jhb171achill

Yes, to turn round. NIR would only be ballasting on NIR territory.

Boys, you've excelled yourselves yet again. Superb job. Those vans are, I suppose, the British equivalent of the GNR's "P" vans, the NCC "Brown Vans" or the CIE "tin vans".......

I very much doubt it. IE always had a more comprehensive fleet of such things than NIR ever did! I've never heard of such a thing - unless anyone else can give details of anything?

Ah, ok, fair comment.

“A” class locos managed to get to elsewhere in Co Cavan too. On one occasion anyway, a GAA special from Monaghan town travelled to Dublin via Cavan and Inny Junction.

Sums it up perfectly! Barring MEDs, or some if the old MPDs, no two of which seemed alike, the 450 or “Castle” class railcars were by light years the worst rolling stock to travel in since the last MGWR unfitted cattle wagon was scrapped. Awful things, and of minus zero railway interest……

I believe one got to Derry at least once - a 141 certainly did.

We'll need to ask Dr. Drumm.....

This one's priceless. Now how do I organise a 00 scale working donkey cart for Dugort Harbour, complete with DCC chip stuffed up its.......well, you get the idea. Actually, serious point. Horse or donkey carts were used even by CIE at several locations for local deliveries well into the 1970s; Loughrea had a CIE horse cart almost to the end in 1975. Does anyone make models of carts which resemble this typical rural Irish type, perhaps even with modern car tyres on it, as later ones (which I well remember) tended to have? Such a cart would make a very good scenic "prop" in many a 1960s (or earlier) goods yard. As a child I remember asking Senior to take a picture of something - can't remember what it was - but the reply was "sure, who'd want a picture of that...."! I'm quite sure many a wan would, nowadays!

That was my point, exactly. They did all three large cities and also were regulars on the Belfast - Dublin line with special trains, the "Peace Train", substitute Enterprises, rugby, GAA and other special trains, and so on. They appear at Clonmel on a normal SCHEDULED service in "Rails Through Tipperary" and they appear at Ennis and Clarecastle on a GAA train in "Rails Through the West". As you say, that is by no means a complete list of their travels. It relates to a point I've made before. In modelling any line in any era, there are certain "must-haves", without which a layout even loosely based on that era and place is simply not possible. Without endlessly listing these again, we're looking (for CIE) at AEC railcars, "H" vans and "tin vans" for 1950-70, ICRs for modern times and container flats; and for NIR we absolutely need a "Jeep" plus AECs again for the 1960s, and Mk 2 coaches and 80 class railcars for the mid-70s onwards. Other stuff too; but with an 80 it's quite possible to model NIR without, say, the NCC breakdown crane, but no matter how accurate a model of that is, it won't convince anyone it's NIR unless there's an 80 there too. The 80 class may thus be taken as a "staple". I can think of eight livery variations off the top'o'me'ead, and that's before we consider several one-off centre cars, so there is huge scope for variations of a model of one of these, as there was / is with an A class.

Those ones are narrow-gauge.......

Some of us are lucky enough to be in a position to go out and buy half a dozen multi-packs of anything we want (provided Mrs. Woman doesn’t find out!), but I’m sure we all remember saving hard to have enough pocket money for one Hornby 4-wheeled wagon. I can recall giving up any hope of buying a “Flying Scotsman” at about £5 when pocket money ran at a shilling or two a week….. However, if I was one of the younger or budget modellers today, given the quality of IRM or Accurascale stuff, I’m quite sure it would be feasible to buy a pack of three (employing the Bank of Mum & Dad) and keeping one and selling the other two individually to others in the same boat…..?

An 80 would indeed be a logical step. It simply isn’t possible to model NIR realistically at ANY stage between 1974 and the early 2000s. One must not forget that they also appeared on the Dublin and Cork suburban services, the only type of train ever to serve suburban routes in the three biggest cities in Ireland apart from the equally ubiquitous and equally necessary AEC cars. It would be an excellent choice and one can only drool at the certain quality that such a thing would have if produced. A Hunslet, too, would go nicely with the IRM Mk 2 carriages, though possibly more limited in appeal.

I believe the cover photo shows double-headed ones in UTA green pulling an Asahi into Carndonagh in 1949?

That will create great fun at Ashtown and Merrion Gates!

Much as I like the GM sound on Murphy 121 / 141 / 181 classes, I think the IRM "A" sound is by far the most realistic yet - and I remember both 141 and "AR" engines in real life from new!

In this day and age, children are watched and not let out of their parents’ sight. Sixty years ago life was simpler. I recall being “brought to work” by senior on several occasions. One involved a visit to Foyle Road in Derry (GNR side) where I observed raindrops leaking through the platform roof - it was bucketing down - and Strabane - with me free to wander from one end of Strabane to another and play on the north signal cabin steps. Playing on Dr Cox’s Donegal stuff. Stranorlar, where the track had just been lifted and I spent the time running up and down the footbridge, still in situ, spanning two lines of sleeper marks in the ground. I think there may still have been some rolling stock in a siding. Killybegs just after the track was removed. The station remained 100% intact, and the overall roof used as a fish box store. The STINK!!! Another was in Westland Row, where a large black diesel (C or A, I suppose) was idling in what I suspect was one of the old Kingstown mail bay platforms. “Stay there!”, I was told, and I did until retrieved at what seemed like an age later. Kildare signal cabin was another, and probably my earliest memory. A train swooshed through, of green carriages. ”Stay there till I come back!” Portadown, as what I believe was a Warrenpoint train came and went - “Jeep” 2.6.4T in charge. The throaty roar of AEC railcars. Lisburn signal cabin, where I was offered biscuits by the signalman, as another Jeep simmered outside with a ballast train. A friend handing a can of shandy to the driver of a “Jeep” on a ballast train…. “Don’t move. I’ll be back in a few minutes!” A GNR 0.6.0 in Lisburn, simmering in the back platform, on a Belfast local. The crew invited me onto the footplate to look, but “Stay where you are” occupied my mind. Adelaide loco depot. Coal smoke in the air, weeds between sleepers, rusty wheel sets from scrapped BCDR & GNR coaches in a long line. ”Stay there till I come back!” In the back seat of the car outside Dungannon station, seeing a signal arm over the wall and wondering if it would move, like you could make the ones on my first train set move up and down. ”Don’t move from here”……. Great Victoria Street, awaiting my aunt off a Dublin train. Smoke, steam, 207 Boyne, aunt. ”Stay where you are”…. I’m bored sitting in this station. How much longer will he be?

Crossleys, I say! Hellfire! Thrash! "C" classes!

Interesting. When the GNR lines in the west were all sacrificed on James Craig's political altar of still-unbuilt motorways in 1957, Senior was retained in Enniskillen for many months before being transferred to Amiens St., before taking up what would have been a temporary position in Great Victoria Street - but the division of what was left of the GNR some months later left him on the UTA side of the fence! While IN Enniskillen post-closure, the matters you mention were exactly what he dealt with, including the removal of a brand new concrete bridge he had replaced months earlier! I don't recollect all his utterances on this subject, but the girders from one underbridge somewhere on the Irish North ended up on the NCC during a bridge replacement there under his watch (1959-64), and the concrete beams for another Irish North underbridge remain buried (I know where!) near the line at Adelaide - they were cast but never used. What a waste. He also had to supervise the lifting of tracks he had maintained well only months earlier, and the removal of all sorts of other structures which GNR management thought might attract stone throwers or the then equivalent of claim-chasing morons....

Pints of Guinness?

Exactly! Yes, I think it ŵas summer '62, and it was indeed a publicity shot, in which, it will noted that "A6" is displayed in an experimental font which was nor perpetrated, and the white line is also not what became standard. First applications of Black and Tan in traffic did indeed tend to be more AEC railcard than anything else as they were the ICRs of the day, on most lines taking the most important passenger services. While a handful of vehicles were painted in the new livery in late 1962 to see what they looked like, it would be another year before they were commonplace. Thus, 1963 may be taken as the year when black'n'tan actually became the actual livery in practice. Any layout based in 1963-6 will still have many green coaches as well, though.

I found a photo on the smugmug site which I'd like a copy of, and publishing permission if possible. The site says that copyright is held by a number of different people. Having identified this one specific image, does anyone know how I can find out who holds the copyright and, ideally, their contact details?

They were also known as "hooded" vans by some railwaymen - jhbSenior and, for what it's worth, one old Kildare signalman who he knew, used to refer to them as such. I think the term came from an idea of a distinction between them - with internal "main line" dimensions and the older wooden framed vans, very often with lower roofs. Not certain of that, though.

I think Barry has exact dates for this. I will check. If Barry doesn't, I know someone else who should know this.

“….the carriage? I think they’re putting a storage heater in it like the one at Loughrea. Saves a heating van…..” ”Gimme a hand with these sacks. My back’s done in.”