Mol_PMB

Part of me is hoping that once IRM have got through the busy period of deliveries this month, they might tempt us by announcing something new... I'm also hoping that there will be some dregs from the deliveries of bulk grain vans that I can get my hands on, having missed out on the pre-orders for those. Believe it or not a single pack of the Bulleid flats turned up on the website this week, which is now hopefully winging its way to me.

I'm glad someone picked up on that reference!

Your post has got me thinking about what facilities there were in Ireland for testing locos quantitatively. Was there a dynamometer car or equivalent - perhaps as part of the Inchicore trial train? This vehicle looks like it's more than just a dead weight, but I've no idea if it had any instrumentation on board: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53509446540 The answer may be in the book about CC1; I'll have to have a look when I get home later.

Very nice indeed. Perfect for comparing the performance of a V and a VS on the Enterprise? Or seeing what speed a WT is capable of? Santa brought me some of your kits and some of John's as well, which have been keeping me entertained.

Or if you’re into 7mm scale this GNR 0-6-0 may be of interest: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/356461487147?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=1CFIlaF6R9G&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=PWnBnL0RQpq&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

When I spotted it and linked it here, I thought it would sell in no time!

In this thread, Leslie posted a photo of a container that looks like the Tardis, loaded into a wagon: Well here's another Tardis-like container, though not quite the same, in a corrugated open wagon: https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/730d4686-b00b-442e-940c-8dc46c88082a This is a BR insul-meat container that has ventured as far as Tralee: https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/39c56ad9-d5c2-4fcd-953e-c6112f4cf106 And some miniature Jacobs containers also on a CIE lorry in Tralee: https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/c048e730-dd69-4c1c-89d3-a3df79c41335 Then, in the background of a pigeon release, some nice closeups of more BR containers in Tralee: https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/af458547-4b99-4cff-8bdf-6f9ab9a75dd6 https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/4e6c2451-1832-4873-bc2f-b2bf24f391b1 https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/ba9cf93b-07b7-4dd5-a1fd-1045d8472d57 https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/01043e76-b155-4e24-865a-9346b038bc33 On the right, I think these are some of CIE road freight division's Livestock containers. I expect these were used as swapbodies rather than containers. as I can imagine that lifting a container full of cows could end badly. https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/037e5e44-9cd4-4ffb-a6c4-94a0e9aa5113

A nice closeup view of an early alloy Bell container, in 1969: https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/462aef0d-846b-4ca5-94ce-a67d7fd63275 Note that this one is lettered BELL FERRY. Others in this early period carried BELL LINE or just BELL. This could be done quite effectively on Arran's 20x8 flush sided box. I believe the BELL FERRY lettering was in petunia - note that the FERRY is in outline letters. Plenty more of them here seen more distantly: This link has a rather nice selection of Bell containers too: https://www.trucknetuk.com/t/looking-for-bell-line-pics/104367/31 I think the boxes on top of the stack on the far right are the same as in the Kennelly Archive picture linked above, which gives us an idea of how the lettering was arranged on the door end. Early Bell containers seen in colour here in the IRRS archive: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53527508288 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53570895910

These photos in the Kennelly Archive nicely show some of the PW dropside wagons in use near Killarney in 1969. https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/85465dd2-b161-4a18-9a8d-7d17955fa3e6 https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/9903c0e4-3717-421f-ba82-d6bf79b167b1 https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/e293adf6-8c61-4576-ba2d-e62179d4423c https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/78fdfa00-285c-4667-8ae3-5ded7c82386d Wagons with visible numbers include: 24078, of the 1949 batch built by CIE 24465, 24466, 24469, 24512, converted in 1964/5 from 1953-built cattle wagons A variety of liveries are visible, some very pale, some very dark, some mid-coloured with roundels.

On the subject of Elephant transport, here's a shot of Chipperfield's circus at Tralee in 1956, with a very similar-looking van: https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/c71a26c1-a025-4c38-80dd-b934ae418461

Anyone for a J15? £305 buy it now. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/116444558104

This film is also a good watch and shows some of the prototype wagons as well as various developments of fertiliser wagon. There's another variant of door seen at 14:41. And for those who like early containers, fast-forward to 29:00 and we see some of the early 42'9" flats in use amongst a lot of 4-wheelers. Other treats are the Burmah tankers, and an E class in action around Cork.

There are some interesting photos of newly-built wagons at Inchicore in the IRRS Flickr archive too. Here's brand new 30030: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511746390 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53527754500 The same underframe type was used for the fertiliser wagons, of course. The protoype (and perhaps some of the early production wagons, given that one of these photos is captioned 35017) also had the Ride Control bogies, and mesh doors: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53526421817 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53570775949 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511313966 The June 1973 IRRS Journal says: ...The other 22ft 6in flat is a prototype fertiliser wagon, and a 42ft 9in bogie flat No. 30085 has been similarly modified. A prototype 60ft Sundries Van has also been completed. These three vehicles are now on trial, and all three bear the designation "EX" but the 22ft 6in fertiliser wagon and the Sundries Van bear no other numbers. The second series of 50 of the 42ft 9in bogie flat wagons is now in progress, and it is understood that these will be built specially for fertiliser traffic... This film shows an early fertiliser wagon (maybe the prototype) with mesh doors and ride control bogies being unloaded, and then standard ones with ply doors and Sambre et Meuse bogies being built. The other two prototypes mentioned also make an appearance:

A little light relief for a Sunday morning - another container. This is based on a C=Rail unpainted 20' ribbed box, which I have altered to represent a CIE bulk grain container. With a coat of orange paint and the CIE 'BULK FREIGHT' lettering on the side it should provide a bit of variety in the liner train.

Sorry! It's complicated. IRM didn't actually model the ones with steel floors; I was looking for information to do a conversion to represent that type. But for the ones without steel floors, there were two main groups: 30001-30090, built 1971-1972. These had Ride Control bogies. 30099-30278, built 1978-1979. These had Sambre et Meuse bogies, and the wagon frame design was modified above the bogies to allow clearance for the larger bogie frame. The IRM models have the first type of frame and the second type of bogie: Both batches of wagons were built with round buffers, and 14 spigot brackets each side. Later, many wagons were modified with rectangular buffers (circa 1990s) and additional spigots for keg cages (circa 2000s). The IRM wagons include these later modifications.

The whole wagon could be the basis for your O gauge 'Project 62' - container flats and log wagons.

That looks great - and it's good to see what the Cambrian bogies look like in situ under a 42' flat and painted brown - they look right! As you mention, the round buffers are another feature needed for back-dating. I think all the 42' flats had round buffers initially, even the late 1970s batch with S+M bogies. Here's a scan of the image in Doyle&Hirsch:

These ones don't even need a repaint! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/306034692315

Of course, another advantage for the CIE AEC railcars is that the Park Royal coaches were often used as intermediates, as seen here in one of Ernie's photos: As far as I am aware, the CIE cars were virtually identical to the GNR ones. In both fleets, even-numbered cars had a steam heating boiler in the guard's compartment so there were detail differences in that area between even and odd numbered cars, but I think this mainly affected the roof. So potentially IRM would only need to tool one vehicle, with some optional fittings at one end of the roof and perhaps some optional skirt panels, to cover both fleets over most of their lifetime. The basic liveries were GNR dark blue/cream, CIE mid green, CIE black/tan, UTA dark green, UTA light blue/cream, NIR maroon/grey. But there were a whole host of variations in colour shades, wasp stripes etc.

Three superb illustrations of the correct shade of CIE green livery and lining thickness I suspect there were even more variations to be seen.

If you do the UTA thing, then you can always run them with a CIE loco south of the border, and even south of Dublin: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54255883237/

Wonderful! You have captured the winter scene perfectly, something which is very hard to do convincingly. I love the station building too!

I agree, an 80 would be very nice. One (atypical) set had both trailers from former loco-hauled coaches that would be easy to do from existing IRM mouldings. The 450s weren't popular in reality, which may influence their popularity as models. But if Accurascale's secret new GB multiple unit turns out to be based on the Mk3 bodyshell, then maybe... My gut feel is that the ICR experience may have discouraged future Irish multiple-unit development, but I hope that doesn't stop it entirely. I reckon in 5-10 years time those ICR's will be rare as rocking horse poo and selling secondhand for much more than their RRP.

@jhb171achill jokes about the overly posh 'zebra' paint job on the RPSI's GNR brake van 'Ivan'. Well every time I look at my model of his sister 'Ivanka', I think I've finished, take a photo, and then realise that there are still a load of things I need to deal with. It's a slow burn this project, but I'm nearly there. 'Ivanka' is extremely disreputable compared to her brother, but in fine form to tail a Hunslet-hauled works train. She is based on this photo by Jonathan Allen: https://www.flickr.com/photos/152343870@N07/49497154092 I am still hoping for some UTA spoil wagon kits to go with this van, the Hunslet and a couple of former Courtaulds opens. Meanwhile, we have the beginnings of a liner train. Two of @leslie10646's 20' flat wagons of the 27101 series, and I've managed to get a few IRM bogie flats secondhand. The bogie flats will be modified to suit my needs in due course. I also have 3 brass kits of the 25436 series 20' flats in the works at present. The container on the left is also one of Leslie's whereas the other orange one (not yet lettered) is a plain C-Rail one. All the containers need some / more weathering. CIE did have some 'plain vanilla' 20' boxes without side doors or other fancy features - there's one here in my tatty old print at Ennis, stacked on top of something else. Possibly another one on the ground to its right. But as yet I haven't confirmed their number series or found a better photo than this:

Ah, that's brilliant, many thanks! I see it had lost its chain pockets by that stage - maybe just put into normal container-carrying service? There are various suppliers of etched brass chequer plate, it's great to see how it was arranged on those photos.