jhb171achill

Yes, I have two of those. They're near enough to what you'd have seen in the mid 1950s to mid 60s. My background is that at Dugort Harbour the local twice-a-day bus to the back'o'beyond was stabled at the station, a la Westport Quay, so every week or two a tank of diesel is attached to the goods to be dropped off there, and the empty one taken away....... it makes for an interesting extra light engine movement for the Castletown West pilot engine.

Looks like you'll need to insert a chip well and truly into that seagull..............

Very nice indeed! I take it this is the Drogheda shuttle which follows the Entetprise, but runs ahead of the Ardee goods?

Quite simply because nobody - either private or state-funded - is prepared to put up the cash to build it, and pay to maintain it thereafter…… sadly!

Very certainly seems that way!

The question was asked above about livery in Ernie's book. Those are maker's photos, where they painted wagons (or carriages or locomotives) in varying shades of black, grey and white, with ironwork usually black, to emphasise detail in official (black and white) photos. This would not have been the livery they entered service in - manufacturers photographed them like this, and then painted them in the actualy livery of the customer's railway. In the case of the WLWR this was medium dark grey all over with white lettering. I THINK - but can't remember where to call up any hard evidence - that the grey used by the WLWR was probably not unlike the (later) LMS wagon grey in England, with roofs a very slightly lighter shade. This was a maker's photo livery. Grey in traffic.

And a populous, busy, local market is essential.

Indeed; I share that concern. Despite good noises being made, freight facilities in Dublin have again been reduced, Taras have gone, and there’s even less left now. And still not a syllable about Foynes.

You’re 100% right about the 1967 bubbles, and I suspect others too. ALL my recollections were of all over grey ones, and going to school beside the GNR main line I saw them daily. I never saw a single black chassis - in a world where every single solitary goods vehicle was all grey, it would have stuck out like a sore thumb. But - there’s photo evidence of black too. My conclusion is that some were black but most grey - and when they painted the “bubble” bit orange eventually, the grey continued on the chassis.

You have it in a nutshell, Mol! I doubt if a solitary wagon type which ever ran anywhere on any line of either gauge on this entire island ever had less than almost as many variations as members! Your excellent research and posts have not only pointed this out and illustrated it, but illuminated this fact to a new and younger generation, who have unfortunately never seen anything but trains comprising a standard number of entirely identical wagons or coaches….. hence the excitement when an ICR has 5 instead of 6 coaches…..!

Trailer part way too big for Irish equivalents.

What’s the older corgi one? I could use a few of those.

Very much looking forward to that!

September 1968, and the goods for Tralee is ready to leave. At Castletown Junction the first five wagons will be detached to be added to the Tralee - Cork goods. At Mallow, two will be detached, one for Thurles and one for North Wall. The other three will go to Cork, with one onwards for the West Cork system over the Cork City tramway, to go to Dunmanway. The remaining wagons on the train are all for Tralee, Lixnaw, Abbeyfeale, Newcastle West and Limerick, with one for Nenagh. That's the way it was..............

Excellent piece of work!

Several comments above relating to money. With the exception of (from memory) some 6 or 7 individuals, Irish railway preservation has never benefitted from the financial largesse of super-wealthy people as it has in Britain; and within the low numbers we HAVE had, the single most generous one I've been aware of in the last 35 years would still not be of the ilk of Alan Pegler, or the Rampton Trust with its seemingly bottomless pit of money. Time and time again, arguments are put forward here which sometimes come from within the enthusiast community, sometimes outside it, for example, well-meaning people who take the view that various long closed lines would be an absolute boon to tourism if reopened, with an attendant implication of financial self-sustainabilit, or better - as a result. We need to get this quite straight: (a) any cost of any such thing will be astronomical. Neither private individuals nor local authorities, still less central government, have ever been prepared to put up the money needed for such things, be it a reopened IE line or a preservation operation. (b) As stated before, there isn't the interest. This is how we differ from Britain, which we can but envy. In summary, England alone has something like ten times the population of all of Ireland. Ireland has a single standard gauge preserved line, and a total "main line" 5'3" gauge mileage of about 5 miles. If the English, specifically, had similar levels of interest, there would be perhaps nine or ten lines there, with a total mileage of about 45. As we know, there is very considerably more than that, both in mileage and in terms of actual number of preserved lines. Instead of about 9, England has OVER 200, plus endless museums. Have a look at the narrow gauge. Excluding WSVR, which to be fair is more of a pleasure ride than an actual preserved railway, we have the C&L & Finntown (which is so impossibly remote that it's hard to see its long term future) which together total about three miles. Look at the Welsh narrow gauge; and Wales has a smaller population than Ireland! I can think offhand of 12 lines there with 130 route miles. There is simply no comparison. As stated before, we must nurture what we have, and help where we can. Be content with reality!

True, though the growing “feral element“ is arguably worse elsewhere!

Never heard that - pity nothing like that happened!

A reopened Waterford to Tramore line in any shape or form would have been magnificent! (Thought for an ultra-simple layout; if open today it would probably have a pair of two-car 26 class on it and nothing else!)

What’s the reason?

Was thinking that VERY thing last night! Fantasising about what a colossal donation to Downpatrick would cover!

I believe so…. dunno when available, though.

While it may or may not be the case with this specific gate, that's exactly the type of location these signs were cast for. They are / were specifically gate signs.

Iconic yokes indeed (though it was the MPDs, rather than these, whicg pulled goods trains). They kept the NI railways going through most of the troubles, being the mainstay for the last quarter of the 20th century. Not my own cup of tea, but of immense historical value. Parcels were always seen as "passenger" business rather than goods trains.

My final murmurings on preservation relate to how such schemes might operate - or not - in the modern environment in Ireland. This applies equally to north and south. Some of our existing schemes have been around a while and others are new. It is tempting to think that those well-established will be around when the newcomers are gone, but this does not automatically follow. Without going through a list one by one, some thoughts occur to me. Several decades ago, two prominent and experienced members of the RPSI Committee (or board, or whatever it's called now) investigated the establishment of a designated tourist train route, on which highly-maintained heritage stock could operate a regular timetabled tourist service each summer, perhaps once a fortnight. The idea was light years ahead of its time, but would have required paid staff. The route was to be Connolly - Rosslare - Limerick and back, with the relevant tourist sights along the way, a holiday of several days. At the time, restrictions on wooden-bodied stock were beginning to come into being, and this route with low service levels and single track was about the only thing you could do without the impossible restrictions on heritage stock that would apply today. For a multitude of reasons - money being a big one - this never happened. Since then, main line operation has become more challenging. It used to be that by far the biggest money-spinner was the annual RPSI May Tour (doggedly referred latterly to by the awful and offensive title of the "International Railtour" by some). One of its main attractions to the 90% on it (who, as mentioned earlier, were almost all English) was that in Ireland we could do things that couldn't be done on the railways of the Republic of Brexit, such as wooden stock on main lines, main line speeds, runpasts and goods-only lines. As these activities became restricted, then banned or impossible, less came. The highest number of passengers that I recall was 341. By the early 2000s it had dropped considerably, and had Santas not arisen and in themselves become the No. 1 earner for the RPSI, the Society would certainly have gone under, I reckon by about 2010. On the very last May Tour we overnighted in Waterford, and I scanned the room where the Saturday night dinner was being held. Not only were the numbers few - it was shocking to see the age profile; no new participants for years. The May Tour was dying on its feet, and while i have no evidence to back this up, and I may be wrong, I had the feeling that overall, the tour could scarcely be doing much more than breaking even. It was a sad sight. A heritage railway can adapt or die. Downpatrick have had dinosaur days, diesel days and all sorts of other family events, as do places like Stradbally and Dromod. Operating on a public railway with astronomical costs and on tracks you don't own, but share with timetabled public transport, is always a challenge - but an even bigger one now is timetabled paths. Since the RPSI last plumbed the depths of Derry, Kerry or Galway with STEAM, paths have become fewer. Sidings and suitable places to turn a locomotive or take water even fewer. I am unaware of a single reliably operable turntable outside Dublin now - the last couple of times Claremoris was used, there were problems. So it's tender forst one way - but tender engines (of which the society owns but one) have less coal capacity. There came a time when automatic door locking became the norm; the RPSI adapted by having marshalls at each door. Enclosed toilets are now the norm too; how long before the RPSI's main line stock MUCT have both these features? Conversion to central locking and retention toilet tanks (and suitable unloading facilities for same!) would be an absolutely eye-wateringly expensive exercise. Increasing regulation is also something the Society must contend with. Having done some of this myself years ago, when it was in its infancy, I can attest to its mind-numbing boringness; nobody joins a heritage volunteer operation to fill in legally-binding forms. But it MUST be done, and done completely and properly. "It's all becoming too much of a job", I hear you say. yes, indeed - but this is precisely why such bodies need more and more volunteers; please join one now! It is also a point we much reflect on when valuing those who currently do it. Timetable paths, I suspect, will become the most difficult issue in the future. The population is increasing. Many lines are operating services at the absolute peak of their ability to do so. The RPSI trains are therefore now largely confined to Sundays. Nobody in their right mind would expect a public transport provider, funded by taxpayers' money, to delay or cancel public services to accommodate a steam train excursion. Add to that the cost of running a museum, and the increasing need to insure, pay for crew training matters and proving runs, and various types of professional compliance inspections, and one can see that great care must be exercised financially by the society into the future. When anyone asks "Well, why don't they restore 184 or "Lough Erne", or such-and-such an old wooden coach lying around Whitehead, there's the answer; it's so far down any sensible priority list that it's not even on it, nor should it be. There are only so many volunteers (please JOIN!) and there is only so much time, and money. Fine, fine; but what about the heritage lines? Neither Dromod nor Downpatrick nor Stradbally need to worry about delaying the 11:00 Heuston-Cork (please change at Mallow for pints in Killarney). Nor need they worry about double-blocking, track access charges, or overhead electric wires. The 12:00 to Inch Abbey will never delay the midday up Sligo. These are smaller lines, though. Therefore, the fares are smaller. It may well be that a Welsh narrow gauge line can easily charge £60 (say €70!) for a return trip for one person, but no heritage line - even if it was ten rather than two miles long - would get a single fare-paying passenger here. While Irish people statistically spend a greater proportion of their disposable income on family days out and / or entertainment than in Britain, there isn't the same interest here. Downpatrick and their ilk can charge the equivalents of maybe €5 to €10 and get away with it - but not more. So, income sources are limited. But - driver certification, steam boiler repairs, pressure vessel insirance and a whole host of other stuff is exactly to the same standards, therefore big money. Most of these organisations need volunters too. (Please JOIN - did I mention that?) Modern and increasing societal pressures on fuel sources play a part too. On a recent RPSI trip, I heard a member of the public on the platform at Connolly saying to their friend "how do they get away with making all this smoke?" Whatever about that, it is known that even in Britain, coal supplies are becoming challenging for many operators. OK, how about heritage diesel? Well, that's going out of favour too. We can certainly kick both of these cans well down the road for now, but by the time the current generation of active preservationists are of my vintage, this will probably become a major issue. Nothing lasts for ever. We must appreciate what we have now, and where at all possible, assist in its execution and operation. If we do not, we can hardly complain if future circumstances restrict or obliterate it.