BSGSV

I don't know what the doom and gloom is about.

Re-opening closed railway lines at significant costs per kilometre, for the taxpayer, is currently very fashionable...

...as Greenways.

On 2/6/2025 at 7:36 PM, Patrick Davey said:

Actually......I wonder was it double track through Killylea, @jhb171achill can you verify or correct?

I always thought Portadown - Clones was double.

Or maybe it was doubled at one stage then singled later on...

No reference books to hand just now.....

Double, Portadown Junction to Armagh, and later also Clones to Monaghan.

Single elsewhere, and the double line appears to have been singled in the early 30's, except from Portadown to Richhill.

1915 is the date for carriages according to a Brendan Pender article in the IRRS journal (61), in that 1290 appears the earliest built in the new numbering, and was 1915.

Don't forget the TPO from 2950, and the GSR brake compos 2490/1.

The Park Royals went to 1948. And 1949 was the last (RPSI, GNR 9) in the 2000's.

On 4/3/2025 at 1:32 AM, jhb171achill said:

It was single unique vehicle, specially converted for the Waterford & Tramore. After it closed, it was re-converted to "irdinary" format and returned to the main line.

Didn't work between closure of the W&T and conversion to an Ambulance carriage.

On 3/3/2025 at 6:26 PM, Mol_PMB said:

Certainly into the Irish Rail era…

When I found and uploaded this photo a couple of years ago it was with some from Mullingar and I captioned it as Mullingar, but I’m having second thoughts now. I think it might be Gort.

Anyway, a brown H van dumped in a siding in the early 1990s, note the IR and Irish Cement sign on the goods shed. 

 

 

Yes, It is Gort.

The shunter "missed" dropping the handbrake on it as it went into the siding, and it hit the stops with a bang, which left one axlebox bent out. Couldn't move then...

The delights of unbraked stock.

I'm more familiar with mainline locos, but pipe colours would be blue for water and green for fuel oil, as you say. Air is yellow, electrical is brown. Hence the yellow air receivers. Exposed pipes might well lose their paint.

1 hour ago, Mol_PMB said:

I see a photo of A28 in its odd livery has just been uploaded. I’m sure I commented on that somewhere in another thread here!
https://flic.kr/p/2qLJtfU
I still don’t know what colour it was, dark all over with numbers only on the ends, nothing on the sides at all. Possibly primer or undercoat? 
Anyway, fascinating pics, thanks IRRS!

 

 

 

 

I may be wrong, but I think I see a number just to the right of the works plate.

The C class was bought for branch use, and closures reduced the need for them, so a lot were out of use by the end of the 60's. A branch surviving would probably have had one in preference to a 141, which would have been out on main line work. A railcar set was used on Thurles - Clonmel. 60's carriages GSW or GSR or early CIE built, with 70's early-CIE. Alas, most of these are not RTR - yet!

However, what RTR is available would not be much hardship while you wait. God bless all the manufacturers, who continue to amaze with the gaps they are filling.

Not sure about model intermediates, but for prototype information you could try here:

https://www.railcar.co.uk/

On 9/11/2024 at 5:44 PM, minister_for_hardship said:

Gas wagons but with CIE broken wheel logos, why were these retained so late in the day??

I think oil gas was still used in one or two of the carriages of the old set that would come out on the Dublin Suburban on Summer Sundays and the like?

Also, there were probably older diners which needed it for cooking/heating, even CIE built ones, which got converted to calor gas in the 1960's. 

As I understand it, the guys in NIR tried very very very hard to get the money to make it a double track structure at the time, but couldn't swing it. Alas, with the way it was done, it now also seems very difficult to double without building a viaduct throughout for the extra track. 

16 hours ago, leslie10646 said:

I can't help except to offer Lance's photo taken of the UTA Enterprise entering  Amiens Street in 1959, in full GNRB Regalia, bar the little UTA Roundel - if you know how to identify a half cab from the window shapes - feel free to look at the back of a fairly short train.

 

God bless your eyesight if you can see the back of that train well enough to know! Looks like a 6-piece set, 900, trailer, 700 series, two trailers and another power car.

23 hours ago, murphaph said:

The buffer spacing was very different between the 121 and 141/181 on the prototype?

I'm not detecting any heat or disrespect in this thread to be honest, just a good mannered discussion about the merits of both ways of doing things.

I would counter the "sure we're using tension locks" argument by reminding readers that IRM provides an alternative to said tension locks by including much more prototypical coupling options in the accessories bag. The tension locks are fitted by default but the magnetic hose type couplings supplied with the new coaching stock for example are superb and far closer to reality.

My apologies. The preceding posts were about the chassis and that's what I was commenting on. With the benefit of hindsight, I should have known you were asking about buffer spacing!

50 minutes ago, murphaph said:

No I meant the prototype.

Very different from each other on the prototype too!

As a general comment, I am a bit taken aback at the heat that seems to be there regarding the buffer spacing, given most folk seem to use tension lock or kadee or similar to couple their vehicles. I would notice these rather more than buffer spacing.

On 7/7/2024 at 8:39 AM, minister_for_hardship said:

When first outshopped I believe the originals were painted black and letters and border picked out in silver, latterly they were plastered over with layers of black and orange paint.

The replicas have no fixing studs either so that's another pointer to never having been fixed to a loco. I remember seeing them being sold at an ITG sales stand years ago.

Yes, the aluminium one does look like an ITG production which were produced for selling on the sales stand on railtours, and also got kept by some to put on their wall, as the mounting studs on the real ones make that a slight problem.

Some were also drilled and used on the preserved ones, A3 and A39, as the originals had disappeared by the time the locos came into ITG ownership.

2 hours ago, leslie10646 said:

Obviously I liked the GNR shots, but it was the photo at Inchicore which caught my eye - I hadn't realised that the Work's Platform was so long!

When was it shortened / removed, or is it still there - I wouldn't know as it's on the non-milepost side and I'm always on the other side of the train!

The platform went when the third road was extended over Sarsfield Road bridge and up to meet the four-track section at the west end of the Works. The Platform wasn't just for the Works. There are references to Summer Sunday trains to and from DSE destinations in earlier Irish Railfans' News.

The Down Home signal attached to the footbridge is unusual.

22 hours ago, minister_for_hardship said:

Some of these were just ground frames in a glorified garden shed. Maam cross has a ground frame with a mini staff release.

Looked at the wonderful IRRS Photographic archive. Not an Annett's key either, but control levers between "A" and "B". "B" would have been a small ground level cabin of the same design as Birr or Charleville "B".

I'd still like to know what the staff was for though...

22 hours ago, minister_for_hardship said:

A staff to release the frame in a sub cabin. Kilmallock once had two cabins.

Perhaps, but I would have expected "B" box to be released by an Annett's Key and not a staff machine.

On 21/6/2024 at 3:58 PM, minister_for_hardship said:

The Tipp - Kilmallock (sic.) one is a nice example of staff "recycling".

Given Kilmallock should not have needed a single line staff, that one is odd. I guess there could have been temporary single line working, but that usually is associated with bridge renewal.

On 21/6/2024 at 11:27 PM, jhb171achill said:

Interesting shot - any idea where?

I suspect it might be Kilmallock.

1 hour ago, Wexford70 said:

 

Small section of tram track on North Brunswick Street. I believe the tram sheds are still in use but now for ambulances. 

Stanley Street is where Dublin Corkporation had their refuse depot and incinerator, going back 120 years ago and more. Track was laid to connect to the North Quays tramline, to move wagons of refuse at night, to a landfill at Fairview. The landfill is now Fairview Park. 

2 hours ago, Irishswissernie said:

GMK004 CIE 1955-xx-xx Cork, Youghal Excursion J15 195 TI215.

GMK005 CIE 1955-xx-xx Cork, former junction for Summerhill line on right Cork- Cobh train TI215.

GMK003 CCR 1955-xx-xx Cork City Railway Quayside SDGS J26 55x TI231.

 

 

The first carriage looks suspiciously like 1097 or its sister, before it was got at to make it an Ambulance coach.

18 hours ago, Paul 34F said:

Looking at the third picture in the latest post, my eyes fell on the second carriage.  It appears to be a GNRI vehicle.  Does anyone have details of the carriages in the train?  It makes me think it is the B5 Dining Car, but I need to check.

Paul

From Irish Railfans' News:

Ballylinan & Palace East: On Saturday July 9 loco 184 (in GS&WR livery) headed the first IRRS dining car special ever out of Amiens Street. The train consisted of HV 3122, second 1469, ex GNR dining car C144N, brake second 1905 and the 1912 GS&WR Officers’ Saloon 352. The special travelled first to Athy and then diverged to traverse the 4½ mile Ballylinan branch - the first occasion of a dining car working on this line! The train returned to Athy and continued to Muine Bheag to travel over another semi-closed branch to Palace East - the subject of “Station Survey” in this issue. The return trip to Amiens Street was made via Macmine Junction and Enniscorthy.

43 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

That poster is genuine but I have doubts about the writing.

I checked if the date shown was actually a Sunday; it was - but - pencil?

In this day and age it would be marker pen or printed off a computer. They had neither back then.

But they DID have ink! And it stood out more than pencil, which I never heard of being used for posters or public notices.

I’ll see if I’ve a weekly circular for that date when I get home, just for the craic…. 

Looks like a batch of posters obtained to be on hand at short-ish notice, which could then have the details written on, whenever they ran an excursion.

As a guess, they could have used ink, but that might run if (rain-)water got on it, whereas pencil wouldn't.

4 hours ago, Mayner said:

One might have been are the Blue Pullman trains.

CIE are supposed to have seriously considered buying and re-gauging the Blue Pullmans during the late 60s/early 70s. 

That's a new one on me, but of a piece with other schemes that seem to have been floated in the mid-1970's. Aside from Blue Pullmans, CIE looked at re-engining the Sulzers, and I was also told by someone who would know that they looked at buying redundant Westerns from BR. I'm sure the new 071's they did go for would have seemed quite pricy given the times, but haven't they got their money's worth out of them since!