Mayner

IE/CIE resistance to re-routing South Western Suburban services around to Grand Canal Dock, seems to be more to do with political infighting between CIE & The Department of Transport (NTA) as much as any real issues. Although the route is somewhat roundabout a through service through the Phoenix Park Tunnel to Grand Canal Dock, eliminates potential delay in changing from rail to bus or tram at Heuston and opens up rail as a viable option for people commuting to work in offices in the Pearse Street and Docklands areas and finally integrates Dublins suburban rail services. Despite the equally roundabout route over the Belfast Central Railway diverting Ballymena, Larne and Bangor services into Great Victoria Street had a positive effect on Belfast's rail services. Funnily enough South Western suburban services were originally planned to run between Clondalkin and Pearse/Grand Canal Dock and changed at the last minute to Heuston-Kildare. A lot of the loop line congestion and conflicting moves at Connolly could be eliminated by terminating Drogheda and Dundalk suburban services at Connolly. Perhaps the resistance to the Phoenix Tunnel route is that its success may undermine the case for the Interconnector, the 20 year delay in improving Loop Line (Connolly-Grand Canal-Dock) capacity says a lot about IEs priorities

I am concentrating on releasing the existing van kits and the MGWR 2-4-0 before doing further work on the flats. I am looking at returning to 3d modelling in combination with lost wax castings for detail parts, as to date taken nearly 12 months to produce a set of masters and whitemetal castings for a simple van. A few companies have shrunk kits designed for 7mm scale to 4mm, but new artwork and tooling would probably be needed going up to 7mm as the effects of undercutting become more pronounced, ill fitting parts, smaller panels bigger window openings and holes. John

The 1st aid kit would have mainly been for the slips trips falls sort of incident and medical emergencies with passengers and potentially more serious with railway staff. In the days before mobile communication there was no way of contacting Train Control or the Emergency Services, guard and checker would have been expected to provide 1st aid or deal with a medical emergency until the train arrived at its next scheduled stop

Hi RAL2011 I received your PM you are on my list. I will be in contact with everyone who was interested once the parts for the first batch of kits arrive.

Rooskey Harbour Railway short lived line in the 1990s locos and stock went to the Arigna Mining Experience. Dromad short 2' demonstration line for ex ESB Ardnacrusha Hudson Hunslets, drove a loco on it once, not sure if that could be described as passenger carrying:)

Real life experience of the North London Line/Railway in the 80s & 90s especially the section from section from Camden Road to Dalston Junction, great views over lines into Kings Cross. The North London and Euston-Watford DC Lines were quite run down & decrepit in keeping with some of the neighbourhoods up to the Network South East re-branding in the mid 80s. The 501s were replaced by 313s on the Euston-Watford line and SR 2 EBP units took over North London Line Workings, a great day out on a London Off Peak Travel Card:trains:

The BR "Blue Era" modellers seem to be having a field day customising and weathering Heljan 1st generation diesels http://www.emgauge70s.co.uk/model_omwb.html. Always fancied a North London Line layout in its glorious urban squalor, a railway crammed in between deep retaining walls, pub on every corner, terraced houses, mansion blocks and 1960s tower blocks, 2 car 3rd rail EMUs Type1s on trip workings and inter-regional freights.

According to Locomotives and Rolling Stock of CIE & NIR 3rd Edition 1987 CIE built 40 62' 9" air braked bogie flats 30501-30540 in 1984 so there should enough in circulation for 3 sets plus some maintenance spares. On weekends Freight trains from the Sligo and Belfast lines to the South & West usually ran to the Boston Yard (Pearse Coaching) to run round as the North Wall usually closed on Saturday afternoons. Besides timber bulk cement trains from Platin to the South ran over the Loop line to the Boston Yard on Saturdays.

Dublin and Lucan Tramway. Started life as a 3' Gauge Steam Tram, re-gauged to 3'6" and electrified, modernised and re-gauged to 5'3" by the DUTC in the 1920s.

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]