jhb171achill

What a find! I had no idea that one of those had gone to America….

… On 29th April 1965, the midday passenger departs for Castletown West, with 7 passengers on board, and six cardboard boxes of linen goods in the van. … Finally for today, a few new accessories for Dugort Harbour.

A few more…. This old GNR van has been sitting at the buffers here for six months…. … ”….she’s off. Sure the rails aren’t to gauge here - look at the state of those sleepers. PJ’s gone in the van to get a ramp. We’ll have her back on in time for the goods….” … Fair day beckons, and five cattle trucks have been ordered in. Tomorrow the place will be full of cattle lorries after the mixed has gone.

One more for the time being; from an old print found in a drawer…. A goods transfer from “town” sidles into Dugort Harbour in 1946…. (Without a visible “flying snail” it would be 1929!) The goods van is off for weathering next week.

An early view at Dugort Harbour, April 1946.

There’s a guy sent down in a Commer van to sort it all out. Fifteen shillings it cost.

W O W !!!!!!!!

It got a hot box near Thurles and it's in a siding there.....

Ground frame, yes. The West Cork was fully signalled to Skibbereen, but the extension to Baltimore was less so. There was just a 4(?) lever ground frame there, and a solitary starting signal. You'd be fine with that - and it DID have passenger services, and with staff-&-ticket it was even possible to have 2 trains present! Westport Quay didn't have regular passenger trains, but it did have one in the 1964 steam tour - and signalling there was also minimal. I visited this line just before it was lifted and as far as I could see each set of points was simply lever operated - there wasn't even any ground frame that I could see.

“…..no, I told ye. I’m loading nothing into no van until yer man agrees my overtime!”

On the same day, a shabby looking B141 has the daily goods, shown here shunting, then departing for Castletown West. “You can just slide the sacks over and I’ll drop them into the wagon….” “OK……Did ye hear all that stuff ‘bout Vietnam on the wireless? I reckon it’ll be another world war, what with them commies an’all….”

Very much so!

Ten years apart. In June 1951, J15 No. 109 shunts at Dugort Harbour. In June 1961, A55 arrives with the afternoon passenger train. The rostered “C” class broke down. And in June 1971, A23R - straight out of Inchicore after receiving its new engine - is in charge of an IRRS special train, as regular passenger trains ceased in 1967.

Superb! I love the BR blue era and the bewildering multiplicity of all sorts of parcel-carrying vehicles of all sorts - and all painted the exact same blue. A collection of these plus an 08 to shunt would make for a very interesting mini-layout based on some sort of parcels shunting depot in the 1970s.

Very well said indeed, and an excellent description of the proceedings. As one who well remembers the 1978 Great Train Robbery filming, I am well aware of what goes on behind the scenes - even the two-part "Enterprise" programme which I assisted with last year involved a number of field visits and hours and hours and hours of doing one bit over and over again for the sake of 5 minutes on screen. So, very well done to all on the DCDR - as you say, text-book strict accuracy is not what the goal is - the comedy entertainment of "normal"* people IS what's wanted, and it worked a treat. Hopefully the DCDR made a few cents out of it too. That's the season's Tunnocks and Irn Bru paid for.....! Here's to the next one! (* = i.e. not railway enthusiasts!)

Within the limitations of my eyesight, brake hangers?

Same as happened on the Barrack St branch in Dundalk right until the end….

Answer to the last bit is that with only 3 of them, they were never all painted together, or possibly even by the same person! The differences you mention are almost certainly tricks of light or weathering.

Indeed - and while not the subject matter of this particular post, buffer beams on steam locos became weathered and dirty to a degree they were barely identifiable as red at times.

I have to confess I never saw any difference and I saw these locos almost daily for very many years…. If there were any differences they would have been very slight. Buffer beam red on all railways has been pretty standard from early steam days…. As for an actual burgundy shade, as in NIR maroon, the buffer beams wouldn’t ever have been that dark.

Red buffers would be same red as any others…. “Post office red” as those in Boristan would describe it. The yellow - just an ordinary mid-yellow, I would think. Dunno the codes though.

When new signals were installed anywhere, the old ones were removed as soon as possible to avoid confusing crews, so while you won't have a semaphore arm beside a new colour light one, you may well get a post, still with ladder, but with the old arm removed, or very temporarily covered by a big wooden "X" nailed onto it. The earliest colour lights go back to the 1920s, so for the best part of a century, depending on where you are, there are both; even to this day! The surviving examples today are at Navan, a couple of places on the Limerick - Ballybrophy line (the "Nenagh branch") and a couple of locations on the Limerick Junction - Waterford line. The last ones in Cork and Waterford stations only disappeared a few years ago, as did the last one in the North, at Castlerock. (Not IE / IR, I know!). Des Sullivan, of Studio Scale Models in Ennis, makes kits of Irish ones. Signals Studio Scale Models Semaphore Railway Signals (studio-scale-models.com)

Sean With a very small number of locations STILL covered by semaphore signals (e.g. Tipperary), you're fine with that. IE came into being in 1987, and at that stage there were many more locations with semaphores, including some quite large places (Cork, for example!), although colour light signals were indeed the norm. So if you want to do a 1990s layout with semaphores, that's perfectly within the realms of accuracy.

Some original fencing too - both GSR concrete and timber!

I love that Portadown layout - saw it somewhere a few years ago (Blackrock?). And the Fenaghy one is a gem too. Well done to all concerned.