Mayner

That Laminate really looks striking. An untarnished A Class and a solid rake of Laminates would have looked clean streamlined and modern compared to the existing stock. CIEs brave but unsuccessful attempt at a 1950s streamliner http://streamlinermemories.info/?p=946. Just might have worked had access to 2 pack paint technology.

Its possible that CIE may have been trying to copy the look of an American streamliner and break away from the traditional railway greens and lakes with the 'silver" finish. Its likely the locos and coaches were finished with a clear laquer or varnish to seal the surface and provide some damage/scratch resistance, but was totally unsuitable for the harsh railway environment, both unpainted aluminium and stainless steel will eventually turn black given the right conditions I use Tayima AS 12 Bare-metal Silver aerosol for the vans with a clear sealer, with suitable red decals by SSM. I have tried various aluminium and silver finishes and found the AS 12 most suitable with good scratch resistance before sealing. The Laminates & 4w vans seem to be the only coaches introduced in unpainted aluminium, the Park Royals seem to have been introduced in green with silver bogies.

The drop down doors on open wagons are designed so that they are clear of the railhead/inside the loading gauge to avoid a West Ealing style situation http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/eventsummary.php?eventID=135. The beet opens were unloaded in the beet factory's by high pressure water jet, possibly moved with the doors down wonder if there is any archive of the unloading on youtube

A traffic in raw milk from some of the producing counties to the processing plants might develop if some of the larger dairy companies like Kerry, Glanbia or Dairygold were to amalgamate and centralise processing at a small number of plants. All that's need is a siding at a collecting point, a siding at the processing plant, some flat wagons and suitable ISO containers http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/21401/milk-trains. Butter, cheese and meat were important traffics for the railways the old companies had special ventilated wagons for butter and meat traffic, reefers and insulated containers were used when the remaining traffic was containerised in the 70s. Up to the 1960s cattle traffic was pretty much from the breeding counties in the West as stores to be fattened in the East or on the hoof to the UK. Meat processing took off in the 50s with rail served (almost) plants such as Grand Canal Street, Roscrea and Leixlip ( Leixlip & Hazlehatch as railheads). Roscrea had a cattle bank with a race leading directly into the meat plant and gantries for loading containers. Rathkeale and Dromad had gantries for loading containers from the local meat works.

Dave. Great to see that the model of Carlow Signal Box still survives. Built about 35 years ago for the first MRSI O gauge layout, there was also a model of Enniscorthy and Cahir station buildings

Its possible that some wagons had wooden and others steel floors. The wagons dumped at Liffey Junction in the early 80s all seem to have had wooden floors, in somewhat poor condition after being used as spoil wagons for the DART. There was a piece in Irish Railfans News of the floors of wagons in fertiliser traffic being painted in epoxy paint to resist corrosion, which would make sense with a steel floor. In the early 60s there were rail linked fertiliser plants in Dublin (Gouldings), but also plants in Foynes and in Wicklow. NET seems to have supplied raw fertiliser in bulk to Gouldings and the Wicklow plant when the Shelton Ammonia plant first came on line. Wagons in fertiliser traffic would have run sheeted as you did not want to risk a train load of ammonium nitrate getting wet.

It looks like Merrion Street may soon be faced with similar decisions about the future of Iarnrod Eireann  " In view of the capital funding and operational subvention necessary to maintain and operate our rail network, together with the levels of revenue generated from the network, the current situation with regard to rail is not financially sustainable. The need to ensure value for money must be central to future rail policy. Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport paper "Investing in our transport future A strategic framework for investment in land transport" Interesting the paper indicates that the road user is a nice source of revenue for the Exchequer. Which collects over €4.8 billion a year in tax and excise duty from the road user and spends around €1.32 billion a year (capital & current) on road and rail transport and infrastructure.

Not just Ireland and the UK Governments seem to be taking a very hard look at the future of the railways. NZ Treasury urges Government to consider closing down most of rail network http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/70115591/treasury-urged-government-to-consider-closing-most-of-kiwirail The railway carries around 17 million tonnes annually about over a 4000Km system at roughly 3 times the freight traffic density of CIE in the 60s & 70s. Low prices and poor demand for commodities like coal, logs and dairy products is adversely effecting railway profitability and Treasury loses patience and pulls the plug. The whole business feels like deja vu, massive Government investment in rail like the British Rail Modernisation Plan, CIE in the 50s and AMTRAK in the 1990s result in failure and retrenchment.

De-regulating road haulage in the early 1990s probably had a greater influence on the run down of IEs freight division than the new roads. Up to the 1990s competition with CIE for freight traffic was restricted under regulations intended to protect the GSR, basically customers had the choice of using CIE, a handful of Licensed Carriers or having to buy their own Fleet of trucks. IE more or less gave up on Sundries traffic as Irish and Multinational logistics companies entered the market, container and bulk traffic held up but costs increased and the railway continued to loose market share and become less relevant as the economy expanded during the Celtic Tiger Years. Judging by experience in other countries any revival in railfreight is more likely to be driven and financed by large customers like port, logistic and mining companies than the Government subsidising IE to run specific services. The biggest obstacles to railfreight in Ireland seems to be that its probably quicker, cheaper and easier to send high value freight from Ireland to destinations in the UK & the European Mainland by road than rail and difficulty in finding a customer that can regularly load a 100TEU train. The Metroport services are bit like Waterford or Belfast building inland ports in Clondalkin. Kiwirail is contracted to run 4 -105 TEU (35 wagon) trains between the port of Tauranga & Southdown Auckland daily. http://www.port-tauranga.co.nz/images.php?oid=3009 Auckland Port recently built its own internal port in South Auckland with a shuttle rail service to reduce congestion in the port and act as a buffer to allow ships to be loaded and unloaded quickly. http://www.poal.co.nz/facilities_services/facilities/rail_exchange.htm

One of the underling problem is the loss of experienced railway staff and managers since privatisation. Many of the more experienced engineers mangers have either retired or ended up working overseas. Re-locating the Network Rail head office to Milton Keynes did not help staff retention either.

No such luck the closest I got to a railway line in the 60s & 70s was sneaking away to take a photo of 5C in Ennis while my parents were shopping in Ennis while on holidays in West Clare in 73 Film was rationed for family photos strictly no trains. The father was a fisherman and eventually got to understand about 15 years later that we had a lot in common after a fruitless search for the Ammonia and Fertiliser trains on the South Eastern, though we did manage to bag the afternoon down passenger in Rathdrum

The West Clare does not seem to have been completely put off by the 0-6-0Ts and went back to Bagnall in 1907-8 for No11 Kilkee a 4-6-0T. After a series of 0-6-2T & 2-6-2T locos the West Clare settled on the 4-6-0T arrangement in the early 1900s. Although built by Hunslet No 1 Kilrush was supposed to be very close to No 11 including the unusual Bagnall-Price valve gear http://transportsofdelight.smugmug.com/RAILWAYS/IRISH-RAILWAYS/NARROW-GAUGE-LOCOMOTIVES/17846666_q858X4#!i=1512097327&k=kDQf3RZ&lb=1&s=A.

Coaking coal not in great demand at the moment with China cutting back on steel production.

The only locos specifically built for an Irish railway company that I can think of were the four 0-6-0Ts supplied to the West Clare in the 1880, which were too light & underpowered for the line. Much later one of the LMS Jinties 7456 supplied to the NCC was a Bagnall

Came across this a week filming trains last year during the winter school holidays. Mostly filmed day and night on the outskirts of Christchurch Days and on the Midland coal line classic GM & GE power

Thanks Kieran Josfstadt's photo almost blew me away so much atmosphere almost timeless although the yellow British Railways Scammells and cars on open wagons sets the scene in the late 50s early 60s. Going back to July 2005 the only remaining container services were from the North Wall to Cork and Ballina, trains seem to have been fully loaded during the last week of July, the yard even looked busier with containers stacked awaiting loading or collection. Not a great photo but probably the last time an 071 worked a container train to Cork Passing Straffan 201s were the usual power Its hard to see how IE could break even let alone make a profit with the CPW trains restricted to 12 wagons. View of the "groupage" area 17 July Cork Liner appears to have departed, what looks like the Ballina Liner being loaded on the right. The Cork Liner usually appeared to be loaded on the road under the tail of the gantry, the 5 roads under the gantry used to continue under the Sherriff Street bridge into the sundries loading area, now the National Conference Centre. The day the Sun came out 20 July loading the Cork Liner My scoop of the week the up Claremorris Liner Possibly running late container traffic to Claremorris had ceased but Claremorris was now the railhead for Galway and possibly Sligo keg traffic. Empty ESSO tank wagons from Claremorris bring up the end of the liner. Possibly the oldest wagons in revenue service at the time, they were owned by ESSO built in the late 1950s and re-gauged for use on the Sligo, & Oranmore-Claremorris oil trains in the late 60s. The ESSO wagons were quickly scrapped after the ending of Oil traffic to Sligo and Claremorris and the remains of the Midland Yard is now occupied by what was originally intended to be a "temporary" Dublin Docklands Station

Its hard to believe that IE container train services ended nearly 10 years ago. The run down between the closing of the Holyhead Yard container terminal in 2003 and the ending of the remaining container train services to Cork and Ballina in July 2015 was rapid to say the least. I had to return to Ireland in May and July as a witness in some court cases from work.. It turned out I was not called for the July case, so ended up spending several days train spotting witnessing the last days of the Liners and the arrival of the MK4s but that was a !!!! wet day and I had to run for the airport. May 2005 220 emerging from the Park Tunnel with the down Cork Liner The smoke screen was from a BoBo "yankee engine" with a worn prime mover piloting RPSI 186 through the tunnel. 220 with a lightly loaded Cork Liner checked by a signal at Island Bridge Junction 29/5/2015 The Liner was checked by what looked like an Up Waterford passenger, while waiting the driver got off and manually released the brakes on the CPWs using the loco brake to hold the train. The driver explained that the loco compressor would take so long to release the wagon brakes he would probably loose his path through the junction. The culprit 6105 leading an Up Waterford passenger Devastation of the North Wall The once great Holyhead Yard reception roads reduced to a backshunt for trains from the GSWR & GNR lines to access the Midland Yard. The Midland Yard 27 May 2005 Just two roads in use for loading containers empty CPW wagons for Cork, conventional flats for container traffic to Ballina The lines under the gantry in the background lead under the Sherriff Street bridge to an area used for loading container traffic that was not handled in the Holyhead Yard mainly sundries and scrap steel for the Galway Metal Company. The gantry was originally intended for transferring containers between fixed formation trains rather than shunting individual wagon loads, in practice this part of the Midland Yard continued to function as a marshalling yard for traffic to and from the Midland, Holyhead and Dardanells Yards until the function was transferred to the re-modelled East Wall Yard in 2003/4.

Excellent work as always. For a moment I thought you were throwing the cat among the pigeons by repainting one your own scratchbuilt 201s or Marks Models resin version from the days Irish rtr diesels were just a gleam in Paddy Murphys eye.

Final test builds of these vans are complete and I am currently accepting orders/expressions of interest in the MGWR Horse Box and MGWR Meat Van Kits for delivery Autumn 2015. Kits priced $92NZ (£40) with wheels or $80 NZ (£5) without wheels shipping $18nz(£ 8 stg). The vans can be assembled in OO or 21mm gauge, rigid or compensated chassis. The vans are suitable for assembly by solder or superglue.

The drawings for the Standard Open, Brake Standard Open and Brake Standard Generating Steam Van are ready for the engravers should have the etches for the SO & BSO should be available from August. The BSGSV may take a little longer as the overlays are a bit more involved and may require revision before I release the fret.

The issue of mothballed lines is really a Government policy issue than anything else. The disused lines are a liability risk & draw resources away from the operating railway, its cheaper than paying IE to maintain the lines or heaven's forbid opening track maintenance and railway operation up to competitive tender. The mothballing of the South Wexford and Mullingar-Mullingar was quite different to lines like New Ross and Ballinacouty which were converted to engineers sidings only accessible for engineers traffic, usually the weed killer and track -laying trains to swap out good for worn track panels to keep secondary main lines open.

Most regulators are in a similar position but catching up with the technology, a local man received a written warning for flying at night into restricted airspace. Irish Aviation Authority guidance and regulation governing un-manned flight is similar to new Zealand //www.iaa.ie/media/DRONESQuestionsandAnswersFinal1.pdf . It looks like pilots for commercial drone use will be subject to licensing.

There is a colour photograph by John Edgington of a green liveried D303 on page 87 of Irish Railways in Colour from Steam to Diesel 1955-67 Tom Ferris 1992 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Irish-Railways-Colour-Diesel-1955-67/dp/1857800001 The photo taken in 1956 is a panorama of the Holyhead Yard with D303 shunting some wagons, the loco is quite clean and seems to be in the late 1950s light green with eau-del nil lettering, no snail or eau-de-nil lining below the gutter line, the chassis and outside cranks are in shadow but steps and sandboxes are in green. John Edgington's photos are worth looking out for as they seem to have been mainly in colour and as he seems to have recorded the wider rail scene rather than just locos. The editor of New Irish Lines may have the photographers contact details.

The night time photos are very atmospheric, the feel of an Irish village at night

I don't think a lawyer would get to far with "public ownership" as a defence for flying a drone over an airport, military base, prison, or other publically owned property without permission. The railways may be in public ownership, but entering CIE/IE property without permission and flying a drone within the railway loading gauge is likely to be trespassing.