GSWR 90

Very sorry to hear about the passing of Chris Dyer, as per the Ulster Model Railway Club Facebook page. I’m sure many of us have spent many happy hours chatting with Chris at model shows or browsing through his always-excellent selection of rolling stock for sale.

No evidence of No 90 carrying plates in this photo of it in its original condition

Also worth mentioning that it wasn't always No 90, when it was owned by the Castleisland & Gortatlea Railway 1875-1879 it was known as C These sorts of things are always better being enjoyed by the public in a museum (or attached to the actual loco) rather than gathering dust in somebody's attic!

The dark green currently on 90 is a close match to T&R Williamson's RAL 6007 (roughly RGB 44, 50, 36). Not sure about the red or the light green on the lining. The dark green (and the rest of the livery) is based on this contemporary model of a GSWR loco which is at the Science Museum Institute of Mechanical Engineers in London. As above the plates on 90 were designed and made by IÉ out of brass GM keys. They were donated to DCDR during the 2009 Inchicore open day and were fitted to the loco about 2013 I think. The originals were probably stolen/lost while it was at Mallow in the 1980s, although IMO both of them are very much part of the loco's history. Interestingly, IÉ made at least two other plates to the new design – another number 90 and a number 60 (easy to make as it's just 90 with the 9 upside down), which are both in the Wheeltapper Bar at Fitzpatrick's Hotel in New York.

DCDR stated on its social media that it would post updates regarding the vandalism when relevant, which hasn't happened yet. Based on the helpful link that you posted, most of the potential outcomes would require the perpetrators to contact DCDR, so I assume that no formal decision has been made by the PSNI/Youth Diversion Officer/whoever makes that decision.

I am very supportive of taking a holistic approach to societal problems like this; however, the answer to dealing with vandalism is certainly not doing nothing, which seems to be the current approach taken by the authorities (PSNI/Youth Diversion Officer) and the children's parents. Whatever the reason why they might do this sort of thing, DCDR – a volunteer-run charity which has faced pretty extreme difficulties over the past few years – and donating members of the public are paying the price even though they did nothing wrong. According to a mutual friend that I have with the perpetrators, one of them said himself that he did it because he was bored; another is an Andrew Tate fan, which suggests a high degree of narcissism and arrogance and an extreme lack of empathy. The perpetrators have also expressed to their friends that they are very pleased that they likely won't face any repercussions for what they did. Contrast this with the 100+++ hours that volunteers spent scrolling through and recording CCTV footage, emailing/phoning/showing around the police, spending tens of thousands of pounds on security upgrades over the past few years, cleaning up broken glass etc, measuring and ordering five replacement windows, travelling to Dublin and back to pick up glass, putting up wood hoarding and making the three coaches watertight, repairing the broken door, making new tables, etc.

Thankfully the railway reopened since that was filmed, it started operating with the 450 on Halloween trains the weekend before last. However, a huge amount of money and work is still needed to repair and replace everything, particularly vital tools like rail grinders, sleeper drills, impact drivers, etc. It will also be a good few months before we have the steam loco operating again

Downpatrick & County Down Railway has opened an online shop on Shopify, so you can buy DCDR merchandise any time of the year and from any place in Ireland or the UK. We currently have some mugs, tea-towels, and badges (including the much sought-after 90 badge) available online, and we will be adding more stock in the coming weeks – feel free to have a browse. downrail.myshopify.com/ As always, 100% of the profit made from selling our merchandise will go straight back into the railway – so please do treat yourself to something nice, as you’ll be giving us a hand with our flood recovery in the process

Yes, it had two toilets in the middle separated by a diagonal partition. Not sure about the history of railway bathrooms but I think 33 had them from new. The first modern toilets appeared at the end of the 18th century, e.g. Bramah and Cummings toilets, so I suppose that makes sense. The toilet in 33 would have been Jennings 'thunderbox' style, we have the top part of the wooden 'box' but we're looking for Jennings-style a bowl and handle, as well as a folding sink. Unfortunately there isn't an end drawing, the drawing of 33 was made by the same volunteer who is designing the underframe. There are a few things that might be different between that drawing and the real thing, which will make it look more like the UR coach in this photo, e.g. the coat of arms will probably be a maiden harp with wolves as supporters instead of a normal harp with unicorns we're hoping to have the toilet windows frosted with the UR coat of arms I think it might have had very small metal steps below the doors as per the photo instead of a larger upper wooden one I think there was also a bit of debate about steps on the end of the coach We'll try to get the font of the numbers, letters etc as close as possible to that in the photo The photo of it being lifted was taken in 2013 before restoration started, I assume the ends were removed and replaced with something cheap in the 1980s since they were rotten. Here's a more recent picture of it with end moulding. I will see if I can upload some other original UR drawings at some point.

Iarnród Éireann made a few bum bags out of Dart moquette to celebrate the 40th anniversary Maybe not extremely fashionable but will make a nice museum piece at DCDR – it’s the closest we can get to preserving the real thing!

Yes! Just an idea that has been batted about – it had two toilets, so one would be a (non-functioning) toilet and the other would be a museum. I think that would be more informative/interesting/better use of space than just another toilet. Even if we don't do that, would still be nice to have some more UR artefacts.

I will start going to greater efforts to get UR stuff once we have agreed that the toilet is becoming a museum... Would be a pain to acquire stuff only to have nowhere to put it I think we'd mainly be looking for non-paper items, as the humidity in the workshop and the gallery unfortunately tends to make paper go soggy after a while

By the way, if anyone has any Ulster Railway railwayana I'd be very interested in speaking with you. Some of us have discussed turning one of the toilets into a small museum about the Ulster Railway, as very few people know much about the UR even though it was the first railway in what is now Northern Ireland. However, it can be very difficult to get artefacts from a railway that closed 150 years ago

In 1862, when 33 was built: They stopped making groats in 1855 so they probably still used them in 1862 Bismark became PM of Prussia and Germany hadn't been invented yet Italy had been unified the year before, but it didn't include Rome yet (which was still under the control of the Papal States) The American Civil War was still going on, and the US emancipation proclamation hadn't been made yet The famine was closer to 1862 than the troubles is close to now The first confirmed landing on Antarctica didn't occur for another 30+ years Funny enough, if they had measured it in mm they might have noticed that one side of the coach is 12mm longer than the other!

It's amazing how far it's come from being a container to store seats not so long ago. Length of underframe is 7045mm, width is 2285mm. If you are planning to make a model of it, please let me know, as we've done quite a lot of research into what it should look like