jhb171achill

You’re not a million miles off, really. Vans like the planked one above started appearing about 1915 - at that stage, though, they were the very latest thing! The KMCE wagons are the best for you, plus the ancient style Provincial Wagons guards van, and the Studio Scale Models “soft top”.

What’s your preferred period, Mark? In terms of variety, since the 1970s there has been less variety every year as things get standardised. Great for efficiency, not so much for enthusiasts. By far the greatest variety of locos and rolling stock in Irish railway history was the 1955-65 period, as modellers are (thankfully) increasingly embracing.

As John says, the "tin" ones were very few and far between; I suspect they didn't outlast the 1960s. I never saw one at all, anywhere. The planked ones were still to be seen in traffic just about past 1970, though I never saw one repainted brown. By 1973/4, my guess is that they were all gone. Beautiful models - recommended as essential for any 1940s / 50s / 60s layout.

Sadly, if it becomes a greenway, we can kiss goodbye to any C.Luas..... once the Lycra Taliban get their greenways, nothing will shift them. Re. Ballymartle & the Passage line in terms of closures - the Kinsale branch was the first line to be targetted by the GSR for economy - in 1930. The Cork, Blackrock & Passage line closed in 1932, the Crosshaven extension a few months before the rest of it. Even then, it was missed.

Wonder why the CDRJC trains always seemed to cross on the "wrong lines" at Castlefinn? A westbound railcar is to be seen on the right, with the eastbound goods on the left. The customs had a table on the westbound side, which is the only reason I can think of - but passenger trains used the other platform too.

Unfortunately it wasn’t even plugged into the internet!

In my world, the last of them, 472, was transferred from Wisht Caaark, boy, to Dugort Harbour as branch engine in the early 1940s, instead of being scrapped. The GSR & CIE let it be until the “C” classes appeared there in 1958…. It eked out its days there as spare loco for the branch when the normal J15 was having its boiler washout….

Yes, it's gone. So - we have reconvened, having got over the shock. Onwards & Sideways!

Thought of another memory. The County Donegal had just closed. Senior was about the area - I don't know why, as I have no recollection of any holiday in that area until i was about 8, and this was earlier. I had been brought along, as I often was, to give my mother a bit of peace. We visited Stranorlar. I can remember standing on the footbridge and looking down to the main platform, where they appeared to only recently have lifted the track, as nothing was growing there due to thirty years of diesel dripping onto the "three-foot". There was a wagon parked over the far side too, which I looked at, and noticed weeds beginning to grow around its wheels. Unknown to me there was a railcar there too - I must have seen it but don't remember. Same day we went on to the GNR's Foyle Road terminus in Derry, where Senior showed me a great big crack in the concrete ground on the platform where a few years earlier a steam loco had been set to crash into it by persons of a paramilitary disposition up the line.........

So do I, but I think we’re resigned to the soul-destroying work of doing it all over again. At least it didn’t delete what we had ALREADY done prior to that day! Had THAT happened, we’d both have dropped that project….!

We had the thing auto-saving; when it crashed it was dinner time, so the twenty-something-in-residence was unavailable; as soon as he appears this evening he will be enlisted.........

Alarm set this morning for 8, and off to "Joint Author"'s house to do the lions share of collaborative book 4; his photos, my writings. As customary, he has projector and screen set up, computer on, and tea on the go; and away we go. First thing is to add to some of the captions (some 84 of them) we had already done. By the time we had that done (insertion of dates, background info researched by both of us for other captions to expand them), it's lunch time. So far, so good. Computer's on autosave, so out with the sandwiches. Round two. During the afternoon, we get a good fifty further captions done, with research in place to fill out about 20 more. We're getting on well; we're thinking one more session and we're off to the publisher with this one. Which will leave him free to deal with other matters, and me to complete next "sole" book. Suddenly, it's 18:30; the day has flown - but look at what we've got done. Then the computer makes a noise like a musical note, and all but what we had saved at lunchtime just vanishes. If you are that laptop and you're reading this, here's a thing: I know a man with semtex and sledgehammers and you're THIS close.... Meanwhile we have rostered a relative who is under 30 to investigate that nasty laptop..... Whole day wasted!

Saw that at the time - it looked amazing! Must try that..........

Once I eventually get Dugort harbour finished (it was delivered still needing a few bits and pieces) and its extension, I've a long term plan to do a small "shelf" layout to showcase a South African H0 scale loco I'll have by then. It will be interesting to see if there are any circumstances in which I can recreate an "African sunset" in a suburban house near Dublin airport..... but we'll see. The whole thing of layout photography and lighting is beginning to interest me more, a throwback to a teen-and-twenties interest in photography.

Looks really well. Where possible, I’ve started only posting pics of Dugort Harbour which are taken in natural light, often about this time of evening (20:00-ish). Seems to look best, especially when it’s in an attic with overhead spotlights only.

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!”