Mol_PMB

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.

Not quite as crashworthy as the American locos. I hope the driver got out of that alive.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511303071 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511303076 Yes, this page posted earlier in the thread and dated Feb 1973 refers to some of these being withdrawn, presumably a cascade of vehicles prompted by the arrival of the Mk2 AC stock: In the carriage register we have a note that 4054 was an error - it should have been 4045.

Some while ago I started building an NIR 'walrus' ballast hopper from a Cambrian kit. It's nearly finished but there's a slight hold-up with regauging and detailing the bogies. But on that topic, I've just stumbled across a useful snippet in IRRS Journal No.104. This gives the numbers of the eight Walruses, as follows: BR(SR) numbers: 62009, 62014, 62017, 62020, 62025, 62028, 62044, 62051 NIR numbers: C491 to C498. In the UK, these Walrus bogie hoppers were built for the Southern Railway and BR Southern Region in four batches, each with detail variations in bogies, hopper shape and operating mechanism. SR Diagram 1772 in 1928 - Diamond frame bogies, doors operated from one end only. I think these were numbers 62001-62025. Cambrian kit C55 represents this type. SR Diagram 1774 in 1935 - Diamond frame bogies, doors operated from both ends. I think these were numbers 62026-62050. Cambrian kit C67 with the bogies from C55 could represent this type. SR Diagram 1775 in 1947 - Cast bogies, doors operated from both ends. I think these were numbers 62051-62075. Cambrian kit C67 represents this type. BR Diagram 1/585 in 1952 - Plate frame bogies, doors operated from both ends. These were numbers DB992481-DB992530. Cambrian kit C65 represents this type. It is not explicitly stated whether the NIR numbers were applied in the same sequence as the SR numbers, but I think they were. Downpatrick's website says that their former C496 was originally 62028, and photos indicate that the lower-numbered wagons were the older type. So C491-C495 would be diagram 1772, and C496-C498 would be diagram 1774. I've chosen to model C492 using Cambrian kit C55. This photo from Ernie shows one of the diagram 1774 type next to the loco, with balcony railings and door operating wheels both ends, and the hopper ends tapering almost to a point. However, the nearer wagon only has door operating wheels at one end (out of shot) and a blunt end to the hopper: this is C492, one of the diagram 1772 wagons. Later, the sides were reinforced but the different designs are still clearly identifiable in this IRRS photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511561704

Anyway, back on topic, here's a super view of Cork with Glanmire Road station, the goods yards and docks, in 1949: https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/XAW027138 There are around 200 images of the Cork area, I'm sure there are some more gems in there. There are a few images of Haulbowline showing the narrow-gauge railway, like this one: https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/XPW042343 Here's a very clear view of Tralee Rock Street in 1934: https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/XPW043566 It's well worth a look at the map to see if there are photos of your area of interest. Just a reminder on BritainfromAbove, if you log in then you can zoom into the images and see much more detail than if you're just a guest. It doesn't cost anything to log in.

Looks like Dick Fearn might be there too. It's a long time since I last saw him - back when I was doing investigations into the second Cahir viaduct accident. Time flies (but trains don't)!

Very nice work and ingenious use of the Tortoises on their sides. I also like the invisible tie bar concept!