jhb171achill

To be fair to them, it's Westminster that pays their salary. The real deal is how Stormont can get the Other Island to cough up. And, it has to be said, Stormont does have people (on both sides who are aware of that and (rightly) do not lose an opportunity to try to extract pounds sterling from those quarters for a number of things (the health service there probably being the most pressing, but that's another story).

I saw a decomposing body of one of those about forty years ago in a field near Barna, outside Galway. It was sheeting on top of the older planks. All was rotting, so it was impossible to tell what condition the planking would have been when they initially put the sheeting on. From my own observations over the years, i believe that some sheeted conversions were done in a heavy-duty plywood, and others were something like sheet steel. As for the outside-planked ones, a few comments. Apparently, this was the terminology used to describe them on the railway - certainly, in Inchicore. I am not sure they were ever intended to be insulated vans per se - I feel that Senior would have told me that if it was the case. I remember them in traffic, and they were just used as normal goods vans, to be mixed in with the other standards of the day - GNR wooden vans, GNR cement vans, CIE Palvans, CIE "H"s and these. I can't help feeling that iof there ever was an intention to actually use them as "insulated" vans, some exterior markings to that effect might have been evident. Finally, they were conceived in GSR times, but I cannot recall ever seeing a picture of one with "G S" on it. The wagon plates on them, though, had "G S R" on them. (And talking of wagon plates, I saw a GNR cement van in the 70s, now in CIE brown, and obviously used as a standard "H", and it had a standard CIE wagon plate with "C I E", and the number 111N. I wish I had been able to get one of those plates....!)

Superb stuff. If IRM or anyone else ever get around to doing a "C", it would be an interesting appendage to have, not just for detail, but to enable those who like strict accuracy to be able to run a prototypical train. Now all we need is a RTR wooden composite bogie, as used in so many ways in the 50s and on into the black'n'tan era briefly. Single composite bogies of the very type shopwn above were used on the lines Mayner mentions, plus also Kenmare, Loughrea, Baltimore, North Wexford, Ballaghadarreen, and gawd knows where else.

There was even more to it today, but I didn’t want to labour the point! Sooner both governments cough up for a complete new fleet, the better!

Well, there’s wasn’t a 4pm. At 15:25, an announcement at the soviet cigarette factory told us all to go to Lanyon on a local, as the 16:00 was going from there. Over the next 50 minutes, numerous empty NIR sets went through without stopping, all towards the new terminus; and one DD (228) went empty towards York Road. No explanations, and staff on the ground knew nothing. At 16:50 we were told to hurry round (back) to Grand Soviet to get the 17:00, which is an ICR with no tea trolley, or, unusually for an ICR, no internet. NEXT time, car.

4pm leaving from Maysfields Cattle Sidings Lanyon Central. Gawwd knows what it will be. A 2-car 26 diverted from Little Island - Carrigaloe?

10:50 is an oul railcar. NIR thing, but at least it’s not a 29.

I hadn’t heard of this either

What about the 09:50?

Aaarrghgh I'm probably on the 10:50..............

I remember that station well. Seemed to me to be a huge place!

Saw an NIR 3-car railcar heading north earlier this evening. I'm thinking my Thursday trip will be by car.

I went first a while back, but the train was a railcar. I told IE I wanted a refund, and while I got it, it took about 2 weeks and involved a bit of a palaver online; sufficiently user-unfriendly to deter anyone nit that “techy” from bothering to apply at all; not acceptable.

Yes, she double-headed with 100 on the Courtmacsherry to Clonakilty Junction section. They had retained a five-coach set of 45 or 48 ft bogies of GSWR origin (replacing an earlier set of clapped-out Bandon stick) for these excursions, as longer bogies couldn’t deal with the curves on the branch. I assume that a “proper” engine brought this set from Cork to the junction - if 90 & 100 had taken the excursion the whole way, it would still be on its way back today…. 90 hauling a train always looks to me like an N gauge engine on someone’s layout - hauling 0 gauge coaches! I lit 90 up once before it left Whitehead for Downpatrick. I am of average build, but I felt like an 0 gauge driver being out in the cab of an N gauge model; the good people of Castleisland, for whom it was built, must have been marginally smaller than hobbits or leprechauns. Or possibly, Inchicore’s 3D printer was set to the wrong scale when they built it. For people built to 1:1 scale, or 12 inches to the foot, this thing is an utter monstrosity to oil, especially compared to the equally minuscule, but way better designed, CSET Sugar locos. You have to be a contortionist underneath it. I wonder what crews thought of them - I suspect that opinions might have been less than complimentary!

Utterly disgraceful. Anyone care to guess what it’s like on Thursday (I’ve to go to Belfast)? Will it be a cattle wagon, a bin lorry or a wheelbarrow?

Maybe it was just going in the other direction.................................

I've a whole fictitious history in my head about the originsof Dugort Harbour and Castletown West! Opened probably 1890s, closed to passengers maybe 1967, and completely 1976.....

We’ve an 0 gauge model of one in Malahide in the Fry museum. You’re welcome to come and examine it.

I meant the GSWR 4.6.0........

Dare we ask if a 400 class is likely to follow?

In reality, all WTTs are confidential to this day. Since many train movements are not public passenger trains, it was always considered unhelpful to allow public access to such things. The public issues list passenger services only, not goods or light engine movements, or empty stock. At various times in the past, security was deemed to be another reason to keep train movements other than passenger-carrying ones as confidential.

A fifth "Rails Through...." is currently in progress. It will be somewhat more detailed in the historical aspect, but will contain some 190 illustrations, in this case covering Wexford to Harcourt St & Amiens St. The rough draft is done, and most of the pictures selected. It will include several photos of the Shillelagh branch, often quite camera-shy, but these are older, and black & white, as the very last section of it (to Aughrim Mill) closed finally in 1953. As for the North Kerry and West titles, one is now out of print and the other only very low numbers with the publisher, but Tipperary and Wexford are still available from the publisher. Glad you liked them!

That would be an ecumenical matter.

Well, arguably, a bit of it did……!

That Baltimore view is classic. A smoky old Crossley, an ex-MGWR six wheel third a LONG way from home (at that time, there were quite a few of these based in Cork, both at Albert Quayand glanmire), another six-wheel third of indeterminate parentage but probably also Midland, a brand new tin van (essential on ALL diesel trains if they wanted heat or light!) and a 1920s-era GSWR main line composite....