jhb171achill

Never in my life did I see such publicity for a routine locomotive, a container on a wagon, and an old brake van….! Shows how standardised the whole railway is now and how little of interest there is. Fast forward to March 2051; the hedgerows of Stacumny Bridge are alive with gricers hoping to catch a glimpse of the only Class X* railcar with a squashed moth on its left-hand windscreen wiper! (The class X will replace every single type of train now in use, in 2044. Remember where you heard it first. Britain and mainland Europe have them too. Every single train is the same…..)

Exactly; but that's another story! There's triple-ality involved; there's one at Downpatrick too!

Do we need to call it a "they"?

I raised this point with several closer to the RPSI action in the past, and have been told over the years that the reason it was maroon was in case it was ever needed with any heritage stock. But it isn't, and the likelihood that it ever will is almost nil. But this ghastly colour (sorry, DJ!!) isn't even maroon, or anything near it! Plain blue would possibly be best, though I do not want to open up a debate about what way to paint a vehicle whose entire life in its current guise was black'n'tan.....

Very gaudy! Would look much better in its old maroon, or better still to match the blue on the Cravens. The lining is in an odd position too.

Anyone seen the repaint on the RPSI genny van? It’s a strange purply magic-mushroom colour.

Those are truly inspirational, and represnt a subject not given nearly enough attention by either modellers or railway historians in general - the UTA and early NIR era. All the kore so because it kept steam until 1970 and had a very unique Donegal-esque modus operandi with railcars hauling good trains and no diesel locomotives. Right down to the paint jobs those models are stunning.

Hang onto one of the wheels, and put a pebble, a walnut shell, an N gauge steam loco chimney and a piece of plasticard into the mix too, for the craic.

With all the brexit stuff now, we all have to get inoculations, passports and masks, and negotiate supply chain issues at the Ha'penny bridge...........

Have you any IDEA how many Kingdom men you’ll end up letting in? Did yiz even THINK about that?

That’s why there are mountains between Macroom and Glenflesk….. to keep themm’uns out!

Then it's Boris's fault.

It's because of the Good Friday agreement.

I was on that train - all the carriages were still in NIR ownership and in traffic (and would be for about 4 more years). All were in the NIR maroon livery with grey stripe bar one, which was still in UTA green. I was in the coach behind the loco, which along with the third coach were the last two survivors of the "Atlantic Coast Express" coaches built in 1934 by the NCC for Belfast-Portrush expresses. Shared a compartment with the late Mac Arnold that day - an interesting man. And I'm somewhere in among that group of photographers.... 1970.

My first BR Hornby Mk 1 coach cost eleven shillings (£0.55 / €0.60). Put THAT in yer pipes and smoke it, under-forties! Now, they're about £45-£75........

£115 was a lot of money then. My dad's Ford Prefect (which I still have the receipt for) was just over £200 in 1951, but there had been a lot of inflation in sterling (probably driven by the war) between 1939 and 1951.

I read somewhere recently that there are some experiments going on to make a synthetic fuel of some sort out of hydrogen and oxygen; the emissions would simply replace what was used to make the fuel. It's beyond doubt that diesel and petrol are massively harmful, and even if they weren't, there would still come a day when they ran out - so those types of fuel simply HAVE to go. But I also see the massive problems with electric vehicles - too many to list here, although the extraction of the lithium used to make the batteries will (a) run out before petroleum ever does, and (b) is collossally harmful environmentally, and (c) is only available to mine in a tiny number of locations on the planet. Add lack of range to that, though I am sure technology will develop this better as it develops - early steam locomotives and internal combustion engines were even more inefficient than early battery vehicles (Ask Dr. Drumm...). This oxygen / hydrogen thing will apparently work in a modified petrol engine. Now, of course, this all sounds far too good to be true; and maybe it is. But may we live in hope on this one........ The reality is, even if it destroys the human race, people have become so used to instantly available transport to every corner of the globe (and even beyond it) that the entire way of life of 99% of the world's population depends upon it; all societies depend on it, and the world would just stop if we didn't have it. And nobody anywhere will ever wean people off that, now that we've had it for a century and more. No amount of Ryan cycleways and green buses will cure that, unless they have bus services every five minutes, 24 / 7, between every single residence in the world from the front door to every single possible destination. Ain't gonna happen. So into yer cars, folks, be they powered by petrol, diesel, electricity, awwwsum gasoline, hydrogen, oxygen, eco-vegan vegetable oil, lucozade or punctuation marks and animal noises, and head for the nearest model railway shop. They've model petrol cars on offer, two for the price of three.

And never mind depreciation on a new car; you could double the value of the car by putting FOUR milk churns in it.

Actually, good thinking - just like the real thing. Even back to steam days, many a loco yard had a few ancient "cripples" in it, which were periodically raided in order to retrieve a spare part - and then there's today's "real" 201s! A bit of ingenuity and you could at least make a few shekels selling bits on fleabay........ though I agree with others, if anyone can fix it you can!

Sounds like politics-speak. The "possibility" needs no assesment at all; the idea patently and obviously IS possible, provided they can get around a certain wealthy taxi oligarch...........

The last of them were withdrawn by NIR in 1974, I think - just before the first batch of the 80 class went into service. The last ex-GNR AEC cars went at that time too.

A nice pic of a crewless 0.7.0.........oil burner.........

Two tone rust and filth livery!

Yes, its had the centre pair taken out, very probably after withdrawal, though I am aware of one six-wheeler which had its centre pair removed apparently while still in use. Result is, of course, a very long wheelbase for a 30ft long vehicle!