jhb171achill

Just to update this project - yes, it's Jackie & Pauline Whelan who applied; the ITG are simply allowed an area to store their stuff. An initial funding application was prepared, submitted and processed, but rejected some time back. It is my understanding that the Whelans are still investigating other funding options, or "tweaking" the rejected application. The fact that they have planning permission will give a few "brownie points" to their funding application. Should their centre find funding and is built, the ITG will be allowed (indeed, encouraged) to display some of their items there, cosmetically restored, in perpetuity. Here's hoping....

And there was me thinking that the crowd you get on the DART was bad - with maybe 10% NOT having them! Rules or not, I WILL be wearing one in public for some time to come........ can't be too sure. Sadly, several friends of mine have died of Covid-19. I don't want it to come to me and anyone around me. Imagine how any of us would feel if we had been responsible for giving it to one of our nearest & dearest!

It is - and it shows how the grey (all models started in CIE grey) became "black"-looking in many cases! I wish I could find a list that the late Bob Clements gave me one time of the actual locos which did end up being repainted black after 1956. I think I've lost it, unfortunately. There weren't that many - most remained grey. Those passenger engines in green got so exceptionally dirty that often they looked "blackish" too.

Autumn 1962, and two steam engines are at Dugort Harbour probably for the last time….. one is with a lifting train off a nearby branch, closed six months earlier, and the other is shunting. Superbly realistic weathering by Dempsey, of this community. On another day, “G2” 650 shunts wagons for the morning mixed train. Eighteen months later, and it’s diesels…. Weathered again. I have several 141s and a 181. One will be almost pristine, and the others weathered to varying degrees. This one will be the dirtiest, the 181 the cleanest.

Ah, they've turned to ashes! (I've gone home now....)!

I don't even see any pellets there......... (I'll show myself out....)

Don't tell me that you let an ICR in there......!

David, your blow-by-blow account of all that is involved in exhibiting a layout like this is truly inspirational, and I am sure that most who attend these shows haven't a clue about a fraction of what goes on in the background. In terms of the overall concept of railway modelling as a general subject, this is something not often covered - and all the more informative for that; thank you for sharing it. As always, absolutely stunning stuff from the Land of Holman (sorry, west Mayo!).

Truly superb! Galteemore, I hope Mr Holman went easy on you...... !

O U T S T A N D I N G !!! Registers particularly well with me tonight, as Barry Carse & I have just cycled on the Waterford greenway..... One my all-time favourite layouts. Captures the atmosphere of those times better than just about anything! It would depend on how many were made, and of what material. Most of the cost would be design and setting it all up, so a low "print run" would make the sale price outlandishly expensive for a replica. I would buy one too, I reckon - but how many of all of us would?

RTR six-wheelers at last!

Drool….

I try to avoid lambs. I don’t trust them….especially when I’ve no mint sauce.

On the train meself! We must meet up….. anyone on the train, wear flourescent pink tutus (no, not the Archbishop). I’ve mine somewhere, though please keep that among friends.

They’ve cut Zee Broog out of it now, and the guys in Dortmund are finished their tea break, so it’ll be a month quicker….. SERIOUS point; post office services worldwide are banjaxed by the ongoing creep of privatisation and the insistence that they must concentrate on a few more profitable services rather than providing a good overall service to all of the public……

Very true, Minister, sadly. It’s with the printers, Broithe! Chapter 1 is “The night I was locked in the jax in Tooban Junction with an antelope…..”

Only yours, Murph - they’re in Reykjavik right now, so less than 17 weeks to go….

An Post Office: They go to Kilkenny via Cahirciveen, Glenties, Glendalough, Mount Leinster, Ballybay, Omagh, Millstreet, Multyfarnham and Fermoy - in that order…..

Looking even from a distance I reckon that even the better of the two is way beyond redemption. Pity; immensely historically important at this stage.

Original CIE green paintwork inside the (unrestored) jacks at the old Kilmacthomas station.

Spotted from the Waterford greenway today, the unmistakeable profile of two Cork & Macroom Direct Railway coaches. I suspect these are the only items of anything left from this railway line.

Yes, totally agree - was in touch with Leslie a short time ago and passed on my own congrats on that. I didn’t actually know that a D16 had found its way to Loughrea. I interviewed a couple of well-known ex-drivers yonks ago and was told (by one gentleman, in no uncertain terms!) that ex-Midland engines were not well received on the GSW; hence impressions of a D16 heading from Athlone towards Portarlington tended to uncomplimentary! One wonders what the diehard Midland men in Loughrea made of 533, though…..

Superb, Northwalldocker, very many thanks in advance. I’m away for a few days, will PM you when I’m back!

Indeed - it was goods only for some 45 years! To make a shunting layout it would need to be compressed a good bit, I would have thought - from memory when I went there on an RPSI train, the layout was somewhat spread out. But a good option, as you say. Another might be Castleisland, Co Kerry, or Fenit. Both of those saw the "G" class on a regular basis!

Excellent one - yes, not every article in every issue is of interest to every member - but it's worth paying membership for the Journal alone. Barry Carse's Valentia article is excellent, and there are many interesting photos of all sorts of things. West Cork photos of anything will never fail to please. I remember when the first colour photos appeared in the Journal in the 1970s how it lifted the whole thing..... If I had one small (constructive) criticism it would be that many interesting photos in some editions could be reproduced in larger format, but overall a great production.