jhb171achill

Totally agree - if the kit was dirt cheap, maybe. Very nice looking loco, mind you, but I expect that a scratchbuild of the BCDR equivalent might be not just cheaper but more effective?

It's the middle of the dark days of the "troubles", maybe 1976-ish, when bomb scares, as well as REAL bombs were an almost weekly occurrence. I was returning to Dublin on the "Enterprise". It must have been mid-winter as it was dark at Central Station in Belfast, and there was a line of buses for Dundalk. The line was closed somewhere between Portadown and "the border". No local trains beyond Lisburn. We were to be bussed to DDK where we would get on a scheduled local which would be held for us. Naturally, half a dozen tired-out Laminates and Park Royals, and a spluttery genny van were of much greater interest to me than a Mk 2 set of either NIR or CIE ownership. I got off the bus in Dundalk and just happened to be the first one into the carriage - a 1904-series laminate brake. I sat down and immediately noticed a suitcase-type bag tucked under the table! I don't think I've ever moved so fast.......... I got out and told a man in CIE uniform that there was a "suspicious package" under the table and showed him where it was. He stared suspiciously at it. I expected him to start waving his arms and yelling for everyone to get out of the station RIGHT NOW! But - he stared harder - poked it with his foot, and then gingerly lifted it and carried it off the train.........! Had that been what I thought it was, and what it often actually was, both that adventurous railwayman and I plus bits of the train and GNR architecture in the station, would have been splattered in tiny messy bits all over Dundalk........ (The haulage was a 141, and he went like the wind! Great run, once we DID get going!)

Absolutely outstanding, Patrick!

Someone posted somewhere about wondering about a "commuter" service to Bandon prior to 1930 or thereabouts. So I dug out the 1926-30 working timetables tonight. I had never heard of any such thing myself, unless perhaps in VERY early CBSC days. So, perusal of above sources shows what I suspected; there is no commuter-type service in the 1920s at any rate - what there IS other than through trains to Kinsale, Clonakilty and Skibbereen is just one single working, which is that the 04:30 goods to Clonakilty Junction would return to Bandon, from where it added a brake coach to form an 09:00 MIXED to Cork. That seems to be the solitary working which conveyed passengers specifically between Bandon and Cork only (and points in between). In those days, there would have been no south-western Cork suburbs worthy of anything approaching an actual "commuter" service - mind you, today might be different if the line had survived - doubtless as a haven of ICRs or 2600s.

Me oul eyesight is confused. Mirror image "snail", yet "GW" the right way round!

A “midlands” club would just have to do a MGWR layout!

Further into; during trawling of old photos for unrelated reasons, I found several showing lattice posts painted with white, and black at the bottom too. The top was not visible.

Very true, I forgot about that. They might have had more of those for Dublin area heavy goods transfers, and perhaps something like a development of the "D" class along the lines of British 08s........

A throwback to steam days, when a couple of oil lamps on the front was the only show in town! Very true - and something that's important for us to still remember these days - buy local!

Guess where we'd have to insert the DCC chip on Dick the Horse!

I think that diesels were still - in Europe - a relatively new thing, with most railway administrations still in a steam mindset, although CIE had railcars on the main lines after 1950. Bullied's influence and spirit of experimentation was still floating about, too. Ireland was never big enough to put massive resources into designing their own indigenous diesels; it made sense to use technology dreamed up, tried and tested by others. Hence the A, B101 and C classes - and later American varieties. To be fair to CIE, our nearest neighbours in BR invented all manner of diesel prototypes which didn't last - they, too, were treading an unknown road. The E421 class actually worked very well, and had the "no shunt" railway and later decimation of goods traffic not come about in the last fifty years, I daresay they'd still be with us. The two at Downpatrick served that line very well until withdrawn for further restoration some years ago, and they were over 40 years old at that stage, and had not seen the inside of Inchicore since the mid 1980s........ One wonders what "off-the-shelf" ones they might have bought; the "G" class come to mind! With BR having so many experimental diesel shunters at that time, some good, some useless, CIE might have looked to Germany....? We might have had the "E" klasse......

Six this morning, and another seventeen by noon tomorrow, I believe....... RTR Blessington tram locos, the Loughrea crew van, Macroom six wheel thirds, and Burtonport Extension goods vans among them......

I'm not sure, PeadarC - but I certainly wouldn't rule it out!

Hybrid steam /electric power? (I'll show myself out...)

I think in later days while there were still 401s “on the books”, as it were, they saw little use. I would g YG ave been bumbling about Heuston station from 1976 onwards, and Connolly long before that - yet I have no recollection of ever seeing a single one in use even then, at either place. Always 421s. Now, I am aware that a few WERE in use at that time; my point is simply that they didn’t feature as much as their numbers might suggest. There was a line of them withdrawn in Inchicore - all with cowls.

Good weathering.

Fascinating, Colm. That's a very nice conversion of a Triang railcar you did. I had one of those and tried to make it look AEC-like by converting the three front cab windows into two. It was about the best one could hope for at the time without scratchbuilding. Unfortunately I've no photos of it - I painted it UTA green with wasp stripes added to a lower yellow end with the aid of a ruler and fine-tipped black marker pen.

Yes - there were, or was; I am unsure of the details. At least one was like that, though they were all originally WITH them. The way to tell was by the windows, if no other details (e.g. the numbers!) are visible in a picture, as with the difference between G601 and G611 classes.

Interesting livery variation on the Park Royals - green ends on those two. They were normally black, as were the ends of other CIE coaches in both green liveries. Naturally, due to the ridge along the side, no Park Royals ever carried "snails".

TimO OK, good questions; let me clarify. Various sources had in the past suggested that only two, A46 being one, got the dark green livery. However, it now appears that up to twelve did, plus several C class too. There were just the two varieties of green. Most were the lighter, same as carriages and railcars. Other shades and variations are the result of different types of (early!) colour film, in much the same way that some photos of carriages in the 1990s appear to show them as a deep reddish tangerine colour, instead of the orange they were. The eau-de-nil waist line was to be seen on both A and C class locos, as was the absence of it! And, of course, the A's also had an eau-de-nil painted flying snail attached to the side. This was a cut-out metal thing painted that colour, rather than one painted directly on. So, A class locos in green may be with or without waistlines, just as black ones were concurrently with - and without - yellow ends; and a generation later, in the 1990s, the 141 class might have the reddish dayglo orange panels on the front, or not. Hope that clarifies.

Yes, just for two months before it closed. Must have worn out a G over an undulating line that length! Limerick - Foynes daily mixed, the only train on the line when the passenger service ended in 1963. The passenger accommodation was an old MGWR six-wheel brake third. There are colour pics of it in my North Kerry book.

Correct - the track was almost ground into the ground, and they used ash and cinders between the rails for the horse to walk on! What little ballast there was, would have been worn and trodden down.

Nice flowing track layout, Tony. With your Omagh goods yard skills, it will give great scope for good scenery as well as interesting operational possibilities.

Absolutely superb finish - very realistic! The original finish, believe it it not was a rich maroon, but it wasn’t just the painter - but more so outdoor storage, weathering, brake dust, the cheapest quality paint they could get, and even poorer undercoat, which got most remaining coaches into this state! The general manager told Senior that he was so embarrassed by them, he would prefer to borrow one from CIE or the GNR, if there was any sort of special train or “VIP” about….

This is what it would have been like. Some guards compartments on coaches like this were only 7ft long, the size of a normal compartment.