Mol_PMB

Many thanks for having the discussion. I guess the challenge is to find enough people with similar interests! From the range, I’d be more interested in MGWR 6-wheel coaches and, maybe, a J30.

If it really does work it is probably illegal to sell without a licence.

Accurascale’s new announcement of the 73/9 adds another piece to the 80 class jigsaw - the bogies for the power car.

I've no idea if it was preserved, or indeed still in use. I don't know if these photos are any use for your research attempts - one slightly blurred photo of the same vehicle, and several other tanks showing the variety used by IE around the year 2000. Hopefully something of use here.

Thanks. I haven’t studied the later tar tanks. Recently I’ve been more focused on modelling than research but I have some other research topics unfinished that I need to get back to. I do have some photos of later fuel and lubricant tanks which survived into the early 2000s. There was much variety, and the numbering is complicated by the use of several different series.

A photo I took on my first visit to Whitehead. It’s not a prize-winning composition but it’s interesting to compare the two locos which have many features of size and appearance in common. The boilers in particular. I’ve had some super trips behind 186 since then, but 27 has only moved a few hundred yards in all that time. (neither are UTA green, I’m afraid, so well off topic! I think both worked for UTA in black though)

A few photos taken outdoors in overcast daylight: And indoors but with a brief glimpse of sunlight (dark lines are shadows from window bars) Compared to the photos in artificial light there’s a massive difference to the appearance of the sky. This was in artificial light: I suppose the real test will come when I have got the layout’s own lighting installed. That’s a long way off!

Some info here:

Those are all rather late in the alphabet. Wouldn’t they have to start with the A class and work up through B, C etc to soothe your OCD?

GNR 12 ton van.

In my notes I have 14 A class in green with waist line (including A46 in dark green), and 24 in plain green. For the C class, 8 green with waist line, and 12 in plain green. So the plain green was a bit more common, but not by much. There may have been a few more which I haven't found photos of in the relevant era. Some locos in each class never carried green, going straight from silver to black or black and tan. The more significant missing livery from the IRM A class models was black with roundel and small numbers at the base of the sides. Fortunately, not too hard to produce from the A55 model in the early plan black scheme.

Indeed - light green with waist line was one of the A class liveries that IRM didn't do, but was moderately common. Looks like it's hauling a block train of cement vans in that photo. A short container in an open wagon is just visible on the left too. Several photos show these loaded at one end of the wagon, which is what it looks like here.

I took the ship photo about 2 miles from home, just lucky with the weather. In the background is the unique swing aqueduct that carries the Bridgewater Canal over the Manchester Ship Canal. There’a also Barton Road swingbridge adjacent. Part of the MSC railway system ran under the swing bridges and along the bank where the trees are, on the left of the pic. ‘Deo Gloria’ is but a humble dredger.

Many thanks - good to know that a GNR 20t van was in Cork for a while. I expect they were a fair bit newer than the GSWR and CBSCR vans which were still around. The GNR opens and goods vans seem to have got everywhere (as one might expect). Somewhere I found a photo of a bogie Guinness grain van at Albert Quay.

Very good models indeed, and a nice match to Roger’s photo!

I always struggle to resist a 'bargain' even if it's not quite what I need. I've been offered an unbuilt SSM kit for a GNR brake van at a good price. I've built one already in NIR condition, but can I justify one in Cork or Kerry around 1960? Well there are plenty of photos of them in the 1960s in the Dublin area and on the former GNR lines, but very few elsewhere. I was sure I'd seen one photo in the south west. It had escaped being listed in my wagon image index. After about an hour of searching, I've found it again. So I thought I'd post it here as well as adding it to my index: This is from the Cork Digital Archive, the Dermot McCarthy collection. The location is Drimoleague and the date 30/11/1960. Ahead of a vintage CBSCR(?) van is a GNR van freshly repainted in CIE livery. https://corkdigitalarchive.ie/items/show/1918 Did these GNR brake vans get around on the GSWR routes post-1958 or is this a rarity? A couple of nice images of the GNR vans in the Dublin area for comparison, from Roger Joanes and Ernie on Flickr:

I don’t think either Sambo or Negro would be acceptable these days. The GSWR did choose some strange names for their locos.

Speaking of books, is Loughrea available yet?

184 seems to have had numerous paint jobs in green, I think these are mostly in chronological order... (photos from IRRS, Roger Joanes, Ernie, Jonathan Allen and hgricer, all linked from Flickr) CJG_GSWR_184_Goresbridge_9_July_1960 | [Photographer: Chris … | Flickr JPS_GSWR_184_Broadstone_18_Sept_1960 (4) | [Photographer: Jo… | Flickr PoB_GSWR_184_Inchicore_l1960s | [Photographer: Paddy O’Brien… | Flickr

Imagine number 4 like that but a slightly lighter shade of blue and different letters on the side. Doubt it would go down well at Whitehead though...

Hopefully we'll hear that whistle again before too long! Nice view of the brake van roof details, and the unpainted interior of an open wagon behind.

Dark skies and sunshine in autumn - I'll claim this is what I intended for Quartertown, rather than what I ended up with: (my pic)

I confess that the sky has come out a bit darker than I had intended - I'm now thinking of it as a threatening stormy sky. It is autumn on the model so a storm is plausible. However, lighting has a big influence - many of these photos are taken in rather gloomy artificial light. In due course I'm intending to install some lighting on the layout itself. Most of the building rooves along the backscene will be dark (black corrugated iron or dark slates). I'm hoping they will help to make the sky look a bit lighter in comparison. Too big a colour contrast there might be a bad thing. My big Swiss layout in the garage has a plain, very pale blue sky but sometimes there's too much contrast between the layout and the sky colour. I'm just making excuses really - I mixed too much black into the white paint!

I decided that one was too expensive to post here and risk the wrath of those in the Eurozone! The dark green ones seem scarcer secondhand than the light green, but more sought-after (despite being very much in the minority prototypically). Not one I'll be bidding on. There don't seem to be many Irish bargains around at this time of year. This might be of interest to some, the price isn't silly yet: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/366033351203