Mayner

850 seems to have been intended as a prototype for a light modern go almost anywhere passenger/mixed traffic tank. The Wall Street Crash put paid to building further new locos for 6 years when the GSR designed a passenger version of the "Improved" J15 with the 5 670 class 0-6-2Ts. 850 managed to briefly escape Amiens St-Greystones and was tried on Waterford-Limerick trains during the 1930s.

Yes. Small scale plans of most of the 1st generation of railcars and a lot of useful information and photos.

http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/entry.php/107-850-Nearly-there!

The time available and whether you prefer building models or running models are probably the biggest factors in deciding to work in 21mm gauge or OO. I have been working in 21mm to the slightly coarser EM standard for about 30 years but still have not had the time of space to build a layout P4 is probably a better option than EM standards for steam locos like GNR 4-4-0s on account of tight clearances between wheels, though its nearly as difficult to get these engines to run satisfactorily in OO, much simpler to keep to diesels. It would be worth while contacting the South Dublin Model Railway Club to get an idea of whats involved in building in 21mm gauge to P4 standards. They built a model of Beltubet to P4 standards and are the custodians of Tony Mills Adavadoyle a P4 GNR Main Line layout featuring a large junction station.

It will be interesting to see how the re-launched MIR wagon kits fare especially with the Tara's & Ammonia tank wagons duplicated by IRM and SSM. The hobby is shifting more from kit and scratchbuilding to rtr with the availability of small runs of highly detailed rtr models from China. The loco kits were dropped and the wagons re-tooled as resin kits about 10-15 years ago.

It might be worth while contacting the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in Cultra GNR, NCC & BCDR carriage and wagon drawings are available from Cultra, so its possible drawings for GNR assets in Northern Ireland went to the UFTM rather than the IRRS

Alan Edgar (RM Web De Seby) as built some excellent S4 models of NCC & GNR locos including a scratch built NCC Whippet and a Mogul built using a set of Worsley Works parts http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/80681-an-ncc-whippet/page-2 It looks like the BNCR tender underframe was wide enough for a standard LMS tender tank.

I wonder if China is offering to build a TGV to establish a presence for CNR in Europe?

The kit can be assembled in either late MGWR or GSR/CIE condition with round topped superheated boiler. The kit can be assembled with the late MGWR GNR style curved canopy cab, or the later Inchacore style of cab with either circular or rectangular spectacle plates. The GSR & CIE cut slots in the valences of most MGWR from the mid1930s onwards, the odd engine escaped including one of the Achill Bogie 4-4-0s I originally designed the kit with solid valences with the option of the builder forming the slots by drilling out and filing half etched sections of the valence. I will look at releasing the kit with the option of solid or slotted valences as most of the demand is for the locos in late GSR/CIE condition. The design of the kit is influenced by North Eastern Kits Tennant 2-4-0. The RM Web article will give an idea of what's involved in building the 650 Class though I have added non-working inside valve gear. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/58520-ner-tennant-2-4-0/ I have completed what I hope are the final ammendments to the drawings for the photo engraver and send the patterns on the 1st stage of the mould making and casting process next week.

I normally use the Kadee No36 long coupler for Irish stock, https://kadee.com/htmbord/page36.htm Using the No 5 the draft gear box has to be packed out past the buffer beams, not sure if a long shank coupler is available that will work with the 232 gearbox

As JHB says it probably easier and more satisfying to scratch build an Irish Station building, the style of architecture and building materials were quite different to England and Wales. The nearest you will get to a generic Irish design are Mill's brick station buildings on the GNR such as Malahide, George Wilkinson's buildings on the MGWR Sligo & Cavan Branches and the DWWR Dublin-Wexford line between Harcourt St & Enniscorthy and Nenagh on the GSWR After building Workhouses George Wilkinson the Architect went on to build equally forboding railway stations http://eiretrains.com/Photo_Gallery/Railway%20Stations%20D/Dromod/IrishRailwayStations.html#Dromod_20100816_012_CC_JA.jpg The Waterford Limerick and Western had a nice cottage style of station building for smaller stations on the Limerick-Sligo and Thurles_Clonmel line http://eiretrains.com/Photo_Gallery/Railway%20Stations%20K/Kiltimagh/IrishRailwayStations.html#Kiltimagh_20040703_005_CC_JA.jpg

Possibly the Liverpool factory. The whole set up has a post WW1 trading estate feel to it like Park Royal in London or Trafford Park Manchester. The gantry is similar to the gantry built to service the MGWR track re-laying train in Mullingar during the early 1920s The van on the left has a Lancashire & Yorkshire look to it. It looks like Jacobs was a progressive company to see the advantages of containers in the early 1920s or did they go shopping for war surplus equipment like the MGWR?

Jeremy Suter produced a number of high quality whitemetal kits of Irish wagons about 20 years ago including GNR & NCC flat wagons with bread containers, a UTA version of a GNR Bread Van, MGWR Loco Coal Wagon and GNR Standard Van. The kits were suitable for OO, EM or 21mm gauge. As far as I know no more were produced once the initial batch sold out. Jeremy was the Scale4 Society Sales Officer and also supplied track and back to back gauges for 21mm gauge

Most of the main lines had scheduled mail services, though TPOs only ran on certain routes, principally Dublin-Cork and Dublin-Galway. For many years Mayo mails were carried on a Night Mail train that connected with the Galway Mail at Athlone, Sligo-Limerick and later Ballina-Limerick trains carried mail in the guards compartment. CIE also had bogie TPOs similar in general outline to the Hornby model and even picked up and dropped mail bags at speed on the Cork line into the 1970s

To get back to Tony's original post came across a colour photo of a Jacobs container in a photo of Phoenix shunting at Strabane in 1959 in Irish Railways in Colour a Second Glance Midland Publishing 1995. . Phoenix is shunting a cut of wagons that includes an open wagon loaded with a Jacobs Container, a CDR or S&LR van and a dropside wagon loaded with what looks like a BR Type A container. Former GNR U Class Lough Melvin has been re-numbered as UTA 65

Apparently the CVR General Manager and some of the Aughnacloy Works staff built a scale model of a Caledonian 4-4-0 in the evenings after work

They would have mainly come on the BR Irish Sea sailings though Belfast Dublin, Rosslare & Waterford Ports. Most traffic from points in Northern Ireland to the South would have been carried in conventional wagon loads, the Donegal was they exception containers were used to overcome the transhipment problem with the break of gauge and to allow Donegal traffic to travel under bond from Dundalk to destinations in Donegal. A lot of the Irish Sea container traffic would have been meat from plants in Munster and the West to the London market and would have had to have been handled smartly by both CIE & BR. Oliver Doyle wrote about weekend specials of meat in containers from the Clover Meats factory in Waterford to Rosslare. Normally the traffic was carried on BR Waterford-Milford Haven service which did not run on Sundays.

It would take a highly skilled pattern maker or 3D modeller to design a pattern or tooling for a large complex loco like a WT. Its possible to produce a wax master for investment casting in metal or a mould for resin casting using 3D printing techniques. http://marksmodelworks.weebly.com/scratchbuilding-aids.html

I look the little touches like the beet loading ramp and small container gantry typical of the era and each an individual wagon load. Looks like things could get a bit hectic during the beet season crossing trains with short loops and no lay-by or headshunt to shunt a train clear of the main line or running loop typical of most secondary main lines!

You could always pretend CIE re-bogied 233 with a spare set of 141 bogies, there is a parallel with the Chicago Rock Island and Pacific which re-built some of its Alco FA units with power units and trucks (bogies) salvaged from scrapped wartime General Motors FT locomotives

A rtr model of a WT is more likely to be a commercial success than an etched brass or composite brass and whitemetal kit. In my experience the proportion of modellers prepared to tackle a metal kit is a small subset of the Irish modelling community. The majority of modellers based in Ireland appear to have a preference for RTR or body line kits suitable for a rtr chassis as the tendency is to model the railways with which they are familiar while overseas (incl modellers based on the British Mainland) modellers of an Irish prototype have a preference for kit and scratchbuilding in order to model the more obscure and unusual incl the steam era and the narrow gauge. A one piece resin body in NCC, UTA or NIR livery designed to fit the Hornby 2-6-4T chassis would be a low risk option and would probably sell well. While fewer people are likely to tackle a more accurate model of a WT based on a set of Worsley Works scratchbuilders parts I would not dismiss the option. Alan Doherty is on record that he is prepared to produce a "kit" if there is demand for 4 or more sets of parts, the WT is essentially an LMS design the majority of the castings may be available from the UK avoiding the need for expensive pattern making and custom casting for boiler fittings and the majority of detail casings.

I was thinking more of the traditional B type furniture or meat containers which CIE tended to load into open wagons rather than the more modern ISO containers. Perhaps Leslie might commission a Lyons Tea or GNR Furniture container

Tim Cramer built an O Gauge model of superheated D14 No 61 in lined green CIE livery and published an article on the "Irish Greyhounds" incl scale drawings in an Irish Modelling special published with British Railway Modelling April 2014. The special included articles with coloured photos on Tony Raggs O Gauge Knockmore Junction & Noel Dodd's Greystones layout a staple of the Irish exhibition circuit during the late 1980s

Of course they did! a weeks supply of fig rolls and cream crackers arriving at Ballinamore on the C&L. Presumably the containers were loaded at the Bishop Street factory and distributed by rail and road throughout the country. Another Irish staple Lyons Tea was shipped by rail for many years in Type B containers in open wagons and later ISO containers http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/gansg/5-unit/unitload1.htm

Oil firing tends to work best in locos designed for oil firing, not sure its cleaner than coal from an environmental perspective. Like the GWR CIE converted many locos to oil firing during the 1947 coal shortage, but abandoned oil firing once coal became readily available. One of the problems was excessive boiler/firebox wear on old locos due to a combination of deferred maintenance during the Emergency and the greater stresses from oil firing. The Festiniog fired their locos for many years on waste oil, and more recently diesel before returning to coal firing