Mol_PMB

My recent research into AEC railcar trailers, and adding photo links to the CIE carriage register, has opened my eyes to a livery variation in the early months of the black and tan livery in late 1961 and the first months of 1962. To deal with this little tangent I thought I would start a thread to collate the information and photos I've found so far. Here is a photo which appears in CIE's 1962 annual report (published spring 1962), showing off a complete train in the brand new livery. The scheme had first appeared on A6, in experimental form, in late September 1961. The formation of the train is unusual - after A6 we see a 27xx tin luggage van, two 266x 'powered intermediate' railcars, state coach 351, another 266x, and another 27xx tin van. I suspect that when this photo was taken, CIE didn't have many vehicles painted in the new livery, and had to marshal together whatever was available for the photoshoot. What's not quite so obvious in this photo is that this early variant of the black and tan livery was different from the familiar scheme applied from spring 1962. The key differences were: The tan (orange) band was not so deep, leaving a broader black area below the windows. The vehicle number (in white numerals) was on the black area below the windows. On the normal black and tan livery, this area was tan (orange) and the white number was therefore on the orange portion. The tan band on the locomotive A6 was also not as deep, in fact it was intermediate in depth between the 1962 and 1968 styles. I think I have identified at least 20 vehicles painted in this early variant of the scheme. Some were new-builds and others were repaints of existing vehicles. They include: 2 locomotives 6 railcars 8 coaches 4 vans There may have been more. In this thread I'll post links to images of those that I have found so far. Just three examples to start with, thanks to Ernie. Ancient 6-wheel van number 18: Tin van 2703, just sneaking into the photo margin: And the second vehicle here, then new composite 2172, which I think was painted like this from new: (you can also compare the position of the orange band on the leading 6-wheel van, with that on van 18 in the earlier picture)

Hi Paul, Yes please, that would be very helpful if you could PM it to me. I'm only focusing on those vehicles which remained in traffic with CIE from 1961 onwards, so I can probably extract the relevant data from your spreadsheet for those vehicles. Best Regards, Paul P.S. I'll be away from home for most of the next 3 weeks, so there's no rush, it will be a while before I get any more data incorporated into my spreadsheet.

I'm sorry. I'll just stop posting ebay links then, if I'm going to get ridiculed each time. I thought they might be useful to someone. You're not comparing apples with apples. £195 today is a fair price compared to Euro 190 when new. Shipping and import duties are a separate matter which depends on where you live. For me, and for many other forum members who live in GB, it would cost a lot more to travel to Bray to buy them at whatever Wrenneire's price is.

I must have been very slow, it's taken me 30 years to realise why it was diesel loco numbers 206 to 209 that were allocated to the Enterprise...

A class on eBay for £195 BIN, two liveries available, green and IR: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/157335286665 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/167804395244 Also various wagons but the wagon prices are steep in comparison.

Many thanks all. Extra thanks to @seagoebox who has sent me copious information on the former GNR carriages which will help me add detail to those entries. It will probably be a few weeks before I issue the next draft, there's plenty more work to do and I have a holiday to enjoy as well.

I thought Pulp Friction was by far the best of the names, but then I'm a wheel/rail interface engineer so there probably aren't many others that would understand how well this fits. Maybe next year...

I must confess I'm in danger of falling out with the MGWR. They seem to have had a separate number series for each type of carriage, so there were a dozen different vehicles numbered 1. And the GSR didn't help when they absorbed the MGWR stock, simply ending up with a dozen different carriages numbered 1M. Despite withdrawals over the years, there were still several vehicles with duplicate numbers in 1961. It doesn't help that the MGWR seems to have had an obsession with modifying carriages between firsts, thirds, compos, brakes etc, renumbering each time in the appropriate series. The GSR continued modifying them and the number series just becomes a very confusing mess. Foxtrot Foxtrot Sierra!

Thanks all. I will gradually work through adding links to photos of as many coaches as I can find. They will also help to illustrate the body, underframe and bogie styles and the changes over time. Of course, people photographed the unusual more than the familiar, so I've had no trouble finding photos of ALL the ambulance cars and many of the diners, but the ordinary seconds and compos are harder! Please - if you spot a mistake, let me know. I'm sure I've made some errors in transcribing the data, or in interpreting inconsistent or incomplete info.

I think it is time to release the first draft into the community. CIE_Carriage_Stock_Register_Draft1_19-09-2025.xlsx I hope this is of use. Any comments, corrections or additional information would be most welcome. Areas already identified for improvement, but awaiting more time and/or data, are as follows: Hyperlinks to connect the entries where vehicles have been rebuilt/renumbered More links or references to published photos of each carriage More information on inherited GNR carriages (weight, body, underframe, bogies and withdrawal dates) Review of consistency where vehicles have been reclassified without being renumbered More detail on the list of references Paul

The trio of IRCH vans are now complete, here they are: Roof view, with an IRM H van and the E class for context: A selection of wagons in older liveries (early CIE with eau-de-nil snail and numbers, and inherited GNR freshly rebranded): Here including a comparison with a CIE 'green van' alongside the older GNR goods van fitted for working in passenger trains:

I think these are now ready for the display cabinet, and eventually to run on a layout:

This photo by Jonathan Allen on Flickr shows 2172 (built 1961) in March 1975. It has the body panelling style of a conventional skin rather than a laminate one. I'm aware that many laminate coaches were re-panelled in the late 1970s, but this one was only 14 years old at the time of the photo, and just a few months after this photo was taken it was rebuilt into brake standard 1931. So I was wondering whether these composites were ever true laminates? They seem to have been quite camera-shy. Note also the first class branding on the windows - placed to ruin the view for those paying a premium!

I was wondering if you could use some DeLorean flux capacitor technology to get your 80 Class to travel back in time. But first you would have to get the 80 Class up to the critical speed of 88mph and I don’t think there’s a railway in Ireland long enough for the sloth-like acceleration of an 80 to reach that speed before it ran out of rails.

My normal practice is to make my own baseboards, but I thought I would try a kit this time. I placed an order a few weeks ago, and this afternoon the postie delivered this from Grainge & Hodder. Another thing to add to my list of jobs! These boards are intended for the Quartertown Mill plan I came up with last month. The IRCH goods vans are in their final stages now so I’ll get them finished before opening the woodwork.

I do rather like the look of Black Lion, which is very diminutive for a 4-4-0. It's almost dwarfed by the open wagon behind it. This image on the Transports of Delight website has a human for scale.

It's plane that this thread is starting to runway off topic.

The GSWR carriage diagrams book (Transport Research Associates) contains a list of the GSWR carriages which were renumbered in the A series, with numbers before and after. Obviously that only covers the GSWR vehicles, but I have incorporated data from this list into my spreadsheet. I agree there is confusion about withdrawal / scrapping dates, and I doubt I'll be able to resolve this completely. Many publications consider them to be equivalent, but there are plenty of examples where a coach was withdrawn from public service but then repurposed as an engineers' vehicle, being scrapped much later or not at all. The RPSI's 12-wheeler 861 is another example. The IRRS journals can be useful for contemporary reports of vehicles consigned to Sallins or Mullingar, but even then some vehicles escaped and in some cases the next issue of the journal has a note that a carriage is back in service after it had been reported as withdrawn. My spreadsheet is never going to be perfect - there are inconsistencies in the source data, and CIE itself was inconsistent in the way they classified and renumbered some vehicles. Plus there are opportunities for errors to creep in at every stage. But I hope it will be useful and I've certainly learnt a lot in compiling it. Another two questions for the carriage experts. 1. The small group of carriages that CIE built themselves in the early 1960s, almost alongside the Cravens, were: Firsts 1145-1146 Standards 1497-1503 Composites 2172-2179 Catering cars 2402-2403 Like the laminates that preceded them in the mid-late 1950s, these early 1960s coaches had triangulated underframes and commonwealth bogies, but their body profile had vertical sides. So my question relates to the body construction of these early 1960s coaches. Were they: True 'laminate' (i.e. laminated wood hoop and rib structure with aluminium-faced ply skin) Traditional wood-framed, steel-skinned construction as used in the early 1950s? Or some combination of the two? 2. What metal was used for the body structure and skin of the Park Royals? Steel Aluminium

La la la la la (fingers in ears, trying to ignore the wonderful toy train!) If I get a chance this weekend I'll do the regauging and sound fitment on the green A class I bought myself instead of an anteater.

Just a quick update. I am not far off completing my first draft of the combined CIE carriage register spreadsheet which I will upload here in the next few days. The scope I have set myself is to include all steam-heated, vacuum-braked carriages in service with CIE from 1961 until the final withdrawal of the Cravens in 2006. It's been a lot of work to collate and cross-reference data from about 50 different sources including two editions of the CIE carriage register and many entries in journals and books. Some entries are simple, some are complicated where carriages were rebuilt, renumbered and reclassified several times during their life. Already I have ideas of how to improve it, such as adding hyperlinks to connect the entries where vehicles have been rebuilt/renumbered, and links or references to published photos of each carriage. That will take even longer, so I'm planning to publish the simple version in the meantime. An area I am presently weak on is the carriages inherited from the GNR, and to a lesser extent the MGWR and the DSER. The listing would definitely benefit from the knowledge of a GNR carriage expert. I hope this will prove a useful reference. Cheers, Paul

Is there anyone on the forum who lives close to Dromod? Or knows the people at the C&L museum there? We would really like to confirm a couple of dimensions on this container, to ensure that the 3D printed model ends up the right size. At the moment we're not sure the proportions are quite right. I'd be happy to make a donation to the C&L museum in return for 4 basic measurements. Cheers, Paul

Many thanks. That looks very good for the British Railways containers, which were common in Ireland. Some of the CIE ones were similar, others were rather different. I haven't yet found anyone with a copy of a CIE container diagram book that is old enough to show their pre-ISO containers. That may be because many of them were owned by the road freight division of CIE, rather than the railway. I think we can infer the dimensions of the traditional wooden types from the BR diagrams. The 1960s alloy containers were definitely bigger. Happily my plea for a diagram of the 25201 series flat wagon also produced an excellent result.

The latest IRRS Flickr upload includes some images of the later bubbles under construction at Inchicore. Here are the tanks, you can just see that there are stencilled and chalked markings on them: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54778606819 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54778614773 Not so obvious, but I think there is a row of tankless bubble underframes to the left of the D class here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54777521647 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54777524317 From an earlier IRRS upload and the penultimate batch of bubbles, here's 25129 with the tank and underframe assembled, but not yet fully painted: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53570447106 Note the shipping instructions including 'Dublin' stencilled on the side of the tank, and 'Sanguity' chalked on. She was in the Everard fleet:

Definitely an odd one. It looks more like a shunt dolly, elevated for better visibility. Note also the track circuit diamond on the post. Would be interesting to work out where exactly this was, and what move this signal was for. Could it be signal 13 on this diagram? https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/49761789231