jhb171achill

Not the first controversial thing of this nature. CIE ordering the seven extra G class even as all the work intended for them was disappearing, and NIR ignoring loco engineer's advice in buying Hunslets for the Enterprise in 1970 instead of 181s..... I wish I could remember the details now, but years ago Senior had some tale about funding PW work on the Irish North, which led to him, as engineer in charge, having to go to Amiens Street to seek out the financial guys to tell them in no uncertain terms that their planning of budgets was laughably inadequate for whatever it was that he was supposed to be doing....... he won his battle and the purse was opened........

Worry not! Some secondary stock (particularly in later years) didn't have the lining (though, to be fair, most did). If modelling UTA, I think I would try to just get an extremely thin beige line. Yellow doesn't work - no matter how thin, it looks garish.

THAT's the one I was looking for!

It might have been me - but that was a goods van, not a brake van. There is an NCC brake van at Downpatrick, albeit slightly altered in UTA days. Brake van design in Ireland - on all companies - was always substantially different from that in Britain. I am unaware of a single variety of British brake van which bears any resemblance at all to any Irish one, NCC included. Having said that, surviving details of all types of NCC wagons and vans is sketchy at best, and there is no doubt that details of many vans have gone. There was a thread here some time ago - can't find it - showing details of a brake van whose remains were found somewhere in a field. But as to UK vans being converted - I would venture to suggest no, certainly if an accurate model is wanted - but, with few surviving details, just repaint something and who's to know? NCC wagon livery, brake vans included, was all-over standard LMS wagon grey, as used in Britain. This can be got from model shops. It's a mid grey, like what CIE used until about 1960 (before they lightened theirs). If accuracy is wanted, never look to irish preservation for wagon liveries - Cultra included, the vast majority of non passenger stock preserved in Ireland wears liveries which are completely wrong. The GNR van at Whitehead looks like a zebra with all its black oironwork stripes; this and cream on the interior of the balcony is wrong. It should all be plain grey. The CIE van in Cultra is wrong. It should have yellow and black stripes on the ducket, not black and white. The NCC van at Downpatrick is wrong. It is in NIR PW Dept. pale grey, but with black stripes* and UTA markings. Have a look at the van at Downpatrick. Now, not all NCC vans were like this design, but obviously some were. Some had a single end balcony and a wagon-like body with side doors, and there were doubtless other types too. I have a notion they also had at one time some six-wheeled examples, probably for heavy goods trains Belfast - Derry. The correct livery for NCC wagons in general, guard's vans included, is the plain grey as above. I do not know what colour the roofs were, but I doubt if it was the white often seen on models. Lettering was initially a very large "L M S" on the sides, though not as large lettering as used in Britain - with a smaller "N C C" under that. From the 1940s, possibly start of wartime, but certainly by the mid-40s, they simply put "LMSNCC" in smaller letters with no gaps, at the bottom left-hand corner of each side, with the wagon number underneath it. (* What IS it with the obsession of preservationists in Ireland with painting wagon ironwork black instead of the correct adjacent livery colour?) Hope this is of some help.

Hi Auto-Train The shade of green used by the UTA on railway carriages never varied from 1949 to 1967, when maroon and grey started replacing it fully. It was a very dark brunswick green - not sure of RAL number but someone else here might have the actual code. On loco-hauled stock, but not railcars, there was a mid-waist line an inch thick, a beige colour (not the oft-seen-on-models yellow). It was thinly lined in red either side. The UTA "red hand" / "roundel" device was placed as close to the middle as possible. It was somewhat smaller in size than available transfers seem to be. Initially, coach numbers were placed within a circle of the same beige, at window level - i.e. the numbers shown were between window panes where suitable, usually close to the end of the vehicle. After the late 1950s, the vehicle number tended to be just below waistline and without the circular surround, and from about 1961 the full UTA coat of arms started replacing the roundel, which actually disappeared from use pretty quickly. The last rolling stock still in the old NCC maroon were repainted green in the early 1950s. Repainting was pretty speedy as things go, but no livery change of any fleet is ever achieved in absolute terms, overnight. So if your layout is based in a period of, say, 1949-53, expect an occasional maroon vehicle still with NCC markings, but not after that. Unlike CIE coaching stock, all of which had black roofs, the UTA used a lightish grey as a roof colour, though it darkened pretty quickly when in use. The NCC roof colour was a somewhat darker grey. The UTA painted coach ends black. Untilo the outbreak of WW2, the NCC appear to have (mostly in any case) painted coach ends plain maroon, but it seems that at least some stock repainted in the mid and late 40s had black ends, and if secondary stock had no lining.

Similar event next Friday, 11:00 and also 17:00. In both cases you can book in advance or turn up.

All of this is SO elementary!! They’ll be ordering meter gauge trains for the Cork line next…..!

The update is that Living-In-Daughter managed to downsize a lot of her stuff and things are way better now. Work is about to recommence on Dugort & Castletown. Still some trackwork and wiring, with help from my Learned Friend, to whom I owe very many, many pints at this stage! After that, scenery, and the endless queue of half-finished kits. I'm sure I've a dozen Provincial Wagons at least to do - I need to discipline myself not to get any more until all I have are fully running..... And a wait, of course, for RTR D16s, D17s, D14s, G2s, maybe a WLWR G3, J18s, J5s and so on........

Indeed - a new-build entirely. Perhaps better, a direct line from Dublin to Navan, Cavan, Enniskillen, Letterkenny (or near it) and Derry..... better than that, if the first section of it was underground, to alleviate pressure on Connolly & Heuston, and it served the airport too! We can but dream. For a VERY long time.

Hi Eugene, was just about to post a message - I was given the wrong information about this!! It's NEXT week, 20th, and it's 5pm rather than 11:00. Note to all - see above; apologies for confusion! Eugene - if you're about on 20th, you can turn up on the day. But if you ARE about tomorrow, I'll be in there at 11:00 anyway so would be pleased to walk you round.

00 scale live steam, too! Sez he, hopefully......

They should put the Enterprise back to Central Lanyon straight away.

1000%, couldn’t agree more. And in the light of the above, every detail of which is correct, compare the utter nonsense portrayed in the All Ireland rail review. They either didn’t do any serious research at all, or else produced a report telling what they were told the results were to be, in order to enable our politicians and to just kick the can down another road. Reopen Portadown - Cavan - Inny Junction? SERIOUSLY? Ooooh boy.

Should be red - the black was dirt, same way blue GNR engines often appeared to have a “black” dome. The RPSI repaint of Drumboe perpetuates this inaccuracy.

Many of the ones you mention were built for perceived reasons of strategy, or promoted by local interests whose business acumen was somewhat lacking. The post-1883 flurry of building the "Baronial" lines served useful purposes in many cases, but never forget that the very reason these grants were given was that the local "big" railway compnay was already well aware that they hadn't a hope of being financially viable on their own. Railway history is littered with these; Achill, Clifden, Kenmare, Glenties and so on; lines which never traded profitably throughout their lives. We hear clamours today of such-and-such a line "should never have been closed". While occasionally correct, this is usually quite wrong. A population something like HALF what it is today, in the 1960s, and governments simply not havinbg the financial wherewithal they have now, made almost all of the closures which did happen, inevitable. If there was any big "sin" involved in closures, it was not so much the actual closure, but the failure to protect the rights of way of the line closed. Had these been preserved, plus a waiver that a reopening, even if decades ahead, would not need new planning permission of any sort, we would be in a much better position to address transport policy issues today. The two we hear most of - West Cork and the Derry Road - would be impossible to resurrect now on their original routes, and light years beyond prohibitely expensive to build circuitous new-build lines around places like the south of Cork city, Portadown, Omagh and Strabane. Had the rights of way remained, reopening would be easy - especially if the state had the powers to just bulldoze anything that farmers or others had put over the former line since, without reference to any local councillors!

I've eaten it.

Will there be cake?

A good deal of interest packed into a comparatively manageable space....

Mad, utterly mad. Looks like I’ll be driving next few times I’m up there.

Have they been in?

Wow! VERY nice!

Wonder who's picking up the tab for that? And what they're going to do with the restored roof / building?

My understanding is that any potential restoration of the station is and will be an entirely separate issue to the relaying of the railway, as the station itself is not of actual practical use in any way and therefore not part of the railway relaying plan. The new terminus track layout will veer to the left of that picture, I understand. The bigger issue, of course, is what actual traffic will operate on this newly reopened line. Thus far, precisely nothing concrete appears to have been mentioned anywhere. What will the line be used for on a day to day basis?

I've been asked to pass this on: 11:00 Guided tour with narrative, showing a walk through Irish railway history through the eyes of modeller Cyril Fry and his models. Failté Ireland will be visiting too, so that any comments / reactions / feedback will be welcome.

I had that thought in the back of my mind too, but wasn’t sure. Doors were presumably operated from the DVT?