jhb171achill

Nice!!!!

True indeed; I have a big interest in Indonesian, Brazilian and Indian railways myself and yet In those countries it's all Bachmann LNER, Athearn USA stuff, DRGW or Hornby GWR....because it's available.

There’s a very disproportionate amount of Bandon wagons, and even a couple of Muskerry ones and a West Clare one! Hard to see how that could have got lost….!

There was all sorts of mad stuff happening then!!

As well as that, a modeller here who has, for the sake of argument, long ago settled on N gauge Union Pacific or an 00 gauge Welsh branchline, is much less likely to be on IRM, or even know of it. I knew a guy in Dublin who had a great big LMS layout, no interest at all in Irish stuff. He’s gone to his reward a few years ago, but he isn’t the only one.

Better check your layouts, spares box and all those green boxes on the shelf and in the cabinet…. Incorrect or late returns will be punished by a stern letter from Kingsbridge, and ye wouldn’t want that, would ye?

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".