jhb171achill

Flying Snail, you are very welcome here indeed. It is an absolute pleasure to hear of yet another modeller tackling the earlier world of the railways. Yes, the W&CI is a fascinating subject matter. In terms of deciding on Mountmellick or Abbeyleix, both of which are excellent ideas, I suppose the main consideration here is whether you want a terminus station or a through station. The former will mean Mountmellick is better, the latter Abbeyleix. I have timetables going back to 1926 for these places, and a few odd ones from earlier, if that's any use. In terms of rolling stock and wagons, I'm not sure what i might have - probably not very much, though I may be able to dig up some livery details. However, I will do a bit of diggin about and see if I can find anything. Early wagons are likely to be much the same as early GSWR ones. If you are indeed going for a later era, the GSR period before passenger services ended at Mountmellick will give you a much wider amount of fodder.

Only if it's steam powered and 5' 3" gauge...........

Z, N, TT, H0 00, O, gauges 1, 2 & 3; 009, H0m, 10 1/4 inch gauge - all will be options. And I'm still thinking it's the DUTC tow-car or "Dick" of Fintona.

Here's today's contribution: I think I posted the top two somewhere before, but for completeness, they are included here too.

Ireland’s smallest passenger coach, 3ft gauge No. 6, of the Bessbrook & Newry Tramway. The body survived as a summerhouse in a convent, and is now at RPSI Whitehead. Fry caught it too….. Officially a “brake van”, in reality it was a passenger-carrying vehicle with a handbrake.

Very best wishes for recovery, Ken, and we look forward to seeing the further fruits of your labours!

SSM have other kits too, e.g. a Bandon Tank, 800, and some GNR types.

This one is a complete scratchbuild, and a top class one at that.

Having been party to the amazing body of research conducted painstakingly by GNRI1959 in order to produce this book, I will very thoroughly recommend it to all here.

Light engine today……

Talking of shunting locos, spotted at a friend’s house today (“O” gauge):

Very good and detailed account, which certainly corresponds with my own memories - and in every detail!

A 2600 class is marrying a UTA MED, to produce a NIR "Castle" class railcar as a nasty child; scary or what? Well, it IS near Halloween..............

For oul wans like me, it is very encouraging to see the growing interest in things pre-1980 or pre-1970, and steam. We are well catered for with wagons now, thanks to Mayner, Provincial Leslie, Des Sullivan and others (you know who you are). With carriages, SSM and Worsley have some very nice brass kits, though not for the novice. Steam engines too in the latter two cases, and let's not forget 00 Works' GNR, GSWR and CBSCR locos. More of all of the above, and the more RTR the better, would be very welcome.

Good afternoon, all! A busy centre, this....... I suppose someone will say that there's a shopping mall and a cycleway here now! Does it still have the CLC and other railway companies' initials / names on it?

SUPERB info, Hexagon; this is exactly why I'm posting this stuff here!

One more for tonight......

The VoR was a highlight of that particular trip for me. That was in 1975.

Tonight's visit to Brexitstan. Over a period of time I will post all of my father's British stuff here. There's quite a lot. Given the excellent responses to details of locations and the like above, I among others can benefit from this information being offered. I will post some also that I have posted in other places in the past, so that it is all together here. Senior's earliest visits over there were in the late 1930s / early 1940s, but I don't think he took any pictures there until into the 1940s. He recalled seeing an old coach somewhere in badly worn LNWR livery, on a teenaged holiday in - I think - North Wales. They used to get the mail boat from Dún Laoghaire to Holyhead and stay in North Wales. A visit there in 1969 or 70 for me was the first time I had been out of Ireland, and what I now believe were 101 class railcars were on many local trains, some in green, some blue & grey. Main line trains often had 47s, and possibly "Peaks"? About half of them green, the rest blue & yellow. Carriage stock was all Mk 1s as far as I recall - can't swaer to there being no Mk 2s, but I don't recall seeing any. About a quarter were still maroon. Goods trains were loose-coupled, like the picture above, but longer - and locos the same as, or similar to the above were to be seen on the lines from Pwhelli to Barmouth and on to Aberystwyth. Two-car railcars did most of the passenger trains on that line. And of course, THIS was in corporate BR blue!

I saw this passing through Malahide earlier today. It’s not even slightly photoshopped, of course. It’s well able for a full twelve Taras, though they have to be N gauge ones.

Actually reminds me of an 0.6.0 (or, I suppose, "C") wheel arrangement on a shortened 121 - a 121-style six-wheeled loco which GM did a trial run of about six of, about the same time the 121s were built. Same engine. One was used all its life BY General Motors in their plant at La Grange as a shunter. Two went to Lebanon and were used on public trains and one may possibly still exist. Another one at least ended up somewhere in South America. I have a MIR cast metal 121 body which if there ever comes a day when I've nothing else to do (unlikely) I will shorten and pair with some sort of old 6-wheeled power bogie from the under-a-tenner department of Fleabay. It will be a GM experiment that wound its way to Inchicore in 1961 as a luck penny with the 121s.

I LIKE that!

Yes, they were used almost everywhere. However, the mallow-Waterford line was more normally worked (in diesel days) by the B101 and B121 classes, with A and B141 types also making appearances. The goods was usually B101 or A. Go back a decade and various old 4.4.0s were to be seen along with (mostly) K2s ("Woolwiches"). J15 0.6.0 types and their derivitaves were common too. The colour balance on that photo isn't quite right - while the railcar is clearly brand newly painted, it is a bit bright for reality. The GSWR third in the background is in the older green, but weathered, and devoid of snails and lining, as some secondary stock based in Cork in later days was.

Where did that come from? Hmmmmm... an 0.7.0.......... Correct, no "C" ever ran in "tippex" livery, nor carried that logo; the last of them was withdrawn over a year before the "set-of-points" logo was devised. I agree, though, it looks well. What is this model - who madse it, what scale, where did it come from? And why 448?

Well, that’s it in a nutshell. Nothing silver ever stayed that way more than a few days - or if steam-hauled maybe a few hours! No wonder they started repainting them green after a couple of years.