Mayner

Besides the GNR locos and borrowed UTA Castle, J15s also showed up at Ballyhaise, there is a photo of one in Belturbet recovering material from the C&L in PJ Flannigans C&L Irish Photo Album and in CIE days a J15 caused consternation when it arrived in Dundalk from Inny Junction without a (GN) Pilot man on the Weed Spray I always wondered about that A Class hauled GAA special to Monaghan did it work in from Dundalk over the Irish North or over the Midland line. There is a photo of the train in Monaghan & the 1st coach looks like one of the ex LNWR coaches bought by the GNR during the 1940s. I suppose it depends on whether it was bringing supporters from the Midlands to a match in Monaghan, or Monaghan supports elsewhere. The Clones-Cavan line seems to have been much more "main line" in status than the ex-MGWR line from Inny Junction. The Great Northern line seems to have been important enough to have had a relatively frequent direct service to Belfast complete with corridor stock, while GSR patrons had to make do with square wheelers and change for Dublin at Mullingar. CIE threw the towel in fairly quickly discontinuing Mullingar-Cavan passenger services and closing the Killeshandra line. I might have to re-write history a little bit with a joint Midland & GNR Kells-Cavan-Enniskillen line. The track rationalisation seems to have taken place in GNR days very shortly after the ending of passenger services, its recorded in the Oct 57 IRN, its still leaves me wondering whether the crew of the Clones-Cavan goods, ran direct to Belturbet, shunted the yard then reversed back 4 miles to the junction, with the risk of de-railment and buffer lock, before continuing down the main line to Cavan or had a means of running round at the junction.

JHB The scenarios are limitless the GNR remaining independent of CIE & the UTA with Irish North and Ulster Railway lines surviving and modernised with fast Belfast-Cavan-Enniskillen sprinter railcar services and German diesel hydraulics on freight services. Heavy cattle and later container traffic from the Midlands and South to the Port of Belfast over the Central of Ireland line from Portlaoise to Mullingar and Midland Cavan Branch, perhaps mulit-unit lash ups of black and silver MGWR F Units or Blue and Cream GNR G8 & 12 diesels;). The Midland & Great Northern seriously considered amalgamation in the 1920s and the South Eastern did not want to have anything to do with the GSR. Looking at photos of Ballyhaise there appears to have connected at the island platform. There was not enough room for the branch loco to run-round without blocking the main line, so the branch train probably had to shunt to the middle road or "branch" platform to run round. The post 1957 rationalisation would have made life interesting if the Dundalk-Cavan goods were working the branch. In the absence of a run-round loop at the junction, did they run separate Clones-Belturbet and Clones-Cavan trips and spend another 2-3 hours on the road or break up, re-marshal and run round their train using the goods shed road. There is a photo of a Big D approaching Ballyhaise with a freight from Cavan in 1956 in the Great Northern picture album, probably about 30 wagons not exactly short.

Hi Richard. Good to see you are back try the Ordnace Survey map viewer http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,591271,743300,0,10. does not seem to be working at the moment but old layout at Ballyhaise is definitely on it.

Definitely what the Yanks call a signature structure, not sure how effective they would have been if there had of been in the face of a large scale invasion.

Possibly Ulster Transport Railways during the hand-over from UTA to NIR, The GNRB was only dissolved when CIE took over The County Donegal Railway's road transport services in the early 1970s

Governments have been struggling with this problem since the 1950s and I am beginning to believe that the Stormont Government was correct in its analysis in the 195os that investing in the railways was a waste of time and money. While the railways in Ireland and the UK are probably carrying more passengers than ever, overal traffic carried by rail is fairly insignificant in the overall scheme of things and their financial positions is probably worse than it was 60 years ago with few if any services breaking even. While a private operator may be able to achieve savings through less staff and lower wages, the Government will still be expected to burden the cost of providing and maintaining the infrastructure and rolling stock. We have a bizzare situation in Auckland where Veolia operate trains owned by the City Council funded by the rates on track owned and maintained by a state owned railway company. The Council is charged the full economic cost for infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance, Veolia receives a subsidy and a management fee, the whole lot is charged to the rates 3-4% use the trains, roads are pay as you go excise on fuel and motor licensing fees, which is the fairer?

Looks like your right Seamus the coat of arms is on the cover of "The Dingle Train".

1. The Derry Central( along the Bann from Magherafelt to Macfinn) "Cead Mile Failte" 3. Anybody mention Kibarry GSWR, Summerhill Cork & Youghal 4. A crucifix in every cab.

The 1972 editions of IRN are out http://www.steamtrainsireland.com/IRFN/ probably the most exciting time on the railway doing a lot with the first public run of the MK2ds "The Train of Tomorrow". "The Great Train Robbery" and Ryan Air style pre-booked £1 Dublin-Cork returns for insomniacs and clubbers. Out Friday Night back in the early hours of Monday morning, all that was needed was a cocktail bar & jazz band:o. Change in the wind with the 1st McKinsey Report with odd ideas such as closing the DSE south of Arklow, diverting the Dublin Rosslare trains to run via Waterford with a bus transfer to Wexford.

Speeded up run over the WHR from Portmadoc to to Rhyd-Ddu most exciting bit of mountain railroading this side of the Rockies (used to be said about the original Tralee & Dingle)

1st of the new electric trains arrived for Auckland http://transportblog.co.nz/2013/08/26/first-emu-makes-it-to-wiri/ based on the NIR 4000 Class, funnily enough ROTEM supplied the replacement fleet for Wellington http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/commuter-rail/wellington-to-order-more-matangi-emus.html

Dave Send me a PM and I will forward drawings of the GNR bread container flats & butter van. The SLNCR & MGWR had similar double sheeted vans for butter/meat traffic. Most Irish North and Mullingar-Sligo line passenger trains seem to convey van traffic.

Not sure if the Jackson County shop foreman is a DRGW fan or has caught a glimpse of 077 since she was let loose, but GE diesel # is covered in a lot of gray paint, at least we don't have to worry about UIC numbering The grey was colour matched with a LGB DRGW switcher, I will probably go for Zebra striping rather than plain yellow ends. The loco looks reasonably close to the Caterpillar engine end cabbed units supplied internationally by GE from the early 1950s. The model was kitbashed from a centre cabbed loco, with a new cab, two engine housing joined together, the chassis narrowed by about 1/2" and a cut down cab fitted.

The detailing stage of the F is surprisingly turning out to be relatively quick and enjoyable.

NZR tended to follow American rather than British locomotive practice from an early stage pioneering the Pacific (4-6-2), Mountain 4-8-2 types. Older locos such as the Fs were retrofitted with air brakes and were fitted with acetylene and later electric headlights. The Model Locomotive Company F was supplied with lost wax electric headlights and a turbo-generator, but I needed some brackets for them to sit on. The turbo generator sits on a little table on top of the smokebox, while the head and tail lights are supported on angle brackets. I made up the brackets from scrap brass, first I marked out the general shape for cutting using a Square and Engineers scriber. The end result.

I have finished the final test builds and fingers crossed will be releasing the production version of the Hot Water Bottle and Luggage Brake in October, the CAD work is just about complete for the MGWR 2-4-0 so a test build may appear around the same time. Both vans will be supplied complete with castings and OO wheel sets, buyer supply labour, couplings, solder/glue, nails, paint etc. I will do a step by step tutorial on building one of these vans. The basic body is brass with whitemetal and resin castings, the chassis is designed with a mounting plate for Kadee No 5 Couplers. The kits are priced at £55, a small number of rtr painted pre-production vans will be available at £100 each. I am looking at an initial run of 20 Heating and 10 Luggage vans, but will order more if there is sufficient interest. Please send me a PM if you would like to reserve a van or are interested. Luggage van underframe showing Northyard OO wheelset [/b][/b]

Its worth while looking out for articles by Jack O'Neill in 5'3", the IRRS Journal and anywhere else. He was a great story teller with a mine of information about railway operation both as a driver and later as area running manager Waterford.

Its a great clip in the days when railway men wore a uniform suit, the shunter stands out wearing his early 70s Saturday night disco dancing purple elephant flared suit as cuts wagons out of the train. Hopefully Dapol have a suitable figure.

Not sure if its getting more like Mastermind or Who wants to be a Millionaire with JHB a quizmaster:)

Lovely work, the old Airfix Lomac and JCB 3C were excellent models thankfully Dapol did a re-run. These wagons may have been used to deliver new equipment, there is footage of a down Burma Road goods complete with Lomac & Massey Ferguson digger shunting at Kiltimagh in one of the Markle Associates irish videos.

A bit of work on the NZR loco to give the eyes a break, I broke the loco down into sub-assemblies mainly for painting and adding detail. The main sub assemblies were spray painted in Floquil Engine Black with a coat of clear finish, alas no more Floquil Testors are discontinuing the Floquil range of model railway paints. I have yet to add boiler bands and will probably use Presfix or similar lining transfers neat and self adhesive.

Just my gobblygook I meant using two rakes of wagons with different containers, so a train did not arrive and depart with the same containers. The Harland & Wolff shipyard cranes would be an excellent backdrop.

Excellent modelling very much in the spirit of the suburban MDs kit bashed from LMS suburban coaches. Amazing that you got to meet the CME & Designers. The UTA engineers basically invented the 1st generation DMU with the MEDs and the modern family of diesel hydraulic railcars like the Sprinters, CAFs & 22000 with the MPDs. Unfortunately engine and transmission technology was not up to it at the time.

The MPD looks interesting, certainly in the spirit of UTAs make do and mend approach of building railcars by converting existing stock.

Using the same gantry to transfer between rail and ship may increase turnaround time for container ships. Few containers go direct from ship to road or rail, containers have to be sorted and stored in different storage areas depending on destination/types of cargo as they are loaded/unloaded. While the trains generally run in fixed formation, the straddle handlers and forklifts have taken the place of the dockside shunter. Your track layout layout is almost a mirror image of Holyhead in the 70s & 80s even down to the arrangement with the harbour in the vee between the passenger station and Freightliner terminal.