jhb171achill

In 2070, yes.

Rather than speculate, a serious point. Any railway model sell more if there's something to run it with. Doesn't matter what era. Make a RTR carriage and nothing to haul it, or a locomotive without a single suitable item of rolling stock? Doesn't make sense. We have various locos ranging from the early 1960s to the mid 90s, with 121, 141, 181, 071 and 201 classes. We have Cravens, BR vans, Mk 2 & Mk 3 stock. We have fitted container flats and other post-1975 goods stock, ferts and bubbles. All fine so far, and sensible. But there are gaps in this alone, and tin vans are the glaringly obvious one, in all reality. Now the "A" class are about to appear - and who knows, in the long run maybe a "C" or a "B101"; Silverfox already do them. The gaps in suitable rolling stock - both passenger and goods - for the period within which the long-lived "A"s spent almost HALF of their working lives, are many and huge. To look at an "A" class loco as something which hauled double decker beets, fertiliser bogies, and Mk 2 coaches is to ignore much of what else they did in an earlier time. Joking aside, it's not THAT long before they could be seen in Youghal with a summer excursion of fifteen 1880s six wheelers. They were to be seen sharing sheds with any amount of steam engines - 00 Works addressed this with their beautiful J15s, but they're "out of print" now. For half of an "A" class loco's life, wooden coaches of one sort or another were behind it as much as Cravens were. To look at an "A" class as something which belongs to an era of bogie fitted freight, "tippex"-liveried carriages and beet is to forget that when built, every single thing was grey, green or silver; the black'n'tan livery even in its earliest iterations was some eight years into the future. The BIG gap in the market - being practical and factual here - is in the earlier stuff. Now, that's not to say there's nothing yet to be covered in the 1980s and 90s, but the biggest gaps of the lot are earlier; I need not list them, it's already been done....

Ah, but he might have been a pronoun……

Yes, and have been since Methusalah was learning her spellings….! Roughly half of the fleet remain in the old livery. Quite a few still have the old “three pin plug” logo, as well as the new “origami” one.

I already have…..

Drogheda. The darker brick common on this line is used in the main building, but a Mills-designed outbuilding is included too. The station interior here was also similar to many elsewhere on the GNR, albeit not always with such a tall ceiling. Note, too, the wooden building in the 2nd last picture. Pure GNR; horizontal board, and typical GNR eaves and windows.

The almost standard GNR platform canopy supports had “GNRI” interwoven in them. These may still be seen at many locations; Lisburn, Dundalk, and a number of places south of Drogheda. But not all did. Malahide - standard Mills architecture and standard GNR columns under the canopy. This iconic architectural style also had curved tops to windows.

More of the above. Many GNR stations had their standard type of wooden structure on the platform opposite the main building. Most are gone now, but a number of northern line Dublin suburban stations still have them. Even the survivors are not always (or at all) in use, thanks to the destructive pond life that frequents unstaffed stations in the evenings. Note the original door on this, and curved ornamental top to the doorway, another common GNR feature. Another at Skerries. Many stations on this line, and the Oldcastle branch, had a dark brick architecture, mixed and mingled with the standard “Mills” designs. Again, curved topped doorway. Note the columns….

Customer trains in Drogheda this evening. Different colours….. The NIR one is the 18:05 Belfast - Connolly.

Can’t argue with that!

Forgot about that, actually - you've the Bandon Tank kit as well as the J26. But yes, you need them properly made up if like me you haven't the skills, eyesight, or both....

In truth, West Cork had an amazing variety of locos - and there's a kit of the MGWR J26 available - three worked regularly in West Cork, especially the Clon & Courtmac branches in the 1950s....

It'll be a big party, Wishtcarrkrailway!

Yup. Steam don't go with Mk 2 tin cans......

Steam, please!

Yes, Senior witnessed that very incident; he was standing on the platform watching! The culprit was an over-enthusiastic driver and a SLNCR wagon that in truth, was unfit for traffic.... ___________________________________________ "Was that you on the goods at Millstreet last week?" "Yeah - yer man opens up - first time I've ever seen a C class so lively, I can tell you....broke the coupling. Couple of hours overtime in it, though...."

Indeed - and I have seen that same "right oul mess" play out in real life. While the intention is always to get the shunting done with as quickly as possible, someone could come up with an idea to take a short cut, but end up with a rake of vans blocking a main line. Even professional railwaymen were not immune. The late Harry Mulholland had a great tale of a "right oul mess" involving shunting manoeuvres going horribly wrong in Lisburn in the 1940s, while jhb171Senior had a similar tale about a station full of half-shunted cattle trucks off the Sligo Leitrim delaying an evening passenger train at Enniskillen back in the day....

I'm off with Barry Carse to do the WDLR greenway in a few weeks........ but I'm afraid it'll be electric bikes this time, not cyclable ones! Even an ICR to Dungarvan would be more preferable, though I would draw the line at a UTA MED...........!

The GWR would be a bit too narrow gauge for anywhere in Ireland!

It’s by far the most scenic line in Ireland. Killiney Bay, Bray Head, beaches for miles past Kilcoole, Vale of Avoca, Slaney River, Enniscorthy, Wexford Harbour front, more beaches down to Rosslare….

That's the trouble.... hence I use a relative in GB who brings things over.

Presumably you mean the Silverfox ones? I've stuff on order from them too, and I think that it will be early next year when it's ready - though I'm unaware of whether that's an estimate due to delivery delays or production delays.

Keep up the good work!

It even occurred to me when setting those pics up that the crew would have been cursing the last lot up and down for leaving that van at the buffers! Such things could happen, of course.... laziness is nothing new!

I've given up modelling Australia, Broithe! ____________________________________________________________________ "One and sevenpence for a pint, I'm telling ye. He's put it up a penny!" "It's one and fivepence in O'Donoghues, and a half pint is still ninepence at yer man's out the harbour road" "OK, let's do the brake test....two minutes to go..."