Maitland

I road terms, the kind of accident that wouldn't even make the parish newsletter.

This is devastating. The cars are over 120 years old- they represent the bleeding edge of technology in 1895, and are almost unchanged since, thanks the history of tourism within the British Isles- two world wars, a depression, and the rise of road transport and charter flights saw to it that there was never the capital to modernise it. There were only 6 cars built- one was lost to a fire some 25 or 30 years ago, and now there are four. We had a trailer on the "flat" line, the Manx Electric, overturned a year or so ago - fortunately without much damage- and I'm left wondering if they aren't paying enough to get the quality of staff needed for historically sensitive material like this.It really is of World Heritage standard, and should be protected as such.

They illustrate it with a picture of a guy playing a piano accordion in nearly the best Irish style- for the very best Irish style, it's in its box in a locked cupboard at home, with the banjo, the bodhran and the shaky egg.

In your innocemce, you call those strange?

Instructions on loading cattle wagons: the small cows should be in the wagons at the front of the train, and the big ones at the back. The longer the train, the more cows you can pack in.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-35384707 Douglas Corporation (Isle of Man) has announced its intention to abandon the seafront horse trams, believed to be the only such tramway surviving (as distinct from tourist revivals). There was a proposal to replace the current double- track tramway in the centre of the promenade road, with a single track on the seaward side, so as to free up much- needed car space, so this announcement comes as a bit of a shock.

That's about as daft as you can get if they really did that. Heating is free on a Diesel - over half the energy in the fuel is pushed out through the radiators. You may as well warm both cabs all the time. As for the psychological problems of front cabs, by the fifties electrics had been running on ground level, underground, and overhead railways for half a century. And for tank engines in reverse, if it was a matter of coal and dust, why did British drivers not object? BTW I think the BCDR ran tank engines in reverse at least sometimes, but I haven't got that book.

Where's the turntable? Or more to the point; why did everywhere except England, Scotland and Wales (and perhaps the Timoleague and Courtmacsherry) turn tank engines? In France, even tiny tortillards with Corpet Louvet 030T's had turntables. The few times you see a loco running backwards in most of the world is when they've had to stop short for some reason. Despite the fact that most tank locos have better track visibility running in reverse- some French 0-6-2T's were actually cab- forward 2-6-0T's- and it seems to have taken British diesel designers a while to realise that the cab should be at the front, even on single cab locos. Several of the designs managed to have no view in either direction.

They'd have been better off buying up some of the SR N1 class - the same as N's but already 3 cylinder. What would be the advantage of using a bogie anyway? Apart from adding a couple of tons to the front end.

If Ireland had joined in the war, the Great Northern might have had V2's as well as V's.

Worsley Works have a whole shedful of Irish narrow gauge stuff on their lists. The lococs tend to be "scratch aid", i.e. make your own chimneys, domes, fittings etc. and source the wheels and motor too.

Generally they are - if they are looked after. See "Grayrigg" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grayrigg_derailment.

I got out my private helicopter (kindly supplied by Google Maps) and took a flight over Drogheda just now. There are points either end of the viaduct, so it's ordinary single track. I don't know the technical term for the safety rails, they aren't check rails as such which are set just inside the back-to-back gauge. You see them on a lot of bridges though.

Don't be tempted to try what some idiot near here did a few years ago. To stop people breaking into his shed, he rigged up a sawn off shotgun and a tripwire, aimed at groin height as the intruder came through the door. It worked perfectly, as he found out when he went in the shed and forgot it was there...

http://cspmodels.com/abante/index.php?rt=product/product&path=65&product_id=127 Avonside 0-6-0ST in 4mm scale.

I'm not sure the photo has to be posed. The loco has offset NG couplings, so no problem with the van. All it needs is something on the van to attach the SG wagon chain (or hook) to, and especially if it's an empty it doesn't have to be very substantial. Perhaps just a rope? After all they are doing that for parallel track shunting. And no need for anything much if they are pushing them somewhere.

The Swift Book of Transport Oddities, 1962. It's also got a photo of an MGWR brake van with the top windows blanked off. Thanks for the location everyone.

Changing bogies is for wimps. There was through running between the Leeds and Bradford tramway systems at one time- despite Leeds being 1435mm gauge and Bradford 1220mm. The wheels slid on the axles. Has anyone any idea where the Derry photo was taken? I'd like to know what it was that stuck out to make the track swerve like that. Or maybe they were under the affluence when they built it.

There weren't that many examples of mixed gauge in Ireland, but I found a couple of photos in a book picked up in a charity shop. Turntable at Strabane: http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/asset.php?fid=19396&uid=1160&d=1449835271 This would make a good model, mixed gauge, grooved rails, gauntletted track in stone setts on Derry quay: http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/asset.php?fid=19395&uid=1160&d=1449835254

Bit late in on this, but there are a small number of kits available for 3mm scale (16.5mm gauge for 5'3", 9mm for 3') from Worsley Works, though these are only "scratch aid", i.e. bare flat etchings, find your own detailing and chassis. http://www.worsleyworks.co.uk/3mm/3mm_Irish_Standard_Gauge.htm Also this chap has a number of Irish 3D printed body shells in 3mm and N: http://www.shapeways.com/shops/valvedesign?s=0#more-products

It looks as though if the DSER had got that 2-8-2T, they'd have had to regauge (or revert for part of it) to standard, because that's what it was as near as the fuzz of the scan will allow me to determine. If the South Maitland 10 class dimensions are anything to go by, it would have been a bit wide at 9 foot 7 for most of the UK, but fine for Ireland. Maybe they'd have laid a 3rd rail.

Idling my life away browsing through the Beyer Peacock loco drawings collection at Manchester Science Museum (http://emu.msim.org.uk/htmlmn/collections/online/imagescontact.php?QueryName=DetailedQuery&QueryPage=%2Fhtmlmn%2Fcollections%2Fonline%2Fdetailedsearch.php&col_ColTypeOfItem=Still+Image&col_ColCollectionName_tab=%22Beyer%2C+Peacock+%26+Co.+Ltd%22&Search=Search&StartAt=261), I ran across this "Dublin and South Eastern Railway 2-8-2T": http://emu.msim.org.uk/web/pages/common/imagedisplay.php?irn=15647&reftable=ecatalogue&refirn=34625. Order No 01904. Drawing No 93578, 1922. Now, as far as I can see they never got it, and I can't imagine what they would have done with it if they had, particularly just then. I suspect it's a museum miscataloguing- they digitisation shows all the signs of having been done by bored temps on minimum wage. And sadly, unless the original scans held by the museum are better, the images are too poor to be truly useful. Dimension text is frustratingly just below the limit of readability, so I can't even check if the gauge is right. But the thought of a beast like that pulling a big goods train up the 1 in 60s around New Ross.... Addendum - a bit more browsing and it looks like it just might be related to this: http://emu.msim.org.uk/web/pages/common/imagedisplay.php?irn=13527&reftable=ecatalogue&refirn=30214. Which, perhaps ironically, was for the South Maitland Railway in Australia. No I didn't plan that.

The 1921 independent socialist government of the Republic of Ireland (flag: a Tricolour with a Red Hand in the middle) was headed by James Connolly, James Larkin, Jack White and Michael Collins, Connolly's renunciation of Catholicism in 1910 having reconciled the majority of Unionist workers. The railways, run down after the Great War, the Mutiny of the Armies and the following Menshevik Revolution, were nationalised (as were those of Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the other states of the Union of Europe). They were organised on a regional basis, with national control of the main export goods and express passenger routes. Each of these regions, North West, North Central, North East, Central, South West, South East, and Cork, controlled its own infrastructure and rolling stock, including engineering and livery. From 1938 Brian O'Nolan was appointed Minister of Transport and outlawed priming. He introduced patent emulsion which transformed the performance of the locomotive stock. The world speed record for steam being set at 162mph by an Achill Bogie in 1947, after he appointed Oliver Bulleid as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the express system, who introduced smoky combustible (real) silver Diesels, turf burners, potato burners, Munster Bacon burners, and whiskey burners. There were steam helicopters for the island routes and donkeys on craic on the canals (should that be en croque?).

A little more research, and I find a problem with Clo Gaelach (Twomey): it doesn't have dotted consonants, necessary for pre- 1948 signs. Did they do any new ones after? And how widespread was it anyway? I see Mitchelstown was bilingual, but Cashel barely 30 miles away wasn't, neither in a noticeable Gaeltachtish sort of area. Was this a nationalistic enthusiasm that hit a civil servant talking about funding? Anyway, the solution seens to be Tuamach (I think that's Twomey?) which seems to be the same font extended.

Thanks a lot. Belbought will get a bilingual GSR nameboard.