jhb171achill

Busy times at Dugort Harbour….1964. IMG_6074.mov

Filmed from the road, empty “K” vans await the signal for Castletown West station, 1st February 1964. A few have the brand-new “roundel” on them….. IMG_6076.mov And here it is in colour….

Grain wagons at Dugort Harbour, awaiting transit back to Cork.

Many of you will know of Dr Siobhán Osgood, without doubt the leading authority on Irish railway architecture, and whose actual speciality is Mill's GNR work as above. There will be a TV programme featuring her and GNR architecture in the next couple of years - it is currently in early research stage.

Where our old family home was in Dublin, I was visiting one day in the early 2000s to see my elderly aunt who lived there. I had a new car (blue Ford Focus), but it was normally driven by Madam, while I was driving about myself in my aunt's 20-year-old red Polo (she was to old to drive at this stage). But THIS time, as almost a one-off, I had "borrowed" my OWN Ford Focus to visit the oul wan. I always went there in her old Polo as that's what i normally drove. Went into the house, checked up on her, got her shopping list for Dunnes, and came out to go to get her messages. And what do I find - some damn clown had parked a blue Ford Focus RIGHT across my gateway. Since Junior's car (separate issue) was inside the gate, I thought "how will he get out"? Across the road was having a family gathering of some sort, so I knocked on the door to ask whoever was in there to move it. Out came the householder. "It's not one of ours", sez he. Then I realised I had the keys of this car in my pocket.......................................................................................................................

Another siding was added in GSR times, which ran from the top of the image shown, along to the right of the words "WESTPORT QUAY". In the 1960s, the pier siding shown at the bottom of this image above was shorteden to within the station limits (i.e. above the level crossing). When I first explored the site about 1969/70 it looked as if it had just been lifted, but the extra siding mentioned above, which would show on the right in this image, stayed to the end.

With so many excellent new wagons on the market in recent times courtesy of "Provincial" Leslie, CK Enda, and of course IRM, I've had to make up an excuse for grain traffic appearing in an outpost as remote as Dugort Harbour, which in concept is meant to be in the utter back of beyond down the Beara Peninsula (on the Kerry side, of course; can't have too many Corkmen about, can we!)..... As some here will know, this started as a shunting layout - which is the scenic bit now as it was delivered that way. A house move meant that an attic was now free, so an extension of the layout was possible. Thus, the concept expanded into something like a long straggling branch like Cahirciveen, with a short, almost seperately worked local extension (think Valentia, Westport Quay or Skib - baltimore). That's up'n'running now, so the layout has the original "extension", leading up to "town" - the main station (Castletown West) and then onwards to a fiddle yard. That bit has no scenery, yet. I'm gradually mastering brass kit constructioin, and scenery will have to follow for the rest. Now, the ideal thing would be to have a private siding for a grain mill and / or a textile factory or something else, to justify a line like this having not just heavy goods traffic, but with specific wagons types like grain vans - a type of wagon not seen everywhere by any means, therefore needing "justification". I wondered for some time how I would fit in a siding, inspired by many posts here about small layouts, industrial sidings, types of traffic, models of mill sidings like Mol_PB's one, etc etc etc. And then the solution hit me as obvious. The goods train comes into C West, where grain vans and H vans for the textile factory are detached, and a separate local run (justification for a pilot engine / shunter at C West) runs these wagons up the line to these two industrial sidings - in reality, BACK to the fiddle yard! It means the operations within the C West station area will now be appropriate to what real life would have been had such a place existed....... Photos to follow.

"....We are gathered here today to witness the happy union of my daughter, Alternator, and our new son-in-law, Punctured spare wheel!....."

Interesting!!

I must have a look. I’ve seen a pic somewhere comparatively recently, when I was researching liveries for these things, but can’t remember where….. In real life, the only ones I ever saw were all grey.

“Britannia Waives the Rules” an’ all that…..!

The GSWR, GSR & CIE used both spellings of Valen&ia at different times, sometimes more or less concurrently! On my layout, when I get round to station nameboards, I was thinking of having “CASTLETOWN WEST” on one platform, and “CASTLETOWNWEST” on the other….. there are several precedents. The GSR and CIE had Irish language experts crying into their smelling salts with their several versions of Bray…..

Haven’t seen a colour one, but eyewitnesses say that when new the red was “British letter box red”. It degenerated darker through the same dirt of encroaching rust as Barry Carse’s pic of a dingy-looking grey one which I posted a while back. At least one survived to get CIE (actual) brown - but obviously that would have been after 1970 or so.

He being the man who sent the black’n’tans here……!

Likewise, I always appreciate the communication channels here from IRM. To those of us (virtually 100%) who are NOT in the business of making Irish models for sale, either in RTR or kit form or whatever, it provides a good insight into the difficulties faced by what inevitably, when we think of it, is a tiny, tiny, tiny market within a very much minority niche of a minority hobby. I think I can say on behalf o all of us on this forum we are very grateful for what we have and we look forward to future issues, whatever and whenever they may be.

Something seriously wrong with their safety administration. That's sufficiently serious for the whole EU to find oput what happened in detail.

Put me down for a couple, Enda - those look amazing! I'll PM you now....

Tis true; I may not be quite the Provincial age, but I’m on the road - and I clearly remember things back to about 1960….. STEAM things, principally…..

Courtesy of Barry Carse…. Whatever the rustproofing had been in GSR times, it’s had its day by this stage (early 70s)….

And I’m the other way round! No interest in Hunslets but despite the fact that an 800 would never have gone anywhere near a 1955-65 remote west Kerry branch line (which is the basis of my layout), and that an ICR is way, way out of that time zone - they’re the ones I’d be going for! Of course, an AEC railcar and a few “C” class would have me fumbling for my wallet and seeking coins behind settee cushions in pretty short order!

I think this one has been converted to a four wheeler from a six wheeler - look at the cut-out in the footboard. Can't make out the number or I'd look it up.

IRRSuavem striketh backeth

Now just look at this. The GNR dioesel still in navy blue, a green Park Royal, a silver laminate and a green ex-GSWR wooden-bodied bogie, probably dating fropm about 1915............... exactly the variety totally absent today!

Oho; mention of “C”s - if there’s ever a chance of such things, I’m in for maybe half a dozen! (Silver’n’filth, green and black!) But meantime I’ve two Silverfox ones….. they do the job!

I was only ever in one in traffic on two occasions. The two I was in were open plan. From what I remember, they had wooden slats on the floor, and the seat for the guard anther handbrake column were to one side in the middle of the vehicle. The interior was painted a very pale grey with cream ceiling. In one case I was on a Limerick-Ballina train. There were two laminates, a van, and another coach tacked onto the back, so you had to walk through the tin van to get from one end of the train to the other. I don’t remember where I encountered the other, but it was probably either a Cobh train or a Limerick - Waterford set. And of course in both cases a black’n’tan 141 up front!