1974 (an exception being B132 which was still in Black and Tan when involved in the fatal Gorey crash on New Year’s Eve 1975), so unless the S is manually removed, they aren’t accurate from then until the ‘S’ was applied, no earlier than 1976 and perhaps later. As I'm modelling a line that closed to all traffic in October '75, that 'S' matters!

Cheers for the info Mayner. Lovely finish and I get the reluctance to weather such a good job. Some of the IRM A Classes (and MM models to be fair) are so beautiful they're nearly transcending the level of being 'just' models and are nigh on works of art IMO. So on one level weathering them just feels like desecration. However, with the silver models especially, the dilemma is we all know they only looked like that for about a fortnight after they left the works before the Irish weather had its say!

I'd need to make it presentable first! I'll probably post it over on the layouts thread whenever I do to avoid dragging this thread any further off topic. Will bear that in mind whenever I take the job on. I've seen photos of the silver from the early 60s where you'd actually think the loco had been originally painted white (or maybe light grey) and then got filthy, though that may be due (at least to some degree) to degradation of the film/photo over time. See the below shot as an example. Yes, I know this is a Sulzer but it was the same paint job and if anything the Crossleys would have been even filthier as their leaky engines spewed out much more oil than the Sulzers did.

Cheers for the heads up of possibility availability from those 2 sources, will follow those up. You're like the devil on my shoulder with A30! It almost seems sacrilege to weather such a beautiful paint job in that manner, though I know authenticity would demand it. Actually you've given me an idea for the SF green liveried A. Given that its livery is almost certainly spurious, it might make more sense for me to repaint that into 'filthy silver' - I'm no Michelangelo in the painting department but even I should be able to make a decent fist of painting in overall silver and then let weathering take care of any flaws. All I'd need then is a few decals to complete.

I’m late to the party here but what a great resource this thread is and kudos to jhb171achill for digging up all this info. Quick summary of my situation. I have a project/pipe dream I’ve been dabbling with for the last 20-odd years to make a model of Leyny station on the Burma Road, covering the period from around the time the station closed when regular passenger services ceased on the line in 1963 through to when the line closed completely in October ‘75 (and maybe even the Sulzer-hauled weedsprayers that worked over the line in ‘76 and ‘77). The layout itself is about 70% built but is up in my parents’ place (no room for it in my own 2-bed), though it remains a goal to complete it some fine day. So I’m still collecting relevant locomotives, coaching stock and wagons as and when I can. One thing I definitely need is at least 1 Green A Class. Until recently, I thought I had this box ticked, as I’d bought a RTR Silver Fox A (A1) at an exhibition some time around 2003. Whilst I knew the livery didn’t exactly correspond to any photo I’d seen of the A Class from around that time, I thought it may have been one of the many variants I just hadn’t seen. Reading this incredibly detailed timeline though, I strongly suspect the livery is simply incorrect (let’s leave the fact that the IRM model leaves this in the ha’penny place in the sidings for now!). As you can see from the photo, it’s a dark green (about as dark as the green on IRM’s model of A46) but has no lining, or flying snails for that matter. Can anybody confirm that even without the seemingly obligatory Silver Fox grey roof, this was never a livery carried by any of the A Class? I won’t be heartbroken if that’s the case, as yesterday I managed to pick up the second last unlined Green A (A42) of the current IRM batch, which is obviously a much better model anyway. If I can get confirmation that this livery is incorrect, I can look to get it repainted in something more accurate, perhaps the all-over black or original black and tan. And then just make sure I never let anybody see it and the IRM one at the same time. I’ve also been sorely tempted to pick up A30 in Silver but this article confirms it’s really not suitable for my period, as whilst there were a few technically knocking around in the original livery in the early 60s, they were by then in reality a filthy off-white/grey. Though had IRM produced this as A16, given its bizarre repainting into silver in 1964 (was there a H Simpson working in the paint shop that year?), it would have fitted the bill. One IRM loco I’m absolutely kicking myself I missed out on was 018 in Supertrain livery. This loco (in that livery too) hauled the last ever northbound goods on the Burma Road, a motley collection of loose-coupled vans and Bell line containers on 20-foot flats with a brake van. If anybody that has one ever gets bored with theirs or decides to model a period for which it’s not suitable, please let me know! Alternatively if anybody with kit making skills that missed out on the MM 141/181's (or needs another small GM) would be interested in a part-ex on an unmade MIR whitemetal kit (perfect condition), again, drop me a PM. Any help/comments gratefully received.