Mol_PMB

Some late 1960s and early 1970s inspiration: From Brian Flannigan on Flickr: Two from Jonathan Allen on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/152343870@N07/30337458288 https://www.flickr.com/photos/152343870@N07/49702131002 There are plenty more on the IRRS Flickr archive including some in PW service.

On brake van types, this image for sale on ebay appears to show a pair of 6-wheel brake vans in CIE livery, dated 1955. Rare beasts, does anyone know the origin of these?

There were some quite significant differences between the 30 ton and the 20 ton, I'm afraid! They were steel bodied rather than wooden, had entirely different suspension and roller bearings, and a different arrangement of footboards and handrails. They were vac braked too. The 30 ton was the last design of CIE brake van and was in use the longest (there are still a couple even now) so it would be the most suitable type to accompany Enda's other rolling stock. Most of the 20 ton types were withdrawn by the late 1970s. The 30 ton is available in body kit form from SSM. Here's a 30-ton, photo by Fred Dean on Flickr: Compared to a 20 ton, photo by Ernie on Flickr: A handful of the 20t vans were lated updated with a body style a bit more like the 30t vans, but there were still significant differences! Here's one from Brian Flannigan on Flickr:

Very nice, some superbly observed and modelled details there! Are the drivers on strike today?

Great idea - go for it! There are a couple of other Irish wagon types available too.

No questions are stupid - please keep asking! You're generally correct - the brown livery was introduced in 1970 but took many years to spread across the whole fleet. Unfitted freight trains (for revenue-earning purposes) ceased in the late 1970s, and there were still plenty of grey wagons around then. The LB flat wagons as modelled by IRM were a slightly special case. The grey ones represent those wagons built as flats, representing the late 1950s onwards. IRM haven't applied snails or roundels but a few of these wagons did have them. Between 1962 and 1975, over 1500 new vacuum-braked flat wagons were built: longer, faster, better load capacity than the old LB flat wagons. It is likely that most of the old grey LB flats were demoted to PW use around this time, though some may have survived in revenue service. The brown ones are physically slightly different - look at the position of the stanchions and the number series - and they represent covered vans which were cut down to flats in 1973, for use by the PW department. They lasted into the early 1980s in PW service - there was a lot of engineering work going on associated with the DART construction and speed upgrades on the Cork main line, so unfitted wagons remained in use later with the PW department.

Great progress!

Very nice! You know what that needs - a Class 15 to pull it!

For now, I'm going to call these finished, and I'll move on to the next project. I have an empty long weekend ahead of me and a plethora of half-finished things!

The brakes and sanding pipes would need to be realigned but it would be an easy fix. The wheel hubs are fairly chunky, but you may be right that there wouldn't be much of them still in contact with the axles if they were moved out. Would you like me to take some more measurements? If you like, I could take the cover plate off the drivetrain and send you some photos of what it looks like inside.

G.I.B. !!

There was an earlier batch a few years back, and I think this EFE lot are an attempt to squeeze a bit more return out of the tooling. But a Class 15 is a rather niche loco, short-lived and geographically limited, and I suspect most people who wanted one got theirs in the first batch. They ran in the area where I was born and brought up, but had all been withdrawn long before I was born.

Wow, that is cheap! Many years ago before they were produced, I bought a kit for an O gauge class 15. It's still in its box, in one of the cupboards of shame. I do like them, but hard to justify buying one because I really have no need for an O gauge class 15 in my current plans. It would just go in the same cupboard as the kit one.

My new kits arrived this morning, so here's a photo of what you get in the box. Basically the 3D printed parts are a body, two rocking W-iron assemblies, four buffers and two brake block assemblies. There are also some etched bits for brake levers and guides, and some wire. The detail on the 3D printed parts is superb inside and out, and there is no need for any cleaning up on the visible faces. This shows how the W-iron units fit; these ones suit 21mm gauge with 28mm axles but alternatives can be supplied for 16.5mm gauge: As you may have noticed, I can't bear to build anything as intended so I have added extra details, replaced some parts with alternatives, and modified some of the parts too. But that's not actually necessary - it's just my desire for something individual. I'm hoping that @Bob49 will be able to expand his Irish range; variants of these early 1920s IRCH open wagon and van designs were used by the GNR, GSWR, MGWR, CBSCR, GSR, and CIE, and some lasted into the 1970s so they potentially have a wide appeal. John and Leslie have covered some of these in the past but by no means all, and most of their kits are no longer available. This photo from Roger Joanes on Flickr shows one of these 6-plank wagons loaded with containers. You can see that the wooden bodied wagon is wider than the adjacent corrugated wagons, and this is also true of the models. What this means is that you can put RTR containers into these wagons without having to hack details off them (we know they don't fit in the IRM corrugated opens or the wooden-bodied open wagons based on UK models). You can even put two A containers together in a wagon, as shown in Roger's photo above. On the left, two Bachmann A containers. On the right, a Triang B container (awaiting a repaint into CIE livery).

Some more CSE Rustons from the IRRS archives: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53510219532 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511296226 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511727975 And a handful of other 5'3" gauge industrials: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53447021843 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53446888671 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53447303790 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53447205704 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53509025928 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53509178074 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53508861296

I've just had a quick measure of mine. There is some sideplay in the wheelsets, but with the wheelset in a central position there's about 1.5mm clearance each side between the wheel hub and the back of the axlebox. However, the axlebox shape would allow you to remove up to another 1.5mm from the back of it without any visible effect, which would get you enough space for 36.75mm gauge.

Great, thanks Marc, I look forward to them arriving. The next two are going to be former GN wagons, one in tatty GN livery with CiE stencil, and the other freshly repainted and clean in CIE paler grey. That will be enough high-sided open wagons for now, unless you produce the steel framed version (GSWR/CBSCR) in future - I’ll collate some more photos of those just in case …

One of these would be a great starting-point! Add a weatherboard, modify the smokebox and bufferbeam, add a few little details and you would have a good representation.

Indeed, the birth of Irish 3' gauge was at Ballycastle around 1740, later extended in 1750. Another early one was the Drumglass colliery railway opened in 1754. I think both these used horses and wooden rails. The Kingstown harbour developments in 1816 used a railway which may have been the first in Ireland to use iron rails, though still animal power. Part of the trackbed is still the present railway alignment between Dun Laoghaire and Dalkey.

Lovely! Apparently one of two locos used on that scheme, though there are no surviving details of the other one. Later, another scheme run by the Fergus Reclamation Syndicate used a 1'11 5/8" gauge railway nearby. They had a smaller 0-4-0ST built by Andrew Barclay 703/1893.

Progress on the open wagons is slow, work is getting in the way. But I have some transfers on now, and ready for the next stage in weathering. The snails are Railtec. The white one is the smaller 4mm scale size, and with a fine brush and some grey paint I have made it look more like a stencilled one. It’s a bit big. The white numbers are HMRS. The green snails and numbers are Railtec N scale eau-de-nil, using the larger size snail from the wrong scale. It’s actually a better size for a wagon snail than the 4mm scale version. The numbers aren’t quite the right style but they’ll do. More weathering to do once the varnish has dried - these are going to be a disreputable pair of trucks!

It's worth noting that the IRRS Flickr Archive contains other industrial images that aren't in the industrial album. Here are some of the 88DS locos: TMW_CSE_X_Thurles_BFS_13_Nov_1976 (2) | [Photographer: Tom W… | Flickr TAD_CSE_X_Thurles_31_Dec_1970 | [Photographer: Tom A Davitt]… | Flickr TMW_CSE_X_Thurles_BFS_13_Nov_1976 | [Photographer: Tom Wall]… | Flickr TAD_CSE_1_Mallow_12_Dec_1970 | [Photographer: Tom A Davitt] … | Flickr SoB_CSE_1_Mallow_BFS_c1960s | [Photographer: Seán O’Brien] T… | Flickr NMA_CSE_2_Mallow_BFS_16_Nov_1962 (3) | [Photographer: Norman… | Flickr Of course, Accurascale have an 88DS in their range, but...

The Rustons are listed as (works numbers, dates and locations from the Irish industrial locos book, types checked in the Ruston locos tome): 88DS 252843 of 1948 (Carlow) 88DS 305322 of 1951 (Mallow) 88DS 312424 of 1951 (Thurles) 88DS 312425 of 1951 (Tuam, later Mallow) 88DS 382827 of 1955 (Carlow) 165DS 395302 of 1956 (Tuam) Incidentally, the IRRS industrial photo album is here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/albums/72157686685255922 And Ernie's equivalent is here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/albums/72157628618688939

Indeed - some good thoughts there. CSE Carlow initially used 3 Cockerill vertical boiler locos, later two Ruston diesels. Two of the O&Ks were transferred there in the 1950s but it's noted they only worked as stationary boilers. CSE Tuam had 3 O&Ks and later two Ruston diesels. CSE Thurles had 3 O&Ks and later one Ruston diesel. CSE Mallow had 3 O&Ks, also one Cockerill transferred from Carlow, and a couple of Rustons. There was some swapping of locos between sites. Of course CSE later bought most of the G611 class but that was after the little book was published.

Here are some of the books I have dedicated to Irish Industrial railways: Many of the more general Irish railway books have a section on industrial lines.