Southern Yard

According to the comments on another YouTube video Bittern averaged 93mph for 6 miles! Not bad for a steam engine. Agree there's a big difference between both countries on how we view our heritage, Ireland was an early adopter to railways but we view it as something the British built hence we don't value railways for heritage value. At least we can enjoy what we have here and the events like this in the UK.

Bittern is hardly breaking sweat looking at those videos, and looks like it has a lot left in the tank. Lovely sound from one of the finest locomotives ever built. You have to admire the lengths they goto in the UK to further the steam preservation movement with these type of events. Bigger population and deeper pockets are a big factor of course. Tornado will be next for 90mph.

The timber train parked in the tuam bay got into trouble between Balla and claremorris and it was decided to let the ballina branch set go ahead of the Westport - Dublin service and pushed into claremorris. While this was going on it was decided to let Fridays only Dublin - ballina service proceed to claremorris to cross the Westport - Dublin train rather than in Ballyhaunis. The timber got fixed and went the next day. Made for a lot of activity on a Friday evening. You never know ttc0169 may just model this some day!

I think it's 1983 not 100% though. The sprayer was probably the most interesting train in Ireland by the late 70s early 80s as it travelled lines with no traffic at all!

In this image below from 2005 four trains were in the vicinity of Claremorris station and two trains definitely weren't scheduled to be in the station at this particular time and the third generally wouldn't have been, but there was a reason why. Can anyone guess the sequence of events?

Hopefully it is our else the line will end up like this scene......just a memory.

Could pay for future expansion of Tara jcn!!

Noel, you'll have to start planning open days. With the variety of stock you could definitely charge an entrance fee!

Wow...A mixed black and tan pair haven't seen one of those shots before. Great era with different liveries, motive power and coaches. Locos generally were kept very clean in the 70s , no odd doors to be seen on locos in those days. Is it just me or does anyone else think that the 121s looked really smart in the black and tan livery, by far their best livery. Made them very photogenic!

Great pics some lovely layouts and those 071s/111s are the business no matter what livery they're in! I also liked the stand with all the paintings, do you have the name of the person who does these?

So I suppose the question is did they ever work them in supertrain livery?

I've been searching for pictures of pairs of 121s hauling mk3s in Supertrain livery but they seem to be very rare. Did they haul the mk3s when new? I've seen and have pictures of 141/181s hauling mk3s in all supertrain livery (locos and coaches) but a pair of 121s seems rare. Anybody have any they can share or do you have notes recording such movements?

Once the rails get lifted you'll never see them back. Does new Ross really need cycle way? Who paid for the clearance work?

Here are three from my own collection. I didn't have the best quality camera back then! Quiet a bit of variety, a 80 class, a 121 hauled push pull and CIE liveried 141s. My summers as a kid were spent chasing and photographing this type of stuff.

Not my photo found it on flickr and was looking for a photo that showed off the IR livery to good effect, its the copyright of 'flickrway'. Lovely composition highlighting a great livery and no red warning panels either.

Another them were the days...........knock specials were great for utilising freight only routes! Copyright the turfburner from Geograph.ie

The best livery on these is definitely the IR orange black and white lined!

Agree about the 071s working hard as I always estimated timber trains to be 600-700 tonnes. A good location to observe how heavy these trains are is from the road bridge in the centre of Claremorris. All loaded timbers stop in the station so the straps on the wagons are checked. To tackle the climb out of Claremorris the driver will be in notch 8 as he passes under the road bridge which significantly vibrates from the noise! I observed this last Wednesday with 086 in charge and the noise was deafening.........heaven!

We should probably get a syndicate together on this board to do the euro millions!

Why would 800 be out of guage? I don't know whether the hammer blow is a real issue as my research indicates that the use of 3 cylinders meant this wasn't a big issue when they first became operational. And remember all jointed track too. The real issue is cost and with our population size it would be difficult for it to pay its way, but it is worth debating this once a year. If the RPSI haven't preserved the few locos back in the 60s where would we be now. Its not totally unrealistic to think 800 could make a comeback with some deep pockets and a bit of positive thinking! Those railtours in the UK are big business for internal tourism and the 'tornado' affect had a big impact on it.

I wonder are these axle loading restrictions due to just being IE policy or actually based on limitations of railway infrastructure. You'd hope after all the investment in recent years that things might have changed. How did the 800 class manage all these years ago on jointed track? Any ideas as to the cost of rebuilding 800?

Yes that was an issue 60 years ago but is it still an issue in 2013? It weighs over 80 ton and axle load of 21 tons you'd imagine route availability shouldn't be too restricted.

Lovely model, one of the finest locomotives to grace the rails in Ireland and the UK. Looking at he 800 class and the LMS Royal Scots class it's like they were seperated a birth, their proportions are near identical. Both are 3 cylinder loco's too. Though it seems the 800 class were more powerful initially while the royal scots had to be rebuilt. If you want to hear what an 800 potentially sounded like go to YouTube and check out the many videos if 46115 Royal Scots Guardsman in a livery not too dissimilar to the 800 class. How much would it cost to get 800 back on the rails €1.5m -€2m?

1 hr 30 to Gort from Galway the IE timetable says its 46 mins and its not 20 mins to drive either. Improvements have been made to journey times with a max of 80 mph now allowed between athenry and ennis in certain sections. A recent trip on one of the mid week afternoon services from Galway the train was well loaded leaving athenry and we arrived in ennis 48 mins later which is significantly better running than before. While better it can be improved further still with elimination of some more restrictions. Actually ennis limerick section is the achillies heel now with a 50 mph max limit.

It's worth noting that the occasion of 055 and the E class in Tuam was the movement of the WISRA stock from Attymon to Tuam as part of them becoming Westrail and setting up their base there. A55 / 055 was a regular on the Limerick - Sligo route down through the years and also hauled the coal and oil on numerous occasions along with fertilser specials. Anybody know what name she had? All the a class were unofficially named and were written on the inside of the cab. Does anybody have the complete list?