jhb171achill

Absolutely superb! If that's your FIRST scratchbuild, there's some mighty stuff ahead, I'd say!

It's possible I've posted them before, Steve - or perhaps ones like them. What I really need to do is catalogue and list all of his stuff. I can never remember what I've posted and what I haven't, exactly! As long as nobody "colourises" them, which would result in a blue and yellow locomotive hauling orange and pink carriages, on yellow track, but with perfectly textured realistic green grass beside it! And of course, Donegal tank engines would be purple with lime green chimneys, while BCDR carriages would be red and turquoise.......!!!

Same location today, different train.... Note that all of the carriages are Belfast & Northern Counties flat-sided stock.

I’m sure they’re still travelling about the place....... —————————————— Some of senior’s “reject” photos over the next few days; all are from the 1940-47 period on the NCC. First, a “W” at speed - dunno where exactly, but obviously somewhere between Belfast and Ballymena.

I escaped from my employment world too at age 55 - and it's just as well, as the type of job doesn't exist any more.................

I'd say it's something that someone has just made up. Can't see it being some sort of "official" railway-made thing. Looks too crudely made anyway. Unless anyone knows a better story? What size is it?

This is exactly what I meant - in the colourised version of Roger’s pic, it’s impossible to tell what colour the train is supposed to be. The “C” class loco is actually green, and that particular coach was also the lighter green, matching. Indeed - and if they get their inspiration from in incorrectly painted preserved vehicle (the majority!), the myth perpetrates...... Yes, I know that in the grand scheme of things nobody will give a toss in 200 years’ time, but when it’s as easy to record history accurately as otherwise, I think it’s a shame not to.

Superb!

That should require a sentence of 40 years hard labour for the “artist”! The serious point is that like preserved things in wrong liveries, a future serious historian can be misled into thinking that things WERE these colours when they were in use.... I’m off to get my smelling salts....

Rock Street goods yard, Tralee, mid 70s.

Which green? 1945-55 or the lighter 1955-62? If it's diesel era, the latter would be way more common.

Yes, indeed - that shows, I suppose, the efforts necessary to do a credible job. The pic of the Timoleague area above shows what can be done, and the above colourisation of the scene on the Cork City Railway is nice - but perhaps easier for the AI to do! Anyway, overall, I watch this technology with interest. I am definitely not a fan of the current rash of "colourised" photos all over the internet, which in reality look like a black and white pic with a mug of coffee spilt of bits of it, and the thought of a bullied railcar with a "desert sand" front like a Dublin bus in 1980, or blue coaches in Kerry, would induce attacks of the Screaming Fits, Multiple Conniptions and Heeby-Jeebies in any mere mortal, but the long term will bring out some beauties, I am sure. "Hey, Sarge! I think I've found him! ..... Come ON out, you, with your hands UP! We're gonna TEACH ye to colourise carriages in BLUE!"

Seeing that is tempting me to buy one in GSR livery............. With six-wheel coaches shortly to be a reality, perfect loco to go with them.

Is that one of Roderick’s CBSCR tanks, the GSR 472 class?

Even then, the entire train and water tank are all the one colour. You would need faded wood colour for the tank support, rust and faded black paint on the tank, grey on the locomotive and maroon on the carriages. This, to me, is the problem with this medium - you’ve got but two colours - green and unintelligible drab..... According to an expert in this technology who I know, with current methods, to do a half-decent job you need the VERY top of the range gear, and hours and hours per image. He has done a book which was released recently to much fanfare, and featured on the Late Late Show. I tried to persuade him to do another one of railway images but he’s no plans to do anything more (yet, anyway!).

Indeed; and their carriages were mostly unserviceable. Had they survived, you would have seen wholesale scrapping of much of everything they had by mid 60s, and the probable purchase of second hand items from CIE and the UTA. The entire track, every yard, would have need complete replacement. The management were deeply embarrassed by the state of the three bogie coaches, one of which was only used in the most dire emergency. I think that all of their museum-piece six-wheelers were done. jhbSenior did some of their civil engineering work for no charge in his own time, as they couldn’t afford a civil engineer, even part-time. The two railbuses were worn out and only one was in use at the end. The Walker railcar was in good enough order, but with a low-maintenance regime and the rough track, it would have started giving trouble before too long. Senior watched a loco couple up to a train of cattle trucks in Enniskillen station one day in 1955/6. As the loco went to move off, it simply yanked the whole coupling assembly out of the buffer beam of the leading wagon. An SLNCR one..... The buses were worn out too. None ended up with CIE! They were all scrapped. The whole enterprise looked very tatty, with almost nothing having seen a paintbrush in years - locos, rolling stock or stations.

The “UTA factor”! Run into the ground, with little maintenance! If you were to look beyond the varnish and Mr Sheen on BCDR No 30 & NCC No 74 in Cultra, you’ll find that both of them are in a very bad state mechanically and boiler-wise too!

The summer of 1977 saw the two B113s in the “barrier” siding at Inchicore. Once CIE started painting wagons brown in 1970, you’d still see the odd grey door (replacements during repairs) or even wooden planked doors off older wagons on “H” vans. This was in the goods yard in Kilkenny in July ‘75 or ‘76, I think. Loose coupled goods ended just after that. Note how much higher the “palvans” were than other vans - there’s one to the right. Also note the “hybrid” end of it.

There’s junior membership available, Westcork.....

Yes, indeed, perfect examples of both! That Bullied Railcar one I had seen - it had me running for my smelling salts......! Is that YOU, Mike? Are we talking about a journey in 1979?

Good to see a colourisation (West Cork) which is half-way realistic! Most of the "colourisations" seen online are truly AWFUL, with just about everything in them a mawkish shade of grey or beige, even if in real life it was bright blue or red - but with nice green grass! The above two are worth looking at - the people on the platform on the first loom realistic, but the carriage should be green. On the overhead station view above, I've seen several of CBSCR views online, most with grass and hedges looking as realistic as above, but often with the entire trackbed looking green too, as if the entire thing was covered in moss or grass. As to the colour of the trains - less said the better. I've seen one somewhere which has the vegetation accurately done, but the entire train shown centre stage remains in black and white, plus one somewhere in West Cork which had green vegetation, green trackbed, a station apparently a dull orangey-brown all over, and an AEC railcar with orange sides and a purple tint to the roof. I was speaking to someone in Galway University a while back who was involved in a research project there to explore how this process can be seriously enhanced. He did a few images which had been taken on Achill Island (non-railway related) in 1913, and these are so accurate and good that you would think they were taken with an iPhone yesterday. But as he says, the off-the-shelf technology has a very long way to go before it is anything like accurate. A.I. will doubtless assist in the near future. I have sent Galway Uni some glass plate images taken on my ancestors' family farm in Co. Offaly in the 1910-30 period to see what he can do with them. For now, though, certainly as far as RAILWAY colours are concerned, such things are best avoided like a plague, as they are woefully inaccurate - and that's when they can even be made out. It seems that the technology has a habit of simply adding a slight tint of something broadly brownish to things in backgrounds, which makes them look a tired, nondescript "weathered" colour, as misleading as it is wrong. The footbridge in the above pic is a perfect case in point. If the point of "colourising" a photo is to show colour, then what colour is that footbridge? It is a murky "something" colour; in other words, the software which purports to "colourise" it appears, for this type of thing, to be useless. It would have been better left B & W. In the CBSCR pic, a man in a brown coat has a RED arm. A green carriage is brown on top, grey below. I rest my case! Superb! Very true.............

You'd want THREE for that sort of money..........

Yes, it WOULD be red lead, and that was an economy measure, just like the CDR once put TAR on some wagons! Red lead had an orangey brown colour; I recall Senior had a pot of it which he got from Inchicore when I was a Small Person. He was fitting out a shed with shelves at the time and building a wheelbarrow 9with an old railway wheel, which I wish I'd kept). He told me that in wagon building in both the GS and the GN, and probably further afield, red lead pain was often used as both a preservative and undercoat. Once dry, it protected wood very well indeed and hardened it. The CBSCR have clearly painted some wagons with this stuff, and always with an eye to cutting costs at Albert Quay, have then just lettered the wagon and placed it into traffic like that. Now that you mention this, I remember it. I cannot tell how many wagons were treated this way, or how many were treated in the other ways I mentioned. Interesting stuff! Naturally, when the GSR took over, everything was gradually repainted their standard grey. Hope you enjoy the book! Next one's with the publisher now, but he has to work from home right now........... Yes, as "niche" as you could get! My understanding is that no further Irish locomotives are currently planned by 00 Works, but who's to say there never will be! I know he has a good few British items planned.

From various bits and pieces I've picked up over the years, it would be my impression that CBSCR green was something broadly like this, maybe not QUITE as "olivey", but with no definitive proof that I'm aware of, it's open to the elements. Locomotives the same, of course.

The "sage" green on the CBSCR has also been described as "olive" green; from what I can gather, there is no certain shade to be seen, although one Cyril Fry model is of a CBSCR coach in a green which wouldn't really qualify as either. Fry was generally extremely accurate with liveries where he could, but to be fair to him, it's unlikely he was ever in Skibbereen as a small child. I'm not even sure what "sage" would look like, but I wouldn't have put it too much of olive.....? Regarding the brown wagon, that's quite possible. I know of no comprehensive archive regarding CBSCR wagon liveries, but from what details I've picked up, at a very early stage some appear to have been varnished wood with black ironwork, later they were black or a very dark grey, though I have no further details. And I cannot currently find all of my notes, as I am in post-house-move mode, with all sorts of stuff still in boxes! Once I get sorted out I will look up to see what else I may have. Out is interest, where did you pick up on the brown livery?