Mol_PMB

841 is the Tea Car of most interest to me, and the one I plan to build with my second model from these etches. I'll deal with that tomorrow, as it's complicated and there are even fewer good photos of it. However, it remained in use in AEC railcar sets in the early 1960s, being formed into two notable trains - one to Sligo where a railcar was completely burnt out and 841 was lucky to survive; and later, the very last train on the CBSCR too.

Next I'll look at 843. 841 and 843 remained much closer to their original condition and can reasonably be built from my etches with a bit of improvisation. In the IRRS archives there's a diagram 71 which is formally labelled for both 841 and 843. It's a different style to the 1924 diagram of 838, but does not appear to be dated. Again it carries a CIE stamp dated 1950 but the drawing itself looks older. The layout is similar, but not the same as, 838. The pantry was again installed at the 4-bay end, but the shape of the internal partitions was a bit different to 838. The diagram shows both external doors at this end, but one of them is blocked by a table. A cupboard is shown adjacent to the opposite door - possibly for trays? The circular items shown on the centreline of the coach are identified as Flettner ventilators - the rotating vents sometimes seen on the roofs of old buses and caravans. The side elevation on this diagram shows the side without the pantry, and does not indicate any external modifications compared to the original vehicle. Fortunately we have an excellent photo of 843 at Sligo in 1947 in the IRRS archives, although it also shows the non-pantry side: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53509172565/ Note here the vents above the large windows (as on 838) but only on the pantry-end saloon. And the large, central roof tank to supply water to the pantry. Also the gas lamp mounted above the corridor past the pantry. There may have been another over the pantry itself but I haven't found any photos of the other side. Looking inside, we can see the sliding door to the pantry and an internal bar across the large window. It also looks like the windows in the 4-bay end have been fitted with roller blinds instead of curtains at the unmodified end of the carriage. On the centreline of the roof, the Flettner ventilators can just be seen, and appear to match the positions shown on the diagram. The 1946 and 1953 CIE carriages listing have 843 as a tea car with 58 seats. From the Catering Department file in the IRRS archives, I made the following notes on 843: 843 Tea Car Nov-47 conversion to electric lighting authorised, but not done 843 Tea Car 31/10/1950 Hotels Dept proposed to release when new diners/buffets built 843 Tea Car 22/09/1952 In fleet, gas lighting, 16 seats, proposed for scrapping 843 Tea Car 26/11/1952 Proposed for AEC through-wiring but this to be cancelled and 33M, 34M, 37M and 876 to be converted instead. (this decision was changed and it did run in railcar trains for a short period) 843 Tea Car 01/12/1952 unsatisfactory in diesel trains. Proposed for scrap 843 Tea Car 17/08/1954 Has now been returned to traffic dept, no longer a catering car 843 Tea Car 04/10/1954 Already handed back to traffic dept 843 Tea Car 04/11/1954 Already handed back to traffic dept Note that the second reference listed it has having 16 seats. It was the catering department practice to only count the 'covers', i.e. seats at tables served from the counter. The diagram shows 18 seats at tables; perhaps some of these had been removed (which may have enabled the external doors to be re-commissioned). In the 1961 carriage register, 843 is listed as a 56-seat standard class carriage. The hand-back to the traffic department in 1954 had not resulted in its withdrawal, but the listing with only 56 seats suggests that the pantry had not been converted back into seating accommodation. The vehicle was scrapped in 1964. However, the IRRS has three photos of 843 at Cork circa 1964, not long before it was withdrawn. There's no question about its identity as we can read the number, and the presence of a coach in slightly grubby BnT livery tends to support the date. These photos suggest that 843 had a significant rebuild which removed all traces of the pantry and roof tanks, and returned it close to original condition but with smaller roof ventilators. I have to say that this amount of work for a 60-year-old carriage seems unlikely, but that's what the photographic evidence suggests. https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511484089/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511166071/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511484084 So, that's 843. 841 may be even more complicated...

I'll start writing about the three Tea Car conversions. Information is incomplete. I will consider each one individually, and I'll start with 838 because that was the first one converted and there's a bit more info about it. 838 was substantially rebuilt as a tea car in 1924, and at the same time the body received a higher elliptical roof and was partly re-panelled in the style of that time. Therefore it cannot easily be built from my etches, but it's useful to look at it anyway. As built, these coaches had the saloon divided into two parts - of 5 bays and 4 bays. 838 had its pantry and serving counter installed at the 4-bay end. The plan view shown on a GSR drawing with a 1950 CIE stamp on it was like this: The saloon at the other end seated 40, and the end with the counter had 18 seats with tables, giving a total of 58 as noted on the diagram. Note that neither of the external doors at the pantry end are shown on the drawing, and the position of one of them is blocked by a table. The 1946 and 1953 CIE carriages listing have 838 as a tea car with 58 seats. This IRRS photo dated 1947 shows the side with the passageway past the pantry (i.e. the pantry is at the left-hand end of the photo). The external door at that end does not have a class designation (which would be normal for a catering car) but there's no obvious indication that it is sealed up: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53509061459/ Clear photos of the other side are harder to find, but here's one from 1953 thanks to @Westcorkrailway And here's one from the IRRS dated 1952: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53507783362 And here's another photo of the pantry side in an early IRRS Journal: Note that these photos show long ventilators above the windows, which may have been considered necessary in the 1924 rebuild because these coaches didn't have many droplights for ventilation. There is also a diagram in the IRRS archives which shows the pantry side: These seem reasonably consistent - the small window beside the door was panelled over, and the large window was reduced in size. But the photos appear to show two small windows side by side (one possibly with a droplight) whereas the diagram only shows one small window. From the Catering Department file in the IRRS archives, I made the following notes on 838: 838 Tea Car 31/10/1950 Hotels Dept proposed to release when new diners/buffets built 838 Tea Car 22/09/1952 Diesel buffet car, Waterford route, electric lighting, 15 seats, proposed for scrapping 838 Tea Car 01/12/1952 unsatisfactory in diesel trains. Proposed for scrap 838 Tea Car 25/02/1953 Already converted for diesel trains, in service Dublin-Waterford 838 Tea Car 17/08/1954 Has now been returned to traffic dept, no longer a catering car 838 Tea Car 04/10/1954 Already handed back to traffic dept 838 Tea Car 04/11/1954 Already handed back to traffic dept. Fitted for diesel rail cars Note that the second reference listed it has having 15 seats. It was the catering department practice to only count the 'covers', i.e. seats at tables served from the counter. The diagram shows 18 seats at tables; perhaps some of these had been removed (which may have enabled the external doors to be re-comissioned). Elsewhere in the catering department file there are notes about the importance of fitting racks for trays in the railcar buffets. This is because the catering cars were expected to serve passengers throughout the train using trays - particularly the first class punters in the railcars. So maybe a tray rack took up some space and required seats to be removed? It's interesting that 838 was proposed for scrapping in 1952, but once it had been through-wired to work with the railcars (as an interim measure owing to delays on the new buffet cars) it became more useful. After it was no longer required as a Tea Car it was handed back to the traffic department in 1954, but it wasn't scrapped at that stage. Indeed, the 1961 CIE carriage register lists 838 as having been rebuilt again in 1957, with only 24 seats. I haven't found any late 1950s photos of it. The vehicle was finally withdrawn and scrapped in 1965. Now, you won't easily build 838 from my etches. But it's much better documented than the other two, so when I come to write about 841 and 843 I'll be referring back to this post.

I have made some more progress on the roof furniture but I have just made the frustrating discovery that I don't have enough gas lamp castings in stock. Literally hundreds of torpedo vents but only 8 gas lamps. So I need to place another order with Wizard... Anyway, with the partially-dressed roof trial fitted, it's starting to look more like a carriage: These vehicles were built with very large torpedo vents and some retained those until the end. But some had them replaced with smaller vents, which were mounted on square plates over the old large holes. So I've had fun plating over the holes, drilling through again, and fitting some small torpedo vents, to represent my prototype 840: Thanks again to Ernie for this photo!

Excellent - many thanks. It's good to see the interior structure so clearly. A cafe seems an appropriate use since 838, 841 and 843 were converted to tea cars. I'm still a bit short on hard evidence of the arrangement of the tea cars - the information I have suggests that all three were different, and there are few good photos. In due course I'll try to summarise what I do know in this thread. I have made some provision for modelling 841 or 843 from the kit.

I suspect there weren't really enough of them, and the cash-strapped NIR was trying to squeeze too much out of them. For a reliable service, you need at least two spare locos - one undergoing planned maintenance and another ready to go if there's a failure. NIR almost had that with the original scheme of 2+8 in summer and 1+5 in winter, assuming that the planned maintenance was mostly in the winter. But when the extra coaches were bought to enable 2 sets to run at the same time, there sometimes wasn't even one spare. Not to mention the uselessness of the 1 class for sustained heavy work, so the 101s got borrowed for engineers' trains too. The consequences were: on the Enterprise a single loco was often overloaded on a long train and had to be thrashed locos couldn't be spared for planned maintenance because they were all needed in traffic, so the maintenance wasn't done, or was rushed they wore out quickly and became unreliable when one suffered a major failure, the other two became even more overloaded Both the BR 20s and the CP 1400s were large fleets, and were generally well maintained. They also benefitted from a larger pool of spare parts (as well as more spare locos).

This IRRS (Bob Clements) photo dated 1933 shows one of these coaches in the GSR's brown and cream livery, first in the train: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53508723596/ The second coach is probably another of the same type (or very similar), but in a plainer livery. There's also one on the Kennelly Archive at Tralee in 1956, it crops up in the background of a wedding photo: https://www.kennellyarchive.com/media/4a72d095-c83d-41af-9593-a89e997a7ead I have not yet found a photo of one of these in black and orange / BnT although it's possible as most survived until 1963-65. Some of the equivalent full brakes (similar underframe and body profile) did carry the later livery and lasted into the early 1970s. There were two variants. Vehicles 1114, 1115, 1116, 1117 had a guard's compartment and duckets, and external sliding doors: https://www.flickr.com/photos/152343870@N07/52069133025 https://www.flickr.com/photos/152343870@N07/40130035371 https://www.flickr.com/photos/152343870@N07/52049825068 Vehicles 849 and 850 were just parcel vans, with no guard's facilities. Built with two sets of hinged double doors each side, at least one of them later had a third set of doors added: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511597515/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54777522947 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/5961789232 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/51294806017 Looking ahead, it would be reasonably straightforward to produce an alternative body etch for one of these variants.

Many thanks - looks superb! Has anyone seen the RPSI’s 837 recently? It would be good to add an updated photo of that on this thread.

Because I’m trying to cater for several variants, many of the roof holes are half-etched (underneath) so the position is marked and you can drill or cut the ones needed for the chosen prototype. If modelling the carriages as-built, or 836 as preserved, there are no roof tanks to worry about. And no need to cut out the rectangular holes. The lavatory and tea car variants have roof tanks - two different arrangements - as well as some alternative vent and lamp positions.

If you empty enough beer cans any shape of roof would look OK!

Rolling the roof went OK but making the roof tanks for the lavatories turned out to be more of a faff than I had expected. I got there in the end, though not quite in the planned sequence. Hopefully I'll have some time tomorrow for more roof detailing. I've also discovered a small dimensional error on the roof fixing cross-beams, which are about 0.8mm too long. I've bodged the ones I've got but will have to consider whether to modify the artwork for future production.

You’re absolutely right, it’s easy to get blinkered by the tools and materials in front of you. On the other side of the coin I’ve just spent about 3 hours fighting with etched sheet metal to make some roof tanks that might have been better 3D printed!

18/19 August is midweek. Do you mean July?

These may also be of interest: DeDietrich ish: https://ebay.io/m/K890LZ 073: https://ebay.io/m/xSvkc6 Genesis van: https://ebay.io/m/TTPLBK

This is just as I remember it, even down to the mismatched cabside window:

Blue with a few random orange bits.

I’m afraid I couldn’t resist 112 in the condition it worked down south for a year or two. Many fond memories of that machine on railtours, beet traffic and general duties, even if it doesn’t suit my modelling timeline. At the less expensive end of the spectrum I got a couple of the IRM side-door ISO containers which I had been looking out for.

Maybe so, although there are more items being uploaded as we speak. Many of the weathered items are well done, and a lot cheaper than paying for a custom weathering job on a new model. Also there are some of the scarcer models available, admittedly not so cheap. There's always the shipping and customs charges issues to consider of course, and these may appeal more to customers in GB.

More being uploaded now. I just had an expensive 'accident'...

Rails have just listed a load of iRM and Murphy models on eBay, including some scarcer models and some nicely-weathered stock. Worth a look. https://ebay.io/m/dKTYjF

Thankse George! I try to design the asssembly so that most of the soldering can be done from the inside. Then small amounts of 145C solder, carrs green flux, and the soldering iron set to 300C or even 350C, and get in and out quickly. Even works for small whitemetal castings if you're careful.

My weekend project has been the etched kit for the GSWR 50’ gangwayed open third. I have completed the underframe, sides, ends and the seats for the interior. Still to do are the bogies, roof, and various details. Here are photos of the parts made so far and trial assembled. I only put a few of the seats in. I’m building the version with lavatories fitted, as seen in Ernie’s super photo here:

The end detailing is now complete. These little bits always take ages!

I’m looking forward to seeing this come together. You’re much better at finishing things than I am!

Super - it’s great to see so much of the railway and some good long trains in the landscape. Despite the battles with weeds and leaves, the railway has really matured into the garden, definitely looks like it belongs and very natural.