jhb171achill

The bottom of the barrel is well and truly scraped! Seriously - everyone who can should try to support this venture. Most of our railway heritage groups have suffered very extremely due to covid lockdowns, several to a point which could place their existence in doubt.

Only seeing this now! Excellent stuff!

That’s a seriously impressive collection of wagons!

Not a bad oul start, to be fair!

You mean these? If so, I have no idea myself but maybe someone else might?

Here in Malahide, the last northbound DART arrives about 00:07 each night. Just now, it's done the same. However, at the same time, and therefore presumably heading TOWARDS Dublin, was the unmistakeable sound of an 071. What is an 071 doing out'n'about on the GNR at 00:09 tonight?

That snail is the right way round, ok - if slightly large....nothing to worry about! The only things that had snails the OTHER way round were the driver's side of road vehicles, and the same side on steam loco tenders. Absolutely everything else had them as on your model - and yes, that's exactly the coaches I meant, though I'm replacing the roofs to eliminate the clerestorey sections, which will make them that bit more GSWR-esque.... No need to worry about long trains on a Wisht Caark layout! Lines in that area had passenger trains of one coach and a tin van or (in steam days) a six-wheel passenger brake; even the main line would have two or three max plus the obligitary tin van. You've enough coaches there for four trains - two x 2-coach and two x 1-coach - but you need four tin vans at least!

Have a look at the cheap ratio kits of LMS era coaches. While they've bowed-in ends, unseen on Irish railways other than 9a few) on the WLWR, they look good enough when green - or better still the old second hand Triang Hornby GWR ones you get the odd time on fleebay. I bought three of them for about €15.

Coaches very nicely sprayed…… practice painted lining on a bit of scrap plastic maybe?

If you've painted them the lighter green, they would only have had a thinner waistline in pale green. Easy to do with a ruler in hand, hopefully?

The dock line did, at one stage, go right out to the end of the quay where there were at least two sidings into two different mills. One., at least, was very short-lived. Both were gone by the 1950s, I'd say. The first time I thoroughly explored the site - and minus any camera - in the 70s (fifty years ago this summer!), I saw no trace of them at all, and even the extension across the road TOWARDS the quay had recently been lifted. I started research for the Achill book in the late 1980s. From that day to this, I am unaware of a single photograph of the actual quay sidings anywhere - and I've looked hard!

No. The lighter green livery appeared about 1956, and the laminates were initially unpainted, though with this becoming a total mess almost instantly in traffic, the earlier ones were repainted in green from about 1957 onwards; the later ones lighter green from the start. However, ALL of the 1951-3 coaches, often referred to as "laminates" but with solid wood frames as opposed to "laminated timber", and similar in appearance to actual "laminates"; were the dark green from the start. One batch at least appeared new with no lining or snails at all, and silver window frames, but were repainted the then-normal livery of the dark green with upper and lower thick eau-de-nil bands, edged in black and white. If it's a pic you're looking at, it is likely that the vehicle is a 1951-3 coach like this. There's one thing though - in the late 1950s, a small number of secondary stock, mostly oul wrecks in West Cork and West Clare stuff, was given an unlined coact of dark green - probably to use it up. This was a sort of half-way-house unofficial livery, a bit like the raccoon pair of 201s today. The "pre-laminates" were, of course, laterally painted in the lighter green after 1956, before getting their black'n'tan coats after 1962. Lovely Donegal-esque job on that little tank engine! It actually shows perfectly why some people have incorrectly assumed that the GNR blue engines and CDR red engines had black domes! They never did - and your weathering job shows the reality as perfectly as the real thing!

I would second that! The station master's house at Palace East was of that style. Now, many DSER stations did use corrugated sheet constriction - but as you suggest, that doesn't look like an actual station per se.

In original livery they did all have the lower black band, and for exactly the reason you mention.

An outstanding loco, outstanding performance and outstanding layout!

Couldn't agree more. While "rivet counting" - like everything else in modelling - is not everyone's cuppa tae, when done well it really brings a realistic layout to life.

Snipers have incredible precision too.........................

Those pics of Gerry’s are probably the single best collection of photos of that short, scenic and very interesting line.

Have a look at this........... https://webapps.geohive.ie/mapviewer/index.html

In that top (B&W) pic, the palvan seen on the left is at the end of the "new" siding shown on mjy diagram above as a dotted line. The van in the foreground is a GSR van. Note the water column, disused even then, in nthe distance on the right. Odd place for it, given that Westport station was less than 2km away. I have lately found a definitive date for the final closure of this line to REGULAR goods trains. This was Monday 1st March 1943. Thereafter, OCCASIONAL goods trains would operate on an "as-required" basis, and staff in the Quay station (which was fully staffed until then, I think with 2 people) were transferred eslewhere. In the second pic, the very low height of the platform will be noted. The station building was an odd design, more like a small country cottage than railway architecture. Single storey on the platform side, 2-storey on the other side. A very unique and interesting type of prototype for a model.

Do you mean a "C" class in "flying snail" green? .....................................................

The Monaghan one - as alluded to elsewhere, the railcar DOES appear to be in CIE green, yet no "CIE" stencil appears to be on the buffer beam. If the pic is indeed 1955, then it's a CIE railcar rather than a former GNR one painted green. If so, what's it doing there? I am unaware of ANY CIE railcar traversing the GNR in GNR days. If the pic IS later, and the railcar is an ex-GN one repainted, then it's almost certainly that 2-car AEC which the IRRS had on a farewell tour in 1960. And if that is the case, either the "CIE" stencil is covered in dirt, or they have not yeat applied it - by 1960, the latter is highly unlikely. The pic of INWR 44 (GN37): note that it is shunting a distictive BCDR covered van.

West Clare, yes. Possibly a GS rebuold too, but (a) certainly not C & L, and (b) looks to be too large a loading gauge, and possibly chassis length (?) for T & D. My money's on West Clare.

Not sure how they dealt with wheel play! I believe that in this diagram it’s in its final form in the 1950s. Like other NCC stock of older age, it kept its BNCR numberplates.

Correct! False economy having so few.