jhb171achill

See you tomorrow, Mol!!

Top class. Very many thanks!

This seems endemic in the model railway world. I am currently having issues with an indivudual who has a load of my (kit) models for many years now and won't give them back. He told me me he'd make them up in a matter of months and has spent years making increasinlgy nonsensical excuses and claims as to why he hasn't delivered them; along with frequent promises that he'll have them all ready "at the latest next Thursday" etc etc. He initially claimed he had them all finished, though I never believed that for a second. A trusted friend knows him and says he's a con man..... we'll see. Many years ago I was similarly let down by a man in the 3.5 inch scale steam world who scammed me of £1500. Same thing - endless excuses. But I've a long memory and I don't take well to being scammed.

Almost without doubt, yes. Several silver vehicles 9and locos!) skipped the green, and several GNR coaches and quite possibly railcars likewise - GNR livery straight to black'n'tan. In routine service, one coach on the C & L had disgracefully faded GSR livery as late as 1956. Numerous main line coaches were still maroon into the early 50s.

They were indeed painting the full 1940s version well into the early 50s - I was told this by a long-gone painting supervisor. I've seen a photo of a newish CIE coach like this - if I can find it I'll post it, but probably buried somewhere in the IRRS. But certainly at the very, very latest, maybe 1954-ish. The exact dates were never recorded, plus, repaints were infrequent, so earlier and later versions of the overall green "family" of liveries, plus the southern localised versions, co-existed for quite a while. There were still a small few vehicles kicking about as late as 1960 in the old fully lined version. One quite tidy six-wheeler like that was on the West Cork system.

1124 was one of thirteen 64-seat side-corridor thirds. They were all built in 1914, bar the last which entered traffic in 1915. Their numbers ran from 1119-1131. All survived into the 1960s, with the first one scrapped in 1961, and the rest lasting until 1967-70, thus all gaining black'n'tan livery bar the one scrapped in 1961. They eked out their last days on Cork and Dublin spare stock for busy summer days. The very last two, 1119 and 1125, lasted until 1970, just two years before the "Supertrain" era. The one shown was withdrawn in 1967.

The silver "livery" was hated by operational staff from the outset. It was entorely impossible to keep clean, and therefore in its inevitably filthy state completely took away from the clean, modern new image they were trying so hard to create. From anecdotal eivdence from family friends who worked in the paint shop, and eyewitnesses of the time, there were but the two shades of green used on coaches, railcars, horse boxes, and anything else in passenger livery.# Starting with the easy one, the post-1955 light green - applied to everything, always with light green thin waistline (except horseboxes). Some with flying snail (one in the middle always), but some without. Park Royals and tin vans never had them. Black roofs. This is the same light green applied to diesels from that time too, though in the case of locos some had a waistline and some didn't! ALL waistlines were pale green, never white or anything else. Coach ends black except some Park Royals when new - green ends. But the dark green.... Officially, it had the two broad pale green bands, one below window levels, and a thicker one between the tops of the windows and below cantrail. These were themselves edged in thin black and white lining. Everything had snails - six-wheelers, horse boxes, and the odd 4-wheel coaching-bodied van, like a tool van, with a single one; whereas longer bogie coaches had two snails per side, placed a third and two-thirds along the side. On dark green coaches these were standard transfers as used on buses, lorries, steam engine tenders; thus pale green lined in gold. Roofs and ends black. Sounds simple enough? But there were variants! As you have well illustrated, railcars had the dark green originally - same dark green, as this was slapped on green steam locos, station woodwork, buses and lorries as well as coaches. But this had the same single thin pale green waistlineas the later grass green livery would eventually have, and a single "snail" on the side. You have covered the few railcars with odd roof stripes. Yet another variant, though, which may have been by "local" arrangement, was that a handful of West Cork secondary stock got the dark green, unlined, but with two snails per side, while a further "local" arrangement saw both Cork and Limerick turning out coaches, including some West Clare ones, in completely unlined dark green, with no snails either. A final variant on at least two Cavan & Leitrim coaches, but nothing else anywhere, had dark green all over, two snails per side, but only the above-window pale gereen band - no middle one. Blue and green are notorious for showing up in early colour slides in a million shades, but those in the know at the time, plus reliable eyewitnesses (and there were some unreliable!) will confirm that there were only two colours used as base. There is a record, though, of a set of the 1950 or 1953 stock - I'd have to look it up - entering traffic in a lighter shade. They were soon repainted ordainary shades, but it is possible that this was simply an early experiment (as you suggest) at a new shade eventually adopted. As you say, silver was only applied to new stock, and when repainted they got the later grass green, as the dark shade was by then out of use on all but buses. Finally, you mention repainting of 1951-3 stock - earlier repaints oif these went into the dark green with 2 think light green bands and 2 snails per vehicle. But it cannot have applied to them all, and such as were repainted thus can't have kept it long.

Absolutely TOP class info, Mol, as always. You mention livery. Pre-1955, they were the same dark green as all carriages were, bar one batch built in either 1951 or 3 (I forget which); these being early carriers of the lighter green post-1955. After 1955, they started painting them the same standard lighter green as every other new carriage. It is possible some railcars getting the lighter shade a little arlier, though I can't prove this (anecdotal). However, while all carriages in the later lighter green carried a single thin waistline, and the standard for the pre-1955 darker green was the two thick light green bands above and below windows, railcars and intermediates in the "dark" era, as seen in your pics, carried the single thin waistline. The zebra stripes on the front cab roof shown was only applied to a very small number of railcars, possibly only a couple. Roofs in all liveries were black, always.

That's the boxes of chocs that were given out at the Christmas dinner....... Could be wrong on this, but I think the black'n'tan one is the last survivor of several built by the GSR.

The REAL one had "G N R" tattoed on its side and was only used when goods traffic was heavy.

The GSR No. 900 had eight coupled wheels too. No ten-wheelers in Ireland.

In all three of these, SF is mediocre to poor, but thus far has been the only option. In livery alone, despite being given correct information several times, ALL their CIE liveries have been completely wrong, from base colour to lettering and numerals, bar their black’n’tan coaches. They could at least get that right at no extra cost.

It's only closer if people walk across a windswept walkway across the river, which will immediately stop the elderly and people carrying lots of bags ior luggage, for whom the buses will be WAY handier. It's a nonsensically designed station (if was "designed" at all) in a nonsensical location, as bad as possible to be, just like Rosslare. For traffic or taxis its further away.

As long as you’ve the furry dice correctly adjusted and aligned! That’s it, in a nutshell. Far too few in Ireland north and south realise that, even among otherwise well enough informed enthusiasts.

There were three of those, but they were 5’3” gauge, I think, or possibly British standard gauge. I think they worked in Kelly’s coal yard, rather than H & W, and would have been used to unload coal ships.

While bringing Awwsum American tourists to the Titanic Centre in Belfast in recent years I’ve often noticed these rails, which look to be about 2 foot gauge, on a preserved slipway where the world’s first unsinkable ship was built (before it sunk). Does anyone know anything about it? Four parallel double lines with a crossover in the middle. Photos of it in use anywhere?

By the time the ICRs appeared, about the only thing the last two 121s were doing was transfers of wagons containing wheels to be turned between Limerick and Inchicore, as far as I know, or shunting within the works. Beet was gone.

That cabin was a serious height, like the old one at Portarlington. Waterford likewise; was up all three back in the day, gingerly, as I do NOT have a good head for heights!

I've a couple of leslie's still not made up. Was thinking of putting bits of thin paper over the planking, which would mean four panels each side and three on the ends, to look like of of those ones with original planking either covered up, or replaced, by boarding in the pre-1970 period....

Indeed!

Now that's a pity - you've saved me a bit of work. I was literally on their website ordering scenic bits and pieces. Pity - they've some nice stuff. Another "win" for brexit.........

The yellow building reminds me of GNR style architecture - VERY much a thing for the north Dublin area.

Highly recommended - will spread the word!

Yes - maybe two of those put together....

Tis de kingdom, boy, all rite! This was my design, built by a gentleman whose name, shamefully escapes me. It is based on a somewhat extended version of that at Kenmare, and obviously bears a very close style resemblance to many in West Cork, and on the Valentia branch. Patrick O'Sullivan's excellent two-part history of the latter branch includes scale drawings of several Valentia line buildings, which provided outline types of dimensions. The corrugated iron sheeting on the sides, unfortunately, is way, way overscale, which has prompted me to eventually build one with scale sized plasticard sheeting, and sell this one. But that's currently way, way down the priority list. I need to do the basic scenery on the area round Castletown West, which after all is meant to be a far more important place than a sleepy Dugort Harbour extension some 4 or 5 miles away. As for Dugort Harbour itself, currently it has no building. I have a signal cabin kit for both, unmade in both cases so far; and I await one of the GSWR footbridges which will hopefully appear for Castletown W. As for Dugort, I had initially intended to do a building there which resembled Westport Quay (platform side) - it actually looked more like a small rural cottage than any sort of railway station. A digression; has anyone ever seen any sort of rural building kit or "RTR" model which looks broadly like that sort of thing?