jhb171achill

You’re right, many went from silver straight to black’n’tan. Worth pointing out that any that became green would have been in the later, lighter shade, as shown in your illustrations. The dark green was discontinued as far as passenger coaches went, several years earlier.

That is a truly magnificent model, finished perfectly!

When and why?

Didn’t even know a 29 had!!

I would say the left hand and middle coach are spot on - right hand one I’d say the blue is a BIT dark.

Indeed, and other places too (Dundalk, York Road, Aughnacloy, Stranorlar and Queen's Quay). A small number of his models are inaccurate, usually by choice (2 of his locos which never anything but grey are in GSR 800 class green, because he liked it!), it because in wartime he couldn’t get the right paint (his GNR “S” class). But there are one or two surprisingly basic errors like his Lough Swilly tank engine, which bears a shade of green light years too light.

Yes, exactly. We can only guess at what some early liveries were like, but in most cases the best option is a photo like the above, adjusted as best it can be, WITH a wide consensus of verification from those who SAW the thing in real life. To me, that particular adjusted photo is 100% accurate.

Footnote to the above; I have seen a photo of a black’n’tan coach which LOOKS navy blue and tan; and all manner of other “photographic evidence” which - isn’t! The late Cyril Fry took a large number of photos. Most were black and white (his earliest ones are around 1925-30). But for colour, he unfortunately used the cheapest and nastiest film he could get; thus his slides are in many cases useless. One, which would be a beauty if the colours had not decomposed, shows a “brown” B101 in a cutting on the Tullow branch. The grass and gorse on the sides of the cutting are purple…..

I would have to respectfully disagree with Ian. No colour is impossible to reproduce if research is properly conducted. Fred Graham’s blue is 100% spot on. The other is too light, and that’s that. A tiresome narrative was often propagated by some in the past that “sure, the GNR just went to a local paint shop and got whatever blue they had”; the implication being that the blue varied considerably. This narrative seems, as far as I’m aware, to have originated at Whitehead when 171 had its first repaint by the RPSI - which was way, way, way too light; in order to justify same. Such a tale, apart from being utter, abject nonsense, is an insult to those who designed and maintained the very carefully nurtured corporate images of railway companies. Each railway company (bar the smallest) employed people in their works, whose job it was to maintain “recipes” for paints and pigments to ensure uniformity and continuity. The last such at Dundalk was Marcus Bailie-Gage, whom I knew well; he was a very close family friend going back to when my grandfather was with the GSR in Inchicore. Marcus went to the great big paint shop in the sky about twenty years ago, and though an extremely mild-mannered man, would have spat nails at anyone suggesting the GNR just used any oul blue paint! Now, of course, blue is a primary colour and is notoriously hard to keep fresh, and daily coatings of coal dust, oil and oily rags didn’t help. But that’s a different issue; GNR blue was uniform. The same, incidentally, applies to the two shades of CIE green, plus the oddly-titled “eau-de-nil” (“water of nothing”?) which they used for lining. The same narrative, “ah, sure, there were loads of greens” is again 100% completely wrong. There were two. 1. Darker: Buses, lorries, station paintwork, platform wheelbarrows, coaches up to 1945, D class diesels when new, and steam engines which received green. 2. Lighter: Coaches 1955-62, and diesels repainted from silver circa 1957/8-1962. But - especially the darker shade - it was applied to metal and timber surfaces, with varying degrees of exposure to weather, steam, hot oil, coal dust and filthy diesel fumes. Moreover, and perhaps far more importantly, it wasn’t renewed too often, as money was tight. Thus, with GNR blue, CIE green, AND other liveries, there never were “multiple” variations of the livery, but there certainly were multiple variations of fading, weathering, and erosion of primary pigments. On CIE, many older vehicles in green were being photographed in colour for the first time when they hadn’t actually seen a touch-up paintbrush for a decade! I’ll expound on this more when I get a minute. The issues around perception, especially (as mentioned above) amongst ageing male persons, is a wholly different matter.

And there we have it; photos need considerable interpretation. The “G” is of course silver, the Woolwich 2.6.0 very badly work CIE (dark!) locomotive green, same as carriages, and the turf burner started off in standard Inchicore dark locomotive grey, but ended its extremely short life in CIE lighter green as applied to diesels!

I’ve been reading this with great interest, some very valid and interesting points being made. Having a lifelong interest in liveries and how weathering affects them, I’ll post in more detail in a while. I’m up to me eyes for the next three weeks but I’ll keep an eye here in the meantime….

Two old photos have turned up of a goods leaving Dugort Harbour way back in 1927. The loco is ex-CBSCR 472, then recently transferred to west Kerry….. Happy Easter to all….

I well remember seeing them mixed in with all sorts of other stuff on the Dundalk to Grosvenor Road goods in the 1960s. From recollection, maybe only one or two in the mix, the rest of which was of course loose-coupled. The maximum number of wagons on that seemed always to be 32 to 34 - I don't think I ever saw more than that. Somethines there was a brake van at each end, i.e. one behind the loco as well as at the end of the train. The vast bulk of the wagons were four-wheel goods vans, mostly "H"s, but quite a few old wooden vans too, including the odd horizontal-planked GSR van. But the "bubble" (mostly grey then) would stand out amongst vans.....

That's awful. The very best oif luck with your ongoing treatment and health. I know it's an awful thing. For what it's worth we're all on your side here.

Many thanks! Contact made!