jhb171achill

Looking forward to it!

About to be published, events to be held in Derry & Donegal. Book launch Sunday 23rd February in Donegal Railway Heritage Centre.

The potential link between the Muskerry and Passage lines was (in concept) primarily to swop goods wagons, and there were no actual concrete proposals to have through running. However, those who dreamed up the idea were aware that such potential would exist, provided the gauges were suitable.

They did try to buy the locomotives, but I never heard any story about the railcars. CIE wanted ridiculous money for the three locomotives which the IOMR wasn't going to pay. So they sat at Inchicore. A few years later, rather than climb down and even sell them for scrap value to give something back to the public purse, they were scrapped at Inchicore. I often think a layout based on a CIE system in the 60s, with the West Clare stuf having been joined by Donegal 19 & 20 might have been a nice idea too! Indeed; to all above; my amnesia dictates.....

It’s 64 years to the day since the West Clare closed. Last public narrow gauge railway in the country and the only one ever to be completely dieselised. An absolutely perfect subject for a detailed layout, but authentic Irish narrow gauge layout lines seem very scarce!

Got my stuff yesterday in record time; thanks again, IRM! I'll keep these wagons quite clean, as they would have been new in the era I deal with.....

The livery changed before the logo did, which is why you’ll see read and cream or navy and cream buses with snails. So they went on applying snails to everything until about very late 63 / early 64, when the roundels took over with immediate effect. It was almost never you’d see anything without either - those vans above apparently with no logo could possibly have a very badly faded, barely discernible snail…

Suppose so. Should further interest arise at any stage I will do an "ask-around" again, and if enough commit I would go back to Worsley. Pity, but we can't have everything, and theyt were few in number and very limited in where they went.

Just an update on this; minimum six needed to proceed. Only 4 absolute definites, so unless more appear I don't think I'd be going ahead with this.

Correct. Never turned a wheel in green.

Correct. The only smaller diesels ever to be green were the original trio of G601 class (lighter green only) and the D class (lined dark green when new, lighter green later). The G611s and E421s were black / black’n’tan from new.

Rods could be removed, too, I presume.

The two E421s at Downpatrick were referred to as the “tractors” there. I drove 421 a couple of times. I am not sure if the lads there dreamed that name up, or perhaps copied it from CIE men… But yes, an apt label! Mol - with an uneven wheelbase, what donor chassis do you propose?

Yes - they spent most of their life like that, only brown in their very much later days (post-approx-1985-ish?).

That roundel was also somewhat larger than normal. The black chassis would have been a one-off, as this was an experimental livery. In the same way, the very first half doizen or so coaches to get black'n'tan had one-off differences, like numbers in different positions, and non-standard fonts. In the early 1970s, I believe that consideration was given to painting goods wagons a sort of beige-y "desert sand" colour, instead of brown, like Dublin buses. But it was not proceeded with, and I am unaware even of an experimental paint job being done. The CIE roundel with tan surround, as opposed to white, was as far as I am aware confined to new vans - namely "H"'s and "Palvans". All older vans, all open wagons, plus SOME "H"s, had all-white roundels. I never saw a palvan with a white roundel, but it's at least theoretically possible. All logos on all brown-painted wagons were always white. Some got discoloured with age and brake dust, but all were white initially. Very few wagons ever got the "set-of-points" logo after CIE became IE. The few that did tended to be departmental stock. Ordinary wagons - IF repainted - just had the numbers, no logo.

Got a few more Bullieds at this excellent price. You can never have too many beet wagons!

I think all railways do now. If they planned to use the Antrim line any time soon, especially since it has no scheduled services over it, health and safety rules would demand that it be ensured in advance that it was safe to traverse.

Yes, but don't tell them, or they'll make me do it again....

Tis a classic case of "if you want quality, you have to pay"!

Correct, there was never a container crane here. They used containers coming into Loughrea just like ordinary goods vans - they just opened the doors and unloaded them, and sent them away empty.

Turns out, after all, this info was not correct. A loco was out'n'about yesterday; someone must have driven it!

The 1964 tour was a complete one-off. Other than that, once steam ended on CIE in early 1963, it fully ended. Several locos remained in a static position as carriage heating boilers for a short time earlier, but they didn't go anywhere, and even these were gone by 1965.

Steam HAD finished on that date, but 130 was one of the locos used on the All Ireland 1964 Steam Tour organised by the SLS & LCGB & IRRS. In the north, while the last ACTUAL steam operations were in summer 1970, it wasn't until 1971 that the very last two "Jeeps" were officially withdrawn.

So what happens when they need a ballast train?

I think they're Belfast-built NCC, as the LMS ones were lower too. I have not been able to get to the bottom of this at any stage. The only vehicles I haven't seen red on were TPOs, but that's not to say that none of them had it when in silver.