Markleman

I was at Glasgow show and I agree with Noel. It would have been very easy to walk round that show and never notice that there was an Irish model in it. You could have walked past the Accurascale stand and not even spotted that there was an Irish element in it. I reckon all it needed was branding. Like A SIGN. Something to catch the eye with the word IRISH on it. Something to catch pasing interest - people who might find a new different direction in their hobby. Something to show that these things exist. We existing Irish enthusiasts might search it out, but those starting out would never have found things mixed in with no identification. This is not about blackguarding IRM or Accurascale. It is about trying to generate a bit more interest in what is a small market. Even a bit more traffic through the stand could make a big difference to the survival of existing products and developing new ones.

No need for me to panic - I trust you and your archive is brilliant. I might leave my slide collection to you in my will. I know you will look after it (!) (!). Seriously though this raises the issue again of what happens to photo (and model) collections when people pass on. In the past several have ended up in the skip. As well as yours there are one or two collections, Charles Friel seems to have a large one which he has allowed me to use with his permission. There are others too, but these too are at risk in the long term. One large collection was loaded on to the Internet and the internet provider then closed down and the whole thing was lost. I have joked about it, but I do wonder what will become of it all, and if anybody cares. Best plan, as far as I can see, is to get the photos into books and the video into DVD and get them out there. Sorry to go even further off topic.

Thanks for the kind words everyone. Still available folks. If you already have VHS let me know for a great deal on the DVD!

You are right DJ. i was a bit surprised to have one of my photos taken off this site, manipulated, and then put back on. It still had my site address on it, but after that had been done I was not responsible for how it looked. Nobody could sell books if all the photos were then scanned and put on the internet for free. That was what killed my DVDs off, because as soon as they went on sale somebody just copied them badly off their TV and put them on YouTube. If you own it you can do what you like with it. If is belongs to somebody else then you might be in trouble - Jonathan Allen threatened to charge £1500 a go if his photos are used without permission.

I manipulated that photo, now it has been manipulated again. It looks better each time, but is it more accurate? It is worth considering that many of the images we find on sites and in books have been manipulated. True colours? Don't bank on it. When I took it there was no yellow colour cast but my memory is now a bit hazy, like the photo.

Here is one (if I can upload it). I fiddled with it as a possibility for Volume 1 of Line by Line, but it was never going to get into the book. The top photo is as it was (subject to the unaided scanning process) and the bottom one is how it ended up before I gave up on it. I could have made it better but I abandoned it. It was taken on 13 July 1974 on Kodachrome 64 and had plenty of time to fade. Do you think that the upper or lower photo better represents the colour of the gold on the loco? Or red on the buffer beam? Good questions. The faded photo is almost certainly not right as you can see the colour cast on everything. The "enhanced" version on the bottom is not right either because it is what Photoshop thinks it should be. Putting colour images through Photoshop or similar things does not recover the original colours, it just changes them to what the software thinks it should be. OK , that is often a pretty good version, but it will never be the same as the scanned photo, and that photo will never be what the colour of the loco was thanks to colour balance issues with the film and dye fading over the years. Yep, old photos great for identifying the broad colour, not so good for the fine gradations of hue.

Excellent point. These days those colours could be "corrected" by the touch of a button using Photoshop et al. That would create an impression of what the software designers thought they should be like. This would be fairly nearly correct for most purposes, but maybe not for copying the livery for my most precious models. Then human intervention could tweak it to a really good version of what (say) I thought it should be. You might have a different view on what I had done. But the slides then would not be "useless". This is worth considering in Fry's case. I bet it was Ferrania film he used. Even the best film can deteriorate (don't keep them in the loft!). I wonder can I find an example to post here ...

i think that if it looks right to you, then it is right. Each of those blue shades looked right to somebody, but yet they all look different to me. Blues I can do. My point is that once you take a photo of it, even a digital one, and post it to a site or publish it in a book, then it is likely to look slightly different. [Edit - if we work from the colours in site images and books, then the same applies] There may be a scale element as the eye/brain are constantly making adjustments. My layout is under flourescent lights and looks different in photos unless I correct the colour temperature in the camera settings. Daylight varies throughout the day, the eye constantly corrects for this, the camera doesn't. Thus different film types respond differently. So maybe we should hang loose and accept there will be small variations in the way colours are reproduced in books and on computer screens. Anyway, it gives us plenty to talk about. Jim

I have been reading another thread about various shades of Green livery used on CIÉ in days gone by. When it comes to interpreting old colour images I have the following thoughts and I wonder what others think. They are all about how I see the colours. I bow to the greater knowledge of those who saw them in real life (if their colour vision has been tested). 1) The colour response of the film stock in use varied enormously. At different times I used Agfacolor CT18 and 21, Agfachrome, Kodachrome, Ektachrome, and Fujichrome. To this day I can work out which of these was individually used for almost all of my slides. The E6 process slides come the closest in colour but vary a lot in contrast, while the earlier processes like the Agfa and Kodak ones have quite different colour rendition. I also used GAF Ascochrome and ORWOchrome occasionally, and they were totally different again, GAF had low colour staturation and high contrast, ORWO was over-saturated to my eye. Two photos of the same train taken on different film stock look quite different (often on a trip I would be using Agfa or Fuji for 35mm slides and Ektachrome on 120 slides). Even back then, and nobody liked to think about it, we all knew that different batches of the same film varied a bit too. Variation in my cine films are even more noticeable. What film people will have been using in the 1960s may well be unknown today. If they had the processing done unmounted or used bulk film, the slide mounts might not have a brand on them. Not much point trying to work this out from my slide mounts. I have 35mm Fujifilm and Ektachrome slides in Agfa mounts. My 120 slides are in Gepe plastic or Widescreen Centre cardboard mounts. We did what we had to do in order to make this hobby affordable. 2) Back in the days when film processing was expensive lots of people took steps to cut costs. Some would buy bulk film (often unbranded old 35mm movie stock) and load it into old cassettes. Ferrania film was also sold for this purpose. In addition, although this next point should not in theory affect the colour balance, lots of people bought the chemicals and did their own E-6 processing to save money. Otherwise non-prepaid E-6 processing was entrusted to some photo lab via the local chemist. Net result for colour accuracy of unknown film and unknown processing - doubly unknown. 3) Over time dyes fade. Some more than others. This is where using variable film stock can show up. Some brands are reputed to fade in colour terms more quickly than others. Colour film has been in fairly widespread use since, say 1950, which is 75 years for the chemicals in the film to degrade. OK, they are "fixed" in the original processing, but I doubt if the makers reckoned we should expect perfection after that period of time. And sometimes one primary colour dye can fade more than another. 4) Anything scanned from a print is likely to be pretty far from the original colour balance (which isn't that good on prints anyway). 5) Many of us have inbuilt colour "abnormalities". At one time I work in a photofinishers in Belfast, making colour prints from colour negatives using manual colour balancing. This was a very skilled process and I was not very good at it. I was moved to the interneg line where at least I was using slides to make (mostly) slides and the prints I made could be colour balanced by somebody better than I was at that. What I did not know was that my problems were caused by me being "colour blind". Not that I see only in black and white, but I do not see reds and green quite the way I would like to. If I had not taken an Ishihara test I would never have known. Lots of us have slight variations in how we see colour. 1 in 12 males has congenital red/green colour blindness. Work out how many males are on this site, take a twelfth of that, and you have quite a few people. This is why they changed the colours in electrical cables years ago (train drivers have colour blindness tests). It can be quite slight and hard to spot. It does not only affect red and green, but all the other colours made up from those two primary colours. 6) Anything that has been scanned in will have had to undergo analysis by the software doing the processing as well as going through the optics of the scanner. Mass produced scanner LEDs may not be true colour temperature to start with and then may change over time. Ordinary desktop scanners are often not the greatest. The makers of the slide film have gone through years of painstaking research to try to make their colours true, and then somebody scans them in an unknown scanner. After that they often get processed using something like Photoshop though a lot of scanner software has "enhancement" built in. This involves having automatic filters applied or else they are subjected to colour filtering by the person who scanned them, with all their bias and potential colour blindness. Then we view them on our computer screens, many of which are not properly colour balanced. I have a SpyderPro display screen colour balancing kit (they aren't that expensive) but frankly, we are into guesswork here. 7) Beware copied slides. Just like making prints, you are introducing scope for more variation. Even when done on a professional interneg machine this is not a great process, but when done on the cheap slide copiers we used to have it is disastrous for colour accuracy. So, the conclusion I have come to over the years is that my slides are only a broad representation of the colours that were there when I took the shot. The colours are never exact. My slides are all I have. Comparing colours within one slide is pretty accurate, but switching between slides of different origin, variable sun angle and cloud cover, different dates and with different fading on the paint on the real thing, becomes a bit of a nightmare. Big shifts in livery are easy to see, subtle differences in shade may be due to any or all of the factors above. I think that most colour rendition is like the politicians we have. Untrustworthy, rather vague, inclined to be not accurate, but the only options we have. Unless we were to elect a dictator of course, but that could hardly happen, could it?

I doubt if they ever saw the North in UTA days. I daresay this was arranged in advance. The uneven split of the BUTs always puzzled me and until I read that they had been exchanged for the cement wagons I imagined all sorts of possible explanations for that. This was the only direct exchange at the breakup of the GNR(B) I have ever heard about but there may have been more. Or perhaps there should have been more as both organisations might have stood to benefit. Or perhpas everybody would have bentefitted if that whole shambles had been avoided completely.

Leslie I understand that the UTA got half of the cement wagons on the dissolution of the GNR(B). They had no use for them, and they were exchanged for three BUT power cars which were a lot more use in their case. Not that CIÉ ever did much with the BUTs they kept. I guess it would have been impossible to do the same thing for loco classes. What the exchange rate would have been between a compound and an SG3 I wonder?

Is that one of the original inwards opening doors on the Park Royal behind the MaK?

I understand that the permanent way staff are not keen on working in human waste. If I worked on the track neither would I.

Actually, he was assured "by 1966 the roads from Belfast to Londonderry via Portadown will be almost entirely good trunk road or motorways". He was also told of the soon to be built Belfast urban motorway connecting the motorways from Bangor and Carryduff.

Leslie As part of his brief Benson was expected to recommend shutting the entire NI system down, but he rejected total closure. He proposed retaining a suburban service run using "austere but clean and not uncomfortable" trains (which is what almost happened). He also proposed reopening the Central Line which had been unlawfully severed, new rolling stock, and increased frequencies. The 1961 "Blue Book" had envisaged closing the entire NI system within ten years. Benson, only two years later, said that some should be kept. He says that he was assured that "by 1966 the roads from Belfast to Londonderry with be almost entirely good trunk road or motorways", which is not true in 2025 and looks like taking many years yet to achieve. The UTA was quite capable of closing railway lines without asking anyone (other than a rubber stamp from the Transport Tribunal). By asking Benson they accidentally spoiled their plans to shut the whole thing. I am not about to drink a toast to his health (which is rather a moot point in 2025) but without him there would have been no NIR at all, no RPSI, and no railway North of the Border.

Yes Leslie - even I am ancient enough to have visited the refreshment room in Mullingar. In 1974 I was doing an all-Ireland rover trip. On 3 July 1974 we travelled to Mullingar from the Athlone direction and were changing trains to head towards Sligo. Being July it was cold. The place was called something like "The Woodbrook Refreshment Room" after the racecourse. Present with me were Aubrey Dale and Michael Norris as he was back then. We had tea and a scone. The place was run by a very strict lady, assisted by two girls who looked about 16 and seemed very alarmed by their boss. The boss barked orders to them. The staff had white pinny-type covers on, like the tea room in Dad's Army. We had to put in a bit of time before heading off for Longford so it was a good chance to get into the warm. We knew at the time that we were enjoying a bit of history. We also used the refresh in Claremorris which was totally different place - just a dark room and totally informal. Mullingar was bright and neat but clearly run to a strict routine. It could never have lasted, but it was great experience to sample it while we could. Great layout - how Mullingar station has changed over the years.

He has confirmed this happening and he has promised to get the details if he can find them. I have seen the slide myself and it was shown at an MRSI slide show. it is a pity that year NIR provided their own traction for the sprayer. At one stage they also borrowed a loco which brought a 141 class onto the Larne line. The guy in quesiton has thousands upon thousands of slides of Irish railways from 1975 to about 2010. He has never had a single slide scanned. He turned down my offer to scan the whole collection and produce a book for him. They are all in his icy loft despite us all telling him that they need to be at room temperature to avoid mould. Someday the whole collection will end up in a skip. If he ever produces the details I will post it here.

During one of these weed spraying marathons a Sulzer reached Portadown and handed over the weedsprayer to NIR there. Other than that I am not aware of them north of the border. I have sent an email to the guy who photographed it to check out the date and details.

Leslie This has happened to me before with stuff from Australia - the VAT they charged was much more than 20% of the value. There is no duty on things like that so VAT is all you should be charged. You have to pay it to get the stuff delivered, so then I appealed against it. Apparently they sometimes do not believe the values stated and make an estimate. Seemingly they believe that some unscrupulous types understate the value of things on customs declaration - I don't know why they think that. Anyhow there was a section on the HM Customs website for appealing which I did. I had to restate the value (which was what was written on the declaration in the first place). Eventually they sent me a cheque for the difference. Good luck. Jim

Returning to the idea mentioned above of modelling Lisburn in the 1970s, there was a lot of activity each night. Two (allegedly fitted) goods trains arriving from the South, two from Derry (in early 70s one MPD hauled and one 70class), much shunting to change motive power and run round and add a brown van or two (which went to Cullybackey!). Those trains brought lots of CIÉ goods stock and a lot of fiddling about. They were then followed by the early morning "paper train" passing through. Perhaps for this reason there were often stray CIÉ wagons of various sorts left at Lisburn during the day, to be hauled away by passing services to or from Belfast - more shunting. This night time shunting started in 1965 and featured pretty well any type of goods stock CIÉ had at the time apart from oil or grain wagons. You would have lots of variety, though roofed vans and cement bubbles were the norm. We have many of the wagons now in rtr with Mayner's brake van rounding it all off. The 141s we have. MPDs and 70 class would required a bit of work. In the late 60s there was also the three times a week ballast train which worked frequently south of Portadown. This was hauled by a Jeep from York Road and the wagons were often loaded at Antrim. Whilst you might have to be creative with the ballast wagons, the big missing element in Irish rtr remains for me the Jeep. Leslie provides the brake van. Add to this NIR's ramshackle PW wagons (watch one of my DVDs to see a Hunslet hauled lash-up of a PW train) and the variation was really quite wide. Lisburn in those days was not all about railcars.

Well, NIR/Translink's incompetence over many years has prevented a station at Knockmore. The latest proposal is now well over a decade old and progress is pretty well zero. And why a two platform station when a third on the Antrim branch would allow locals from Belfast direction to reverse there (if there were locals from the Belfast direction). This they could also give it a better service than the 1970s joke halt. Knockmore is a prefectly good project so why am I still saying it should be built? It will happen someday. Why are we still waiting? There are other candidates:- Another park and ride project which they completely failed to make any progress on is the one at Templepatrick. Egllnton (not on the previous site) might be a runner too. i was reminded of this last month when a train I was on had to stop as a plane was landing. While the runway does not cross the line there is nevertheless a restriction on trains passing during aircraft movements. Whitehouse would surely do as well as other comparable stations (like Sydenham). No doubt though they would do the usual - say it is a good idea, draw up the plans, even get planning permission, and then fiddle about for years doing who knows what.

Yes, those are Kadees. Most of the ones I use are the ones that fit into NEM boxes. That means you just have to pull out the tension lock coupling and push in the Kadee. There are four lengths, 16, 17, 18 and 19. It depends a bit on what radius curves you have but mostly I use 17s. For me the right one allows the wagons to propel over curves without the buffers locking. If you don't do much pushing back round tight curves that hardly matters. They allow close coupling. Along with the magnetic uncouplers they allow realistic shunting. I only have them on the locos and wagons I am likely to shunt. Fixed rakes like liner trains and passenger sets I left the tension locks between the coaches and just have a Kadee on the end. For older things without the NEM box I used an older Kadee which can be a pain to fit. I also have some adjustable fittings which glue under wagons etc. I used these under Dapol and Provincial Wagons until I realised that it was cheaper and easier to change the wagon underframes for newer Dapol ones with NEM sockets. Anyway, the flanges on some older Dapol wagons gave me problems so that made more sense that trying to cobble an old Kadee onto them. But the main story is that the NEM socket type of Kadee are easy to fit - and if you use IRM, JMDesign or more recent Murphy stock they all come with NEM boxes in the right places. Expensive if you have a lot of stock though.

i have sent you a PM.

What service ... arrived today and on the time scale of the original announcement. Now my third 20 ton brakevan from the same source, plus a 30 ton one too. Looks great and runs freely. The NEM box is the right height and the Kadees went in a treat. Brilliant. Thanks.

This appeared on the BBC website section "Your Questions Answered" about the new station. It is a good question which gets a lame response. Basically "we are doing this because it suits us". ========================================================================= Are through services from Bangor-Portadown ever going to resume or will I always have to change at Grand Central? Before services moved from Great Victoria Street to Grand Central, many services ran the whole way from Portadown to Bangor, pulling in and out of Great Victoria Street on their way. Now services from Portadown and Bangor both terminate at Grand Central, meaning passengers have to change trains. Translink said: “Belfast Grand Central Station has been designed to be a terminus station offering increased connectivity and integration with the wider public transport network for connections across Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and beyond. “The new rail timetable is designed to bring all rail lines into the new station and back out again on the same corridor which increases reliability and efficiency of services operating on all rail corridors across the network.” So, in short, there are no plans to return to operating through services. ======================================================================== Essentially this says "make the best of it". Now it is official - The Holy Grail of cross city operation (as in operation everywhere else in the world) does not apply to Translink, who know better.