jhb171achill

The owner of the hotel, who I know, told me years ago that originally he wanted it as some sort of small coffee dock adjacent to the original platform, but was shot down by health & safety concerns, so it just sat there ever since; now it is beyond redemption. However, there is one identical vehicle at Whitehead and another at Downpatrick (along with another MGWR vehicle there of a different type); all four would require rebuild from ground up.

Wow! Has to be an SLNCR theme, of course............. (runs for cover!)

The one on the right is almost certainly a dud. Bright white paper and felt-tip pen....prior to 1961! But, look closer..... by BUS! Is this a more modern-day copy done thus, or just a plain dud?

Nice selection. (JM Design) GSR goods van and CIE guard's van, IRM grain wagon, and a nice GSWR coach in the background.....windows blanked, probably in departmental service and plain wagon grey (no lining)............

Yes, they used to have poster "blanks" like that. Senior mentioned many moons ago about things like this in Enniskillen station for excursions variously to Dublin, Derry or Bundoran - I think the destination itself could also be written in. They also had blank luggage labels! If they ran out of a type of label for a particular destination, they would write a blank one until a new batch was delivered. They used "copying ink" pencils. Anyone here remember these? They wrote and looked like ordinary pencils, but once you'd written, if you put a damp cloth over the pencil writing it turned to an indelible purply-blue ink. This is the type of thing I would have expected any of these posters to be written with, as if they were pasted outside the pencil would take on the appearance of felt pen once it got damp. Overnight dew would even do the job.

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….

Indeed. There’s many a thing can be converted to as near as dammit to an Irish prototype - and many’s a modeller had made a pretty good “Jeep” out of a British 2.6.4T. But they never seem to look QUITE the same; I suspect new design would be as necessary as for a Sligo tank or a Dingle 2.6.0T. Doable, of course. I always just thought that given a Jeep’s versatility, and it’s busy RPSI career into modern times, it could be an excellent candidate. As the very last steam locos in service in Ireland (cue a VERY heavily weathered factory-finish!), they rubbed shoulders with many types of diesels too….

Massively so. Personally, I thought the West Cork equivalent was actually extremely poor.

I saw a youtube clip somewhere of a "driver's eye view" where they've put a small camera, presumably on a wagon, being pushed about by a loco. While the views here are from "above", and the youtube thing was track level, this looks familiar. I have no idea what the youtube clip is called, unfortunately, but a bit of determined detective work might reveal it. (Update; Galteemore above has beaten me to it!!!! And it IS the same one......)

Certainly in some of them, yes. Unaware of variations, if any.

VERY nice!

Or wagons on a loose-coupled goods train coming into the North Wall from rural places…….

Either would be good, actually, as both ran with Cravens, Park Royals, every single type of laminate, even the very last few Bredins, and the RPSI stuff. And not forgetting the BR van at Downpatrick, which has seen service on passenger trains too… Both types of vans could also be seen on mail trains in the 70s & 80s…..

It’s being re-boilered right now….

40 squillion billion trillion gazillion shades of weathering, more so than liveries! Despite incorrect theories about the GNR having had fifty shades of loco blue, and CIE sixty shades of green, the reality was that these things were all as strictly and meticulously painted the same corporate colour - just not very often! And older types of paint pigments tended to fade quicker. Add to that more brake dust flying about, and steam, hot oil vapour, coal smoke and Crossley exhaust floating about, and you’ve as much variety in weathering finishes as you have in goods wagons in 1955!