Mol_PMB

Yes, that does look fairly good, I suppose the regular heavy freight traffic has ensured that it has been kept in fair condition. Hopefully the weedspray will continue to run.

Indeed. The rails, sleepers, ballast and subgrade/drainage would have been far from perfect towards the end of the line's operational life, and after decades of rot, corrosion and vegetation growth it would have all needed to be dug out and started afresh. That's a big and expensive job. The availability of second-hand materials cascaded from renewals on the main-line railway isn't as good as it was, owing to modern track-lifting practices tending to cut rails up on site. Modern track is also much heavier and less suited to manual methods of relaying.

Thanks! In the GNR wagon diagrams there's also a drawing for a similar type of turf wagon, a fairly standard open with creels. I'm sure that somewhere I've seen a photo of a turf train with a mix of those open wagons and the converted carriages.

In early anticipation of these etches, I have bought a couple of donor vehicles - a cheap one (£10) and a moderately-priced one (£35). Only the latter has arrived so far. The sides were originally intended for the Dapol 60' Stanier coach kits, but these are out of production and are very hard to find. Similar RTR options are the Airfix/Mainline/Dapol 60' Stanier composite, or the Bachmann 60' Porthole brake first. Most other Stanier/Porthole coach models are 57' long, or in the case of the Porthole composite it's the right length but has an unusual cross-section profile and a different style of underframe. So here's the moderately priced donor, the Bachmann brake first, seen with something a bit more Irish: This is quite a nicely detailed model, rather better than the old Airfix one. It also has power pickups from the metal wheels, and kinematic couplers. Seems a shame to sand it all off, but needs must... The cross-section of these Porthole coaches ought to be like this: I did a few dimensional checks and I estimate the model is pretty close in width - it scales out at 9'0" over footsteps, 9'0" at waist, 8'10" over gutters and 8'8" just below the gutters. Height-wise it seems to be riding almost 1mm too low but that can be corrected by packing the bogie pivots a fraction. Now, how does that compare to the CIE coaches built in the 1951-1953 period, which the etched sides represent? I haven't actually found any dimensioned diagrams/drawings for these (has anyone got one squirreled away?) The best I've got is this which is entirely undimensioned except for the lining and lettering: However, the carriage registers and some other sources give dimensions. Confusingly they are not always consistent, and I suspect that may be how they are defined. Is 'Width' over the bodysides, or the door handles or the duckets? Is 'Height' to the roof surface or to the highest ventilator or water pipe? The carriage registers say that the Maximum Width of these carriages is 9'11 1/4", which I think is a genuine maximum. Pender & Richards and the IRT&T books give the width as 9'6" and I think that is the width over the body sides. The model is about 2mm too narrow at the waist, and about 3mm too narrow just below the gutters. But I'm going to overlay some new brass sides which will make up about half that discrepancy. More obvious from the ends is the slight taper on the upper body sides, which may or may not be worth trying to correct as it's not obvious from most viewing angles. The carriage registers say that the Maximum Height is 12' 9", which if it represents the height over the vents (I think it does) is very close to the LMS carriage, if the model's ride height is raised a fraction. Probably the biggest discrepancy is the roof profile, which on the CIE coaches is vertical at the gutters, then filleted into a shallow arc over the top of the roof. The LMS roof is more elliptical. I may do some experiments with making an alternative roof that is closer to the CIE profile. An alternative would be to build up the edges of the existing one and sand it back, but I suspect it would be very difficult to get an even shape. Or I just accept the LMS shape as 'good enough'. When my cheapy Airfix coach turns up I'll do some similar measurements. I'm in no hurry to start hacking at them - the brass sides are some months off and I have plenty of other things to be working on.

The same thought went through my mind, but I wasn't quite brave enough to write it down. I suppose at least you're leaving it to the reader to decide whether the 50% overlap refers to 'comprehensible' or 'gibberish'...

Interesting. The photo above shows quite clearly that the conversion was more involved than just taking out the roof and seats. The sides were also reconfigured to provide double doors which were presumably used for emptying them. Note the repositioned doors still carry their old 3 class designations resulting in the appearance of 33 from the two passenger doors now re-hung side by side as a pair of double doors. Has anyone here made a model of such a train?

I bought the earlier volumes from the RPSI, I imagine they will have this one as well in due course.

It will also be interesting to see whether this set of Bulleid opens reaches the prices being asked for new ones: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/205711355204

Interesting. The one I got recently cost £250.28 (Buy It Now) and was up for sale for a week before I bought it. My seller seemed to be a private individual without much of a history on eBay (only a few bits of feedback) so it might have looked risky, but I asked some questions and came to the conclusion they were legit. It was sold as DCC sound fitted, but it wasn't (it did have a plain DCC chip), and when I found this I asked for (and got) a £50 refund. I know the sound chip costs more than that, but I reckoned about £200 was a fair price. We'll soon see what others think is a fair price for a green one - it's up to £215 already.

Excellent work!

Lovely job - that really looks the part. I hope they're not going to disrupt the sermon next door!

Sorry! You'll just have to buy a train of each... They're not much more expensive than H vans!

The top skips increased the volume and so allowed the wagons to be loaded to maximum axleload even with slightly less dense grades of coal. They also much reduced the amount of coal blown off the wagons en route - as well as losing payload this contaminated the ballast and wasn't popular with the neighbours. (These wagons carried very fine coal, little more than dust, for power station use.) But as you say, they weren't compatible with most collieries and most of the top skip fitted wagons worked in Scotland for much of their lives. Wagons with and without top skips would not normally be mixed in service.

Super! Now if IRM were to produce one of those I couldn’t help myself. It pretty much fits the class 37 chassis…

That Hunslet looks very nice indeed! Superb work. The Palvans are in some ways a bit elusive - I think your Parkside-based model captures them very well though. IRM have suggested they might be next... Lovely to see some CIE branded containers. I have some to work on myself, which will probably carry snails. Some of them gained orange livery with the roundel.

I'd better post the photos of my finished models here too, just to prove that I do sometimes finish something, and don't spend all my time doing research...

The sun just came out briefly so I took a trio of vans out for a photo. These are all modified and repainted IRM fitted H vans (previous batch) and are based on photos of the real thing, as linked in the Green H vans thread: Although I have finished the prototype palvan in plain grey, at least three of these were painted green too, becoming grey later.

It depends who you believe! Some sources say 100, others say only a handful. The truth is somewhere in between - I reckon there were at least a dozen. They had extended buffers (as does my model) and screw couplings. The black ones (as per my other repainted one in the pic) may have been even scarcer, but there were definitely 2 as they appear in colour photos.

I'm delighted to say mine have arrived, and make a nice contrast to the fitted vans I have already. Seen here with the E: Why are there only two unfitted vans in the photo? Well the third one in the pack I opened didn't fit on the track! Close inspection of the wheelsets showed that one of them was set to the wrong back-to-back, sufficiently wide that it wouldn't fit between the 16.5mm gauge rails. See image below: It doesn't bother me - these wheels will be coming off anyway as part of the re-gauging process, and will be replaced with finer profile ones set to 21mm gauge. But it might be a problem for others. The wrongly positioned wheel is the non-insulated one - these are a very tight fit on the axle and hard to shift, especially without damaging the pinpoint axles. I bought a small wheel press and made some custom tooling to fit it, for extracting these wheels. The average modeller wouldn't have that. I hope this is an isolated problem - I have checked my other pack of wagons, and it appears that I've only got one duff wheelset.

I was just trying to compare the prices of my various orders but it's complicated by different currencies, taxes, rake discounts and applying vouchers. However, my first orders of Bulleid wagons placed in November 2024 each cost £63 for a 3-pack. No discounts, no shipping charge, no extra tax. I have a feeling that I did well on the VAT on my early IRM orders shipped from Ireland to the UK... But even adding 20% VAT that's only £75.60. Anyway, my six are on their way to me now and I look forward to them. Edit: on reflection, I may have bought some of these when IRM were having a discount sale. Maybe that accounts for the difference?

Having checked this against the annotations in the carriage registers, and filled a couple of gaps in my lists. It took me a while to find 4012, because carriage 1285 was originally 1142. As noted above, 2491 was apparently supposed to become 4045 but numbered 4054 in error. I have not identified 4044 in any lists, nor any higher numbers except 4045 / 4054. Many of these vehicles were demoted to secondary stock in 1964, but were only renumbered into the 4000s in 1969. Most had been scrapped by 1973. Sadly the 'secondary stock' pages are missing from the 1969 carriage regiester to confirm this. They were probably discarded by the original owner of the document once they had all been withdrawn. I don't suppose anyone else on the forum has a CIE carriage register tucked away in their archives?

The attached list is what I have got so far on the carriages numbered in the 1600 series. I have traced 1601 to 1625, and 1631 to 1634. In most cases these numbers weren't carried for long, they were an intermediate stage. 1601-1610 were previously open composites (until the year 1969) and later brake standards (from the year 1970). 1611-1625 were previously compartment composites (until the year 1972) and later bogie vans (from the year 1973), except 1617 which was older than the rest and was probably just scrapped. 1631-1632 were originally compartment composites, then radio studios (until the year 1980); probably withdrawn in the early 1980s without further conversion. 1633-1634 were originally compartment composites (until the year 1980); probably withdrawn in the early 1980s without further conversion. The spreadsheet gives details of previous and subsequent numbers, amongst other info. I have not found anything on 1626 to 1630, if they existed. CIE_1600s.xlsx

Ah, that's great, many thanks for the extra info. I had misinterpreted the note against 2508, by association with the adjacent 2509. So easy to make assumptions without realising it, which is why I uploaded the original scans as well as my spreadsheet interpretations. You're absolutely right, here is 2508:

Back to my main interests in the south, here's the collection of goods vans in the 21mm gauge display cabinet: Top row - 1960s unfitted vans: Provincial Wagons GN 10t van, modified to represent MGWR equivalent. Work in progress. Provincial Wagons GN 10t van, modified to represent GNR sheet-sided equivalent. Work in progress. Modified IRM H van body on Parkside chassis, to represent early CIE 170xx series unfitted van. JM Design LMA van, built as intended. Middle row - 1960s vac fitted vans: Provincial Wagons GN 10t fitted van, detailed. Work in progress. IRM fitted H van, regauged detailed and repainted. IRM fitted H van, regauged detailed and repainted. Chassis of IRM H van, regauged, with modified Parkside palvan body, to represent one of the prototype palvans converted from H vans. IRM fitted H van, regauged. Bottom row - 1970s vans, roundel era: IRM fitted H van, regauged, modified roof. Provincial Wagons cattle van, modified to a vac fitted version JM Design GSR grain hopper, with added details. IRM fitted H van, regauged. GNR cement van based on detailed and regauged Parkside kit. Soon to arrive will be 6 IRM unfitted H vans. There are also 3 IRM grain vans awaiting the regauging and weathering process. Ideally I'd like to modify one of these by replacing the doors with a plain panel. Once I've dealt with those, there will be some GSWR 'big boy' vans to make, based on my measurements at Cultra. I'd also like to make a GNR grain van, and two GSR variants of the IRCH standard vans. I probably have too many already!

Your interpretation of the data is correct. I've not studied the older vehicles in detail, but my understanding is that the MGWR 6-wheelers were considered 'better' than the GSWR 6-wheelers. I think this was partly related to passenger comfort - for example many of the GSWR thirds had 6 cramped compartments whereas the MGWR thirds had 5 more spacious compartments. I'm not sure whether construction quality, condition/maintenance or electric/gas lighting might also have been considered? The GSWR had also produced a lot more bogie coaches than the MGWR and so their 6-wheelers may have been older or less well maintained than the MGWR ones. A good number of the GSWR 6-wheelers were converted to carry turf in the 1940s fuel shortages, so perhaps a smaller proportion survived into CIE days? It's a pity in some ways that the 4mm scale kits for Irish 6-wheel coaches are for the GSWR types, when the MGWR vehicles would be more useful to those modelling the 1950s and 1960s. Hopefully someone with better knowledge of the older vehicles will be along soon to put me right.