jhb171achill

O'Dea wrote a superb article in the IRRS Journal at the time about his jaunt to Valentia Harbour on the last day - truly a marathon. Was a very nice man to talk to, I met him several times.

Yes, by the 1970s, very much so.

I remember seeing one in use with steel-sheeted body, but still planked end balconies...

Indeed - an important note for modellers of the more artistic variety - the amount of weathering and wear and tear, especially on wagons, cannot be understated. Some of the wagons were so rough looking, they were coated in brake dust - photos of not just these (ALL of which were grey!), but green carriages - would almost suggest to the uninitiated that the whole lot were light brown...... and as for steam engines, if you got a class like the 400s in which some examples were green, some grey and a few black, you genuinely could hardly tell which was which. Crossleys, of course, carried out their functions in between breakdowns under a patina of oil and gunk........

That is, in typical Kirley style, absolutely superb, so full of atmosphere, and very much what I would be trying to emulate by degrees!

Indeed - Senior travelled on the 2nd last one - but didn't take a SINGLE picture! Cattle was the reason that MANY Irish lines got beyond the 1930s, and the main reason that very many, from Draperstown and Dungiven in Co Derry, to Kenmare in Co Kerry lasted at all. ALL of the following - and this is only for starters, off the top'o'me'ead, depended on cattle traffic, many of them lasting almost as long in a derelict state for that one purpose only as they did in full use. Limavady - Dungiven, Draperstown, Mountmellick, Oldcastle, Carrickmacross, Cootehill, Loughrea, Ballinrobe, Ballaghaderreen, Dingle (narrow gauge), Kenmare, Bagenalstown - Palace East, Mitchelstown, Newmarket, Athboy, Edenderry...... and in between there were many, many, many intermediate stations on main lines (places like Ballinasloe being probably the best known - but many others too) which saw almost no use in latter days bar the cattle specials once or twoce a month, or sometimes even less frequently. Don't take that list as anything like exhaustive either! The importance of cattle traffic to Irish railways cannot be overstated, thus for any layout prior to 1960, and many a location between 1960 and 1975 (when the last cattle trains ran) is an essential part of the scene. Like carriages, designs used in Britain were so different that repainted GWR or BR examples just don't cut the mustard if any degree of accuracy is wished for. Up to 1960 all sorts of old relics were used, but CIE went into overdrive building new ones between the end of the 1950s and early 60s, so by 1965 any pre-CIE ones were as far as I know extinct. Prior to that, the Provincial GNR one will cover many a scenario, as it's not hugely unlike some old GSR (or possibly NCC) ones either - after that, the above provincial CIE one is the only show in town. Some even managed to gain the new brown livery after 1970! the last were withdrawn in '75 and assembled mostly in Cork and Dublin where they were burned and the metal bits scraped up and sold for scrap. Strangely, while I stand to be corrected on this, I never saw any being scrapped at Mullingar. At one stage cattle traffic was by FAR the biggest goods traffic in Ireland. We were carrying "beasts", while our neighbours on the "big island" were carrying milk churns and coal.......... Bizarre, almost, that of the single biggest non-passenger traffic ever on THIS entire island, not a SOLITARY complete cattle truck has survived. New build, anyone?

I recently came across an account of a fair day in the west of Ireland in 1968, at which forty of these were loaded. The gist of the article was that the same event a decade earlier would have loaded 120 of them. This is why there were so many on the railways, but also why they spent a lot of time sitting in sidings. Realism will be added to any 1950s or 1960s layout (or earlier) by having a siding somewhere stuffed with these things awaiting their next turn of duty. I've a couple more on order, in addition to a good few I already have, so that I can make up a 15 or 20 wagon "cattle special".

Very much so. That type were being built at exactly the same time as the "A"s came out. To run behind "A"s in ALL liveries up to the early black'n'tan, these cattle trucks were absolutely the norm. The right sort of rolling stock for an "A" is several Provincial Wagons products - the GSWR guard's van if for a branch (or West Cork!), the standard CIE "H" van, this cattle wagon, the GNR timber-framed vans and the Bullied open wagon. Also look at the kit for a CIE brake van made by Studio Scale Models, the wooden-planked standard CIE guard's van made by JM Design (excellent) and even the range of very much older vans made by KMCE of this parish; in West Cork, ancient relics like that were still to be seen almost until the old CBSCR system closed. Weather them within an inch of their lives!

Until the mid 1960s and quite often later, it’s practically obligatory that few if ANY wagons in a train were the same type. Typically, brand new “palvans” and “H” vans mixed and mingled with older CIE types, old GSR vans of at least three types, older still the occasional antique of DWWR, DSER, GSWR (many types of this alone) and MGWR origin. After CIE ate the pitiful remnants of the GNR in October 1958, GNR vans of (again) at least three varieties joined the gang, many retaining their GNR markings well into the 1960s, and many GNR Cement Vans (very like CIE “H”s, but with corrugated ends) lasting until the end of loose-coupled goods in the 1970s. Spotted at Dugort Harbour in 1960 are, left to right; “Provincial Wagons” standard timber-framed ex-GNR goods van, as yet not repainted in CIE style; a KMCE covered van of an earlier (DWWR) period (as yet not painted, and on temporary wheels; proper spoked ones on order); and another “Provincial” “H” van. Looking forward to getting a few more onto the layout. I’ve two MGWR ones currently without wheels, and a few more of both KMCE and Provincial origin. Superb models, gents!

Indeed! Nothing new about the idea or even technology at all!

Yup - I'm the same. Unless they absolutely COLLAPSE price-wise, I'll be bumbling about in a basic petrol-driven Yaris till I pop me clogs. Besides, I dunno how to drive automatics, and they're all automatic.

They're just about catching up with the SLNCR and the Great Northern..........!

Love it!

They were common enough. They came in several variations - with “flat” boot as above, or slightly raised, and with two slightly different radiator designs if I remember correctly. They were marketed as Ford “Prefect” and Ford “Popular”. Good for a 1950s layout along with an early Morris 1000 “Minor” or Austin A35 or Morris “Cambridge”, or an old Alvis.

Then there was the “beetle” at Wellington Bridge - wonder what became of that?

First car I was ever carted about in was one of those...... 1951 model. My dad had it until about 1965 - even then it was looking antiquated.

Wouldn't be surprised. They might get one each for Inchicore, Drogheda and Port Laoise.....

“What did you roll it off the END for? Sure the damn thing’s LEAKING now! Get down here and give me a hand lifting it up!” ”It’s YOUR fault - you should have stopped it rolling!”

A busy day; B165 arrives with the passenger train, with A55 later on the goods. After shunting that, A55 places the beet empties at the loading bank.

The orange and black in its first iteration goes back to the very tail end of 1962, so us "sixties children" (and "seventies teenagers") will also make the same association! They never actually did object to the RPSI using a "serving" livery - that was an urban myth perpetuated by a single former RPSI volunteer, aided and abetted by a single member of IE staff!

No, that would be cruelty to rabbits……! Seriously, excellent info as always, thanks!

Coming from a railway family, with three generations and both my parents behind me as railway employees, as a child I was straightaway interested in .... cars. And buses. I did have a basic O gauge circle of track as a small child but - cars. At age 10, we had to do a school project on any subject we liked. I chose television, as I was always fascinated by what went on behind the scenes, though we did have a TV until I was 13. (And with all the inane drivel on it, I'm glad; I still almost never watch TV...). I couldn't find any suitable material in the school library, so home I went - and got a brainwave. I will tell Senior I have to do a homework about the railways. And that's where it started. I got hooked. Next came another oval of track, this time 00 scale; a 2nd hand class 31 diesel with a loose roof, and 0.4.0 steam engine, a British Mk 1 carriage and three wagons........ And the cars? From the same point in time, my interest in those and the buses evaporated in its 100% entirety. I have not even the remotest beginnings of any interest in them since then!

Market Day, and there’s quite often a second coach on the branch train….. Brake vans tonight at Dugort Harbour. Why two? There’s a beet special as well as the goods on Monday.

“What ya mean your foot’s stuck? I told you not to play up there!!” The long goodbye. “Have ye got everything now?” ”Yeah, I’m grand. I’ll write to you from Boston”….. ”G’wan, you’ll miss the train…” . “…..because if we put them in the van HERE, there’s less shunting and the match starts in an hour on the wireless….”

Suppose you want to make a surface in 00 scale which is meant to look like an area originally gravelled, but most of it tramped down by now - smooth-ish but not exactly level, like a concrete or tarmac surface. I presume this stuff is perfect for it - but what colour, how to "weather" it, and would it be a good idea to sprinkle some sort of very light grit on it to make it look "gravelly"? Perhaps light sand?