jhb171achill

Dunno about Norwegians - CIE had their own teams of painters, and a small number of stations were done in that red and cream for a shirt time - as you say, that was exactly the reason - to artificially inflate maintenance costs!

Any idea if the station & signal cabin are still standing?

Confirms my suspicions! And then CIE copied this grey and yellow on some touring buses............. If we try to put on the heads of CIE people at the time, the "silver" had clearly been a monumental disaster, and both locos and rolling stock which entered traffic that way were being repainted in green at as fast a rate of knots as could be attained. Thus, had GM not painted them at all, it is probable that they would have entered traffic in plain green, the way the A, C and B101 classes were being painted at the time. One for a modeller, some time? It certainly would not look any worse than a grubby grey and yellow one! The 1960s black and tan, and 1990s "tippex" liveries were, in my humble opinion, the most attractive on these.

There was. Dundalk Works cast them, as did York Road for the NCC and, of course, Inchicore. York Road MAY have made some for the County Donegal, but I have no evidence of this.

Provided that these preservation-era pics are correctly done (not always a "given"!), it would appear to be the same grey. I wonder if EMD had supplied large numbers of locos to these two companies by the time the 121s were being built? It would not be without precedent for manufacturer-originated liveries to become standard on the railway of a customer. Right back at the start of railways, manufacturers like Bury, Curtis & Kennedy, would supply locomotives painted their way, and the railway companies would just "run" with that. There seems no obvious reason why a CIE system so wedded to the colours green and dark grey - on absolutely EVERYTHING - would switch to what in fact was a very impractical livery of light shades for a working railway vehicle. Indeed, with existing Crossley diesels proving to be even more filthy than neglected steam engines, they could have been forgiven for ordering them in plain black.

Don't tell Donald you're using Sharpies! SUPERB job with the nameplate.

Those clips just scream out to have a credit at the end "Copyright IRRS (J. St. Leger Collection)" added to it! The old turf vehicles are superb, down to the ancient GSR class markings "3" on the doors. The ends with the bottom bits sheeting over the rotten parts - those carriages must have looked fascinatingly shabby in real life.... The GSR maroon would be faded to an insipid dirty, salmony pink - with unpainted planks all over them too! But the black and white adds to the atmosphere. The still photos even, could have "H C Casserley" under them! Superb stuff.

Double slips could turn up at all sorts of oddball places, even small country stations where there wasn't much room. Here's a thing, though; I am almost certain that there were none on the narrow gauge. Anyone know of any?

I've seen pictures of them looking very dirty. The light grey, never mind the yellow, was a most impractical colour scheme to keep clean. The black'n'tan fared MUCH better.

It’s a Sperry train......or a ballast cleaner, or a plough van. Yella stuff.

During the first lockdown I posted some of Senior’s NCC narrow gauge stuff. Hoping to get that all properly scanned at some stage.

Off-thread, I know, but there were many, many nicknames among the RPSI faithful; many unsuitable for the gentle ears and delicate stomachs of civilised modellers.........

In the early days of "home computers" (as opposed to things the size of an "H" van with a 2.3 byte memory in WORKplaces), I was sending one of my first ever emails to the then RPSI Chairman, Sullivan Boomer. OK, both an unusual Christian name and surname both, but the auto-spellcheck-correct-thing advised me that it wanted to send it to: "Sultan Bomber". I advised WSB of this!

It was not unusual for loaded wagons to arrive at a terminus station on the last ever train, which would thus have to await unloading, possibly over the following day or two. On the Achill line, a loco went down to Achill the day after closure to bring back several wagons that had arrived on the last scheduled train on "closure day". At least one goods van was stranded in Killybegs after closure and as far as I am aware was broken up at the station. Does that mean it'll be melted down to make models ones?

Has it gone from there now? It should be put out of its misery and broken for spares for the ITG's pair of "C"s.

Excellent news! I very much look forward to following this thread! The mail train was indeed typically three to four six-wheelers in the period you have chosen. All three classes were catered for - at the least, a 1st / 2nd compo, a third and a full brake or brake 3rd. The Achill line, in early days, usually had a full 1st, full 2nd and full 3rd, with either a full brake (birdcage) or brake 3rd. If you move forward into GSR times, a branch LIKE Belmullet would very often have a single bogie composite and a six-wheel brake 3rd. The Alphagrafix kits are, I feel, very nice items for budget and they "look the part" for many prototypes which have no other alternative to total scratchbuilding. As can be seen with their CIE green stuff, though, with its WHITE lining and "snails" instead of light green, livery details on these are unfortunately only correct on about 50% of their catalogue, and some are complete flights of fancy! The birdcage brake in the above catalogue seems to be in Isle of Man loco green, with (British) Southern Railway gold numerals, not remotely close to anything that ever ran here......anyway; rant over; Your "D-bogie" or "D16" will, given its provenance, be a great delight to behold, especially in lined Midland green. The Midland also had some very fine 60ft full brake parcels coaches which were used on mail trains. They were bogies built about 1901/3, as far as I can recall without access to archives as I've all my stuff packed up in the process of moving house!

Makes one wonder about the REAL purpose is of the "Weed SPRAYER" train............and why it was painted bright yellow!

Me just being me, I have to comment that the number should be light green, and in a totally different font! Nothing was every even remotely like that........... For good measure, the loco is not actually No. 202.............. Off to get a refill of tea. Goodnight.........

Could have been bought second-hand by a Fenit-style harbour authority?

Some of these had electric lights by the end (1963) but I have no further details.

I think it is of great use as a reference work for what's in it. As far as I can gather (as much in it is too modern to be my PRIMARY interest), it appears to be highly accurate. My only issue with some of these "spotter's" books is that when you've got a vehicle which was, let us say, a 1972 conversion of a vehicle originally built in 1952, it will describe it and conclude "Introduced in 1972". OK, that's accurate, but could the building date not be added too, as in "Built 1952, Converted 1972", with a footnote at the start of the book to explain what the two dates signify? That would be of immense use to researchers / historians, and modellers. So that's my tuppence-worth.

There we have it, then, mid-60s!

I think the middle pic might be post-1963. Do we know the date of it, I wonder?

Installed on opening it soon after, I would think, removal presumably when passenger services ended in 1963 - or thereabouts.

Wow! Mr Holman, I think that you are Mr Chown reincarnated. Ye can't keep a good thing down!