jhb171achill

It’s 1964. Every year, the Far North Antrim Pigeon Botherers & Greyhound Worriers Club have an event which involves a special train containing “pigeon men” and their birds, down to West Cork. The birds are released and the club’s passengers have lunch in a local hotel (no alcohol is served). Here, we see the returning train with A55 up front. Crossley sludge in your eye if you open the window…. Here, there are four full vans of pigeon crates. Not since the All-Ireland has Dugort Harbour seen a five-coach train…. This train never runs on the “Sabbath”, of course. Inspired by watching pigeons being loaded into CIE “tin vans” in Lisburn, some time in the early 60s….. . The following day, a grimy B141 shunts several wagons to the goods siding after arriving with the mid-day mixed train. A new pair of level crossing gates for the nearest crossing up the line have been delivered. That’s Tim Pat and his damn tractor again. Second gate he’s run into in the last eighteen months.

Yes, I do know him.....indeed! In the 1980s he and i used to do sales stands for the RPSI all over Ireland. Whitehead, Larne, Donegal, Carlow and even Wishht Caaark! (Upton)...

Ah! I see. No, don't know him, but looks impressive. What Irish stuff does he have?

N scale Irish? Pray tell us more.......

Couldn’t agree more! Very well said.

Mystery solved?

I knew Wilson, yes K9, years ago and I always found him to be reasonable to deal with - perhaps PM him? He’s very much interested in things UTA and NIR…. He collects photos too.

Nice - well done, Ken - great to see yet another home-grown maker of home-grown wagons. I've put my order in, folks, and I am very satisfied with what the postman brought to me!

Correct. There were very few TPOs, and while I have seen a bogie TPO in green I can't recall a 4-wheeled one. That is not to say there was no green 4-wheeled TPO - there may well have been. The "tin vans" (LV) and heating vans were certainly green as shown in those pics - but some of those two types went straight from "silver" to black'n'tan. Livery note for silver: roof and chassis and ends silver too, not grey or black - though weathering made them look almost that way.....

Ah, I see….. odd. I’ve no answer…… did you try shutting it down entirely and reopening it?

If you set it up, it's possible for you to vet - or to confirm or refuse - permission for others to post. Some FB pages will show a message to the effect that if you or i post something, it won't show up until or unless the mods approve it.

Which one, Tony?

Not as such, no, though very occasionally (e.g. 12th July) excursions ran from the BCDR onto GNR lines. One must presume that a GNR loco took over in such a case, but there was never anything regular.

Yes, they did. Not all, though - some went directly from the filthy "silver" straight to black'n'tan. The green used on those which did wear it, was the post-1955 lighter green, with a pale green waistline but no flying snail.

“….THREE wagons they’ve sent? Sure John Pat O’Sullivan was telling me last night he’ll have ten or twelve beasts himself! We need to telephone for at least two more…..is the telephone fixed?”

The Christmas parcels are beginning to arrive now; three vans on the branch train today….. . “…… yes, it only came here last week. Only two months old. It’s one of the new ones from England. You’re better sitting in it - the lights still aren’t working in the other one…..”

That is a SERIOUSLY excellent weathering job.

I’ve been posting books to people in Ireland, U.K. and further afield. One got lost in post (to USA), and two were delivered in England with (British) charges whereas others went OK ; one was sent back to me from England.

It's on UTV Player, but it seems that not everyone can get that - I can't seem to.....

That’s one of the Studio Scale Models kits, Fiacra, professionally built - light years beyond my skill set! Very excellent job it was, as you say.

I understand that there was a brown envelope involved, and someone with connections had a word with an influential local publican......

Yes, yes, I know - SERIOUS overkill. A 1961 working timetable…. I’ll draw the line at beet circulars, though….. I’ll shut the door behind me.....!

The next stage with Dugort Harbour is to actually connect it to something, as it is only a shunting layout now. It was delivered and installed, but is the wrong height as the extension has to be somewhat higher to clear two small attic access doors. It will shortly be raised to the level of the already-installed "high level" boards which will form its extension. The concept of the original layout, as may be guessed from the pictures, is of a forlorn backwater on CIE somewhere in West Kerry or Cork, sometime between 1955 and 1965. This allows steam and diesel, elderly six-wheeled passenger stock and brand-new modern laminates and (post-1963) Cravens; and silver, green and black'n'tan liveries as well as the grey and yellow of the B121s, as befits a period with probably a greater variety of everything than at any time before or since. It was based on a place which was an extension to a secondary line to a somewhat larger place, like what Killala was to Ballina, Westport Quay to Westport, Cahirciveen to Valentia Harbour, or Skibbereen to Baltimore. My initial favoured fictitious location was somewhere in the west, but there were not even kits, let alone RTR models, of MGWR-type stock, especially six-wheelers - but there WERE GSWR ones; so south-west it had to be. Add to that 00 Work's excellent J15s - you'd never have got them in west Mayo. So, this imaginary Dugort Harbour will be the terminus of a line of some 4 or 5 miles from Castletown West, a town probably the same sort of size as Newcastle West, Bandon, or Listowel. The trackplan at Castletown West is more or less the same as that at Newport, Co Mayo, except that room shape dictates that it's partly on a curve. Beyond Castletown West, the line disappears round a corner and beyond a scenic break to end in a fiddle yard. The imaginary line branches west from somewhere about Blarney (main line), or a point maybe halfway between Cork and Mallow, and meanders west, tracing a route roughly between the Muskerry narrow gauge and the Macroom branch to the south, and the South Kerry line to the north, ending up at the coast somewhere between Kenmare and Bantry. This allows for the sort of train service pattern as seen on the North Kerry or Albert Quay - Bantry, or Mallow - Waterford. Two passenger trains a day each way between Castletown West and Cork, with connecting branch services. I want the whole thing to look as realistic as possible, rather than have seven 15-coach expresses charging round the room (though I do see the attraction in that too, as a separate issue). This, being Ireland, means that less is more - but it also means that considerable operational variety can be had. Firstly, places like this in real life tended to have a one or two coach train with goods vans and gawd knows what tagged onto the end. The odd cattle truck, a second tin van if there was a lot of mail or parcels, and the like. However, market day or a cattle fair day, plus GAA, pilgrimage, summer excursions and beet resulted in huge traffic and congestion on certain days only. Much scope for operational interest there - but with the "normal" trains being two to three bogie vehicles in length, but good-sized goods sidings, the design favours the reality of what sort of operations would have taken place. Secondly, with but two stations - one a terminus from a long secondary line, the other a sleepy branch extension of that - there needs to be something else going on to maintain interest. Thus, the section from Castletown West functions as a comparatively busy country town terminus, with all the shunting and goods mentioned above, and a locally based main line set as well as a Cork-based one; each making one return trip a day, with an extra in summer. These bumble back and forth to the fiddle yard. Also, a pilot engine is based here, as there is a fictitious flour mill a little east of Castletown; this allows for short goods trip workings from here straight into the fiddle yard too. The branch operates with its own passenger set and loco, so you've a main line train connecting with a branch one; two operations on an end-to-end layout with but two stations and a fiddle yard. That's the best I could do with available space. Track marked out tonight as shown, with markings for wiring to follow, then with the assistance of several friends, we will raise Dugort Harbour to the same level as the rest. And then, hopefully, the activity which results will distract me from scribbling books for the winter months!

Superb and very interesting answer, thank you!

Likewise with me - very helpful.