jhb171achill

And there's that elusive Clogher Valley van again, behind it! I think that's the number rather than "DR" - I believe it was No. 14.

E looks good to me.

Found this little beauty after a tip-off from a friend, to the effect that it was for sale. The "back story" is that CIE ended up with one of the short-lived BR railbuses as a demonstrator. They tested it on the Loughrea and Ballina branches but found that it was inadequate for traffic, so it ended up replacing a "C" and a mainline carriage on the Castletown West - Dugort Harbour shuttle. It was permitted to haul one wagon if required. It came to an untimely end following an altercation with a 141 shunting at Castletown West one summer afternoon in 1968. I had long planned to do something like this myself, but someone else beat me to it!

The above are an absolutely superb job. It's not often, too, that we see the original pale green snail in the lower position and pale green number - with or without the "blackboard" - on models. This was the rule on all wagons 1945 - mid-50s, when they became white, and the snail moved to the upper part of the bodyside. I'd put viciously weathered brown on the roof of the brown one, though. In terms of "Irish-ising" planked opens, there were many varieties of these over the years. The ones I have above are different heights, as I often saw in real life. The very high-sided ones, used as "coke wagons" in Brexitstan, aren't suitable for Ireland, so I would avoid those - the only use for such vehicles in Ireland was loco coal - you might see one lurking at the back of a steam loco shed / siding. For routine goods trains, no. I simply painted them grey, and the "snails" were applied and heavy weathering done by Dempsey, who is also resident on this forum. So yes, unless the modeller is a rivet-counter in terms of open wagon design, many 5- and 6-plank types with centre doors will do. Some British coal wagons had end doors - these did not run in Ireland, to the best of my knowledge; unless someone can enlighten us, I'd be pretty certain that these are unsuitable for an Irish layout.

"......as well as allow our UK based IRM customers access to features like the loyalty credits and such that accurascale can offer (coming soon for the Irish side)...." How will the loyalty card system work? (Excuse my ignorance!)

Excellent stuff all round. The only thing I might suggest is to make the goods platform have a stone front facing to it, rather than being on stilts on the Scalescene model. Looking forward to seeing the whole thing developing!

The CIE heating van is a JM Design one, and the "H" covered goods van adjacent to it is Provincial (Leslie). The open wagons are a Provincial Bullied, three "rummage sale" 4-wheel opens originally in liveries of British coal companies - Hornby, Mainline type, etc.; then 2 Provincial cattle wagons and a JM Design brake van.

That NCC van may have reached Dundalk in UTA days on a ballast train, but nowhere else more southerly. They were rarely seen even on the GN section of the UTA / NIR - the UTA abolished goods trains in 1965 and thereafter all goods trains in the north were CIE, with CIE vans. Even for ballast trains, a couple of old GNR vans, like the zebra-painted "Ivan" at Whitehead, were retained for ballast operations. No long-wheelbase types like this ran in Ireland. To make this one reasonably acceptable for a generic "Irish" type, a chunk would have to be taken out of the middle. Yes. As with all CIE wagons (and most from other irish companies), "W" irons, chassis, buffers and the whole lot, plus the roof, were painted the body colour. Brown chassis and all the bits for brown-liveried wagons (i.e. those painted after 1970) and grey for everything else.

It's OK. They apologised..........

From Charleville; north to Limerick, Ennis & Galway, or south to Cork or the Kerry line.

…..AND extended to Bray.

I wish!

Correct. This was a “one-off” a few years before black started appearing on many repaints. The red plate was both of a completely non-standard shape and design, and colour. The other one of these locos had a normal CIE painted number.

There were two sent to the C & L. One was substantially altered by having the open balcony end enclosed with conventional guards' doors either side. The one shown above at least, and possibly both, had a conventional wagon-type end. The other - I think - had at one stage at least a small window fitted in the middle panel on the end. but with a small window in the middle panel. Planked ends as on the sides. Internally would have been a short bench seat for the guard, probably close to where the stove was at one corner internally. The above is in original condition.

Excuse the awful diagram; this is the way the markings were. Easy with a black marker!

I like those JM ones too - I've two in "pre-stripes" grey; but again, black above and below the stripes where they exist........... The JM ones have all the interior detail too, an excellent touch as dare i say it, many younger modellers might wonder exactly what they looked like inside! When the fire was lit in the little stove they were surprisingly cosy, when not, they were uncomfortable, very noisy and draughty!

Loose coupled goods (thus with brake vans) were largely gone by 1976, though a few goods transfers up from North Wall had them a short time longer. For trains "down the country", they were commonplace up to 1975, but in that year four lines, two of them trunk routes, were closed (North Kerry, Burma Road, Loughrea and Ardee). All four used these vans. The following year the Castleisland branch closed and services became fewer on the Limerick - Claremorris line. There were less vans after that. A note on the livery above. Seemingly like most modelsa, the "stripy" bit needs correction - a black marker pen will do this easily! The FLAT part of the bodyside immediately above and below the protruding "stripy" ducket should be black, whether the van is in 1973-70 grey, or 1970-onwards brown. On the above, the patch below it is brown, and the patch above it is stripy. The brown on the wagons is accurate - on the van it's a bit reddish. Wagon brown started to becomne a little more reddish around 1990. Nice little van, all the same - good luck with it!

Last month I celebrated my 50th year of IRRS membership! Over the years it’s been an invaluable source of various sorts of research material. Like other railway heritage organisations throughout Ireland, it is not exactly overflowing with manpower and money, so membership is worthwhile even for those who are rarely in Dublin, purely to support it. Right now I’m making considerable use of the archives with two separate research projects in mind.

It must be “N” for the new Navan commuter line, so tirelessly promoted by the NTA Bus Company…

None I’m aware of in Ireland - but a stretch of the (Welsh) Festiniog Railway above Dduallt* station was flooded by a new reservoir in the 1950s. I worked on the track deviation round the lake in the mid-1970s on a construction gang. Thus, in the parlance and history of the Festiniog Railway, I am officially known as a “Deviationist”. Now, isn’t THAT a great thing to have on your CV? ”Occupation and Work Experience: Deviationist”……. (* Pronounced by the locals - who are Welsh-speaking - as “Theeee-Acht”. It was always fun watching mere Englanders trying to get to grips with local place names there, as spake by the local slate-mining, leek-chewing, choirs of rugby players…..)

Exactly!

It's an idea I had myself many moons ago, along with the similar idea of one in UTA livery on a 1960s Fintona branch - one of these, a UG and a dozen covered goods vans, and there's the perfect small shunting layout!

While the whole idea of the Dugort Harbour layout is to recreate, albeit in a fictitious location, as true-to-life a 1950s-1970 CIE setting as possible, with as much attention as possible to strict accuracy in locos and rolling stock for the relevant period, every layout has to have a "Rule 1". I was tipped off recently by a friend who pointed this out as being for sale by a friend of his. By coincidence, it was exactly something I had considered doing myself at some stage! It is the unpowered Dapol BR railbus, with a professionally built motor in it, wired up for DCC, the lot. Working front and rear lights. It appears to be beautifully finished, and is en route by post as we speak. So it needs a story. When BR were building these short-lived things in the late 50s, CIE got one as a demo. It was tried out here and there, just like the former Sligo railcar also was in 1960/1/2. But it ended up on the Dugort Harbour branch where it was used for a few years on passenger services, freeing up a "C" or a B141 for other duties. We'll say it arrived in 1959 and ended up in a scrap siding at Mullingar by 1968...... The roof will have to be painted black, of course - nothing in black'n'tan EVER had any sort of grey roof; one must maintain standards, after all!

Very neat job indeed!

Impressive video of it...but the Tara St shown in it is clean and well-kept. The reality could be that it is populated by druggies and beggars and handbag-snatchers; will there be a dedicated transport police who have powers to physically remove people from trains and premises?