Mol_PMB

None of the former C class had train air brakes, so no.

It may also be worth looking at the branch termini which did survive to the present day and what they were like in the early 1970s. Ballina is the obvious example with varied traffic. Cobh was more passenger-focused but still interesting. To be honest, for modellers looking from a GB perspective even some of Ireland’s main line termini were/are more within the scope of a BLT layout. Sligo, Westport, Tralee, Galway, Kilkenny and Killarney only had one or two platforms and a trackplan that could be compressed into a plausible size for a 4mm scale layout. The trains were longer than might be expected at a BLT, but they often didn’t fit the stations! I think that the passenger side of Galway would make a very nice layout, one main platform and the bay for the TPO, turntable and stabling point behind and the stub of the Clifden line.

In doing the A class matrix I found a couple of locos that were out of traffic for several years after accidents, but were later repaired, which obviously influenced the liveries they carried. Potentially this can be misleading when using the livery matrix to select a loco to model - you might be looking for one that worked in green for a long time, but you wouldn’t want the mangled hulk round the back of Inchicore that stayed green for years. Reading that more than half of the C class were out of traffic in the mid 1960s, I wondered whether this could be an issue for many more locos. Did some skip liveries simply because they were broken and dumped long-term? So, getting to the point finally, is there a source of info that would tell me when locos were out of traffic, mid-career, for a year or more? Cheers, Mol

I think a lot depends on the date being considered within the stated 1960-75 period (probably more like 1963-75 for the Black'n'tan to be widespread). In the mid 1960s the A and C class locos (which dominated numerically) still had their unreliable Crossley engines and were mostly to be seen on freight and secondary routes, with the main line expresses entrusted to the baby GMs. The Crossley situation was so bad that in June 1963, only 12 of the 34 C class were in traffic! With the closure of branch lines the underpowered and unreliable C class became pretty irrelevant and many were relegated to engineers' trains and lifting train duties on the branch lines they had previously served. In our imaginary scenario where a branch remained open, a C class would be a valid option pre-1970, but might have been used as a last resort if nothing better was available. For shunting and pilot duties it seems the E class were considered more useful than the C class. But by the end of 1970 the majority of the A class had been re-engined and the resulting Ar class was proving itself to be reliable and more powerful than the baby GMs. At this time there was a reshuffle of power with the Ar class taking on more passenger work and releasing the baby GMs for other duties. So if the branch line model were to be set in the 1970-1975 era then I think a 141 would be the loco of choice. There was also a need to replace the AEC railcars which were at the end of their useful life as powered units, mostly on Dublin suburban services. With electrification planned (even in the era under consideration) but forever being postponed, re-engining the C class for suburban duties was an adequate stopgap and occurred in 1971/72. I don't think suburban duties needed all 34 of them though.

The second half of this film shows some excellent actvity on the Youghal branch in the 1970s.

Fenit was a favourite of mine that I part-built a model of 30-odd years ago. It had a variety of freight traffic, retained an interesting track layout with turntable, and quite a mix of motive power turned up there. Also there were enough enthusiasts' specials and locally-advertised excursions (both steam and diesel-hauled) to provide some passenger interest, and it wouldn't require too much imagination to consider that the regular passenger service had continued. In many ways, the same could be said of Youghal, which had a great deal of excursion traffic as well as the branch freights.

I'm happy that I was able to purchase a couple of those that you had in stock. I do tend to agree with the general trend you mention though - the quality of RTR is now too good for kits to flourish even in quite niche markets. Even a decade ago, it was fairly straightforward to build a kit into a more accurate and better-detailed model than the RTR equivalent. Not any more. I'm looking forward to building your kits as I enjoy the construction process, making something my own. Also I'm not expecting the particular prototypes I've bought to emerge in RTR in the near future, but who knows what IRM will conjure up next? Mol

This film shows a variety of these old dropside wagons in use whilst lifting the line through Dungarvan in 1970. Both 4-wheelers (some in red livery) and at least one of the 6-wheelers (freshly painted in grey with roundel) feature in the footage, as well as a nice selection of stealth black diesels and other equipment. Beats watching the same old Christmas movies...

109 was a former Maybach and hence non-standard in some ways. But having seen how they have represented the subtle differences between the Hunslets, maybe the Maybachs will be included in the collection of C class?

OK, here's the big one - the A class livery matrix. I'm not sure how legible this will be as a png so I have also attached it as a pdf. The basic format is the same as for the C class one (and others) posted above, and the livery key is as follows: For the A class, I've had more than just photos to work from because there was an IRRS article about the A class liveries, which @jhb171achill quoted from much earlier in this thread. Liveries based on that information (mostly 1960s period) are shown in italic letters. In many cases they are corroborated by photos which leads me to think that the article is reliable. That data has helped to fill a lot of gaps. Most of the data in matrix makes sense, but as an example of the challenges of creating something like this, look at A43's liveries in the mid-1960s. I'm pretty certain that in reality it was green through the early 1960s and then repainted black which it carried in the late 1960s. The problem is that there's a photo of it freshly-painted in black dated May 1965, and another photo of it in tatty green dated 17 March 1966 (i.e. 10 months later). I'm pretty sure that one of those dates is wrong, but which? https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53508785154/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/50671073171/ In general the liveries followed the expected patterns that I've already described for the C Class. However, there are Some interesting cases to note: Some locos were repainted in silver in the early 1960s. Definitely A16, but A28, A39, A40 and A44 may also be candidates. A44 and A54 both spent several years out of traffic following major accidents (shown in blue). Some locos missed out on green. Definitely A6, A16, A39, A40. Quite likely some of the others that carried BDT in the early 1960s. A27 was tarted up and painted green for a Papal visit in 1961, and then very shortly afterwards was repainted in BDT. It looks odd in the matrix but it's correct. Some locos missed BDT and went straight from green to black. Definitely A30, quite likely A4, A9, A13, A18, A19, A32, A42, A43, A59 and probably some others. A16 went straight from silver to black and skipped both green and BDT. Some locos skipped black, and carried BDT until they were re-engined. A1, A22, A37 are examples. A21, A30, A49 and A55 carried the less common variant of black livery with large numbers on the sides and no roundel. Of these, the first three never got a yellow panel, while A55 did get a yellow panel as part of a full repaint with roundel and small numbers on the sides. The first eight locos re-engined were outshopped in BDT2: A35R, A39R, A41R, A42R, A48R, A51R, A58R, A60R. The others came out in BST For a short while in the mid-1960s, A28 carried a non-standard scheme which may have been works undercoat. The ST supertrain livery was by far the longest-lived on the class, and was applied to all of them. Most of those which survived into the 1990s got IR 'tippexed' but 047 seems to have been withdrawn in 1993 still in STIR (supertrain with IR logos). A_Class.pdf

C class liveries summarised and illustrated here: https://irishrailwaymodeller.com/topic/1334-cie-locomotive-livery-variations-1960-1990/page/4/#findComment-252106 https://irishrailwaymodeller.com/topic/1334-cie-locomotive-livery-variations-1960-1990/page/4/#findComment-251972

Excellent!

Hopefully one day IRM will produce the sad face loco too?

Beautiful model of Blackwater too!

Shapeways is being resurrected in the Netherlands. However, Shapeways itself is a marketplace and it’s up to the owners of the CAD whether they make their files available on the ‘new’ shapeways, or somewhere else, or not at all. So there may still be some options but probably best to contact the CAD owners.