jhb171achill

Ah! Got ye; I thought you MEANT Brexitland....

A MGWR anything, indeed! We've NCC, BCDR, GNR, CDR, DNGR, SLNCR, GSWR, GSR, DSER....yes, only CBSCR and MGWR are missing. Not even a wagon in the case of the CBSCR, though we've four half-decent MGWR coaches, though all virtually beyond restoration in one form or other.......

"Mainland"? Possibly due to sharing location on your iphone or something? I had to add mine........ I hovered over my place of residence on the map, and it put me about 7km away. Tried again, it did the same. Third time lucky - at least it now has me in the vicinity of where I live - even if the EXACT spot it's put me is in the middle of a 20 acre field...........

True - hence my occasional suggestions of 4 or 171....

I think the only way to do RTR steam is the likes of 00 Works small batches.

Another thing is 21mm conversion. A small few of our number use 21mm gauge. It’s easier to re-gauge a diesel than most steam! Imagine the work in re-gauging a 400 or an 800.....

Yes, that was my thoughts too. We had, during the CIE period 1945 to 1959, on carriages alone, maroon, old green, new green and then unpainted silver; plus even some green unlined secondary stock. Locos - grey, green and some black on CIE. Wagons - several shades of grey with markings in three different styles. GNR brown, GNR dark blue & cream on carriages, with locos blue or black - plus dark blue and cream railcars. NCC and BCDR (UTS) gave us BCDR maroon, NCC maroon and UTA green on coaches, and locos in NCC lined black, NCC plain (wartime) black, BCDR deep green..... and we're not into Donegal yet. The GNR had two wagon liveries. We COULD divide and subdivide to the Nth degree, as a schoolteacher of mine used to say, but we have to stick to broad definitions, at the very edges of which at least some details will blur into the next category.

That's the idea.... You raise an interesting one about non-authentic models, like (say) the orange and black Hymek and some of those other 80s yokes. I wonder how the continental "Epoch" classification treats these? Personally, I would be inclined to categorise them within whatever group they were closest to "supposed to be in", or vaguely "representative" of - in that case, the "Early Modern" (F) period / era.

Indeed, K801; it is dead, deceased and an ex-Belmond Hibernian; it has wound up its mortal and gone to join the Choir Eternale - to paraphrase John Cleese - it's a dead parrot since 2019.

The fact that it was the first nuclear-powered generator railway in the world, developed by the inventor of the greenway, William Trail. It is also the only railway in Ireland to be operated by a train consisting of a three Quality Street tins powered by a 12-year-old cycling inside it, and when going up hills a little motor which runs on eco-friendly jojobi and kale juice. Oh, sorry, the last bit's true. The new "train", Paddy.....

First, Steve, the "commissioning" of a load of GNR coaches very much impresses me! Using the system I suggested, it naturally can't tick every single box - for example, if something highly significant had happened on, say, the SLNCR or CDRJC in some year, it's more of a "localised" thing, whereas the early 1950s switch to diesel affected the remaining bit of the BCDR, and much of both the GNR's and CIE's main lines, with the all-encompassing AECs that you and I remember so well. So, I would be inclined to classify the items you mention broadly as I have added in bold to your list above. Just me tuppence worth. The periods are well-enough understood and defined. The items you mention are all within a 1937-74 range, thus obviously what I had called Eras A, B, C, F & G would not apply.

Depends. If you mean grey, full stop, for locos, this appeared with the GSWR in 1915 and spread to ALL locos in the Republic, bar the three 800s, after 1925, and it lasted until the end of steam in March 1963 on many of the dishevelled survivors. If you mean the grey AND yellow for 121s, this was short lived -= delivery 1961, until the last 121 was repainted black'n'tan c.1968. Some 121s were repainted black'n'tan after only 2 or 3 years. The two green liveries, one merging into the other, were 1945-62. Going to BosKonay's post, yes, I used to rely on the mainland European system of "epochs" when I was into Austrian narrow gauge. Epoch 1, Epoch 2, 3, 4 and so on; I had thought that the British system was based more or less on the same eras. Hattons advertise according to years or dates. Comments here have referred in the past to the "supertrain" era, the "black'n'tan" era, the "grey'n'green" era, and so on; which does just as well, but does not include the north. Because the railways in Northern Ireland were nothing to do with Britain's nationalisation, BR, Beeching or the like, also leaves a void. If all of Ireland had been CIE, it would be reasonable to talk about the GSR era (1925-45), then "grey'n'green" (1945-63); "black'n'tan" (1962-72); "Supertrain" (1972-87) and so on - but it was NOT all CIE, and those vary in periods from ten to twenty years, and make no allowance for the GNR / NCC / UTA / NIR / BCDR. With the GNR covering large parts of both sides of the border, one might then take the view that this system be used as a common reference point - but many parts of the GNR away from the main line were a system frozen in time by the time it closed. Nationalisation or grouping isn't realistic. Grouping only occurred broadly south of a line from Sligo to Cavan to Dublin. Nationalisation was not all at once like in Brexitland; the UTA took effect in 1948/9, CIE was 1950, and what was left of the GNR in 1958. One might actually even argue that the Clogher Valley was nationalised in a way in 1928, when the local authority took it over! Dieselisation was too piecemeal until the 1960s to be a coherent manner of classification. Let's look, then, at time periods, for it seems that other methods are not suitable. 1834 - 1890 Building 1890 - 1910 Second wave of government-assisted building ("Balfour" lines, most narrow gauge) 1910 - 1925 Main companies' "Heyday". (The "heyday" period?) 1925 - 1945 GSR era; if applied to the north, the understanding would be that the "heyday" continues in the north, even as just about everything south becomes CIE 1945 - 1960 Transition Era. THREE aspects to this: Closures (1940s NCC & post-fuel crisis CIE; 1950s UTA, GNR & BCDR, and narrow gauge), Modernisation (mass withdrawals of old rolling stock and replacement by new stock (UTA & (especially) CIE); and dieselisation: gradual elimination of steam on most of the network and mass introduction of AEC railcars on both GNR & CIE, experimental one-offs on the NCC, and MED's on the Bangor line 1950-2; B101, A & C class locomotives CIE. 1960 - 1972 Consolidation era. After years of decline, and the end of the vehemently anti-rail Stormont policies and reduction of the UTA to what is now NIR, and final large closures (West Cork 1961, Tralee - Limerick, Limerick - Sligo '63, Mallow - Waterford & Croom branch 1967), plus final end of steam on NIR, it's now a smaller, more standardised, modern railway north and south. 1972 - 1995 A diesel-operated, air-con modern carriages, and containerised freight railway operated in a steam-type environment, with semaphore signals, a lot more shunting than the 1972 Rail Modernisation Plan ever envisaged, and working practices going back to the Norman invasion. We might call this the "Early Modern" era. 1995 - date Contemporary era. Freight decline, locomotive replacement by railcars, the "no-shunt railway" comes of age, along with virtual elimination of semaphore signalling, computers doing more an more work both on trains and off them, and in public interfaces. For modellers, that suits well. If we divide these into periods, we have: A Pre 1910 B Heyday Period C GSR Period D Transition Period E Consolidation period F Early Modern Period G Contemporary (or 21st century) Period. Footnote: From the first ever infernal combustion yoke on the CDR in 1906, to the dimming of the fire in the last NIR Jeep in 1970, was a period of 64 years - WAY in excess of most other countries. So in Ireland the "steam era" and "diesel era" just doesn't make sense; the Sligo line saw little steam on passenger trains after 1952, whereas steam was a vibrant part of summer NCC traffic until 1968/9.

Well, there's Georgia, Ohio and Chicago above. A school friend of mine (fifty years ago!) lives in Tennessee, but he's more of a live steam man. He has a beautiful British Railways "Brittannia", 5 ins gauge, live steam. Approaching retirement now, he's starting in H0, so he may well turn up here at some stage....... He, in turn, is in touch with another mutual school colleague who lives in Texas, but he's not a railway enthusiast! I'm sure I'm not the only one who sometimes jumps to assume that more of us are based in Ireland than we actually are...

I was always able to get RTE in the north, Steve.............

You missed it. Celtic Rangers won by two wickets, 4.25 to 1.17.

True Likewise, true....... Again, it does beg questions the next time we're watching a programme about, say, the famine or the (forthcoming) stuff about the creation of the border 100 years ago, or "Ireland's involvement in----------" (fill in blanks)......... How much of it is ACCURATE, and how much is the stuff of poor, back-of-an-envelope "research"? (Ah, sure, it's just oul stuff, sure it'll do. Stick in a pic of Stephenson's "Rocket"-Scotsman-thing, and put a flyin' snail on it...........)

Yes, I do get that............. I've calmed down now! :-) But yes, there's a serious disconnect in much historical research in this country. In my non-railway historical stuff, I see this all the time - an almost dismissive, cavalier approach to the proper presentation of ANY kind of history or historical project. "Ah sure, it's just old stuff, it'll do...." This creeps into all types of museums, documentation of things historical, preservation schemes - you name it.

And yes, I just knew it - “the first and last trains carried the dead, thus fulfilling a prophecy”..... NONSENSE! And they put my name in the credits. Gaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! As they say in the north, one is “scundered”! jayyyysus, lads, if you ask people questions, at least listen to what they tell you!

Indeed, complete with clips of the CDR and the C & L. The Irish name for Newport is wrong. Ads over now.... Ten seconds into the next bit and it’s the GREAT WESTERN & SOUTHERN RAILWAY!!!!!

There will be a “colourised” blue and orange AEC railcar in Newport, and a black, white and pink ICR at Achill (actually Brisbane), with yellow track and a bright blue platform.

So, an update, with background. I moved house last autumn. Lurking in a well-known premises in Edenderry was "Dugort Harbour", a small terminus in a setting of both scenic and operational similarity to the likes of Baltimore, Valentia Harbour or Westport Quay. Space was limited to about 11ft x 3ft max, at the end of a room. The train would leave, vanish into a tunnel and appear in a small fiddle yard. Trains would be short one or two coach things, or a short Loughrea or Foynes type mixed. So, delivery from Edenderry was paused, pending the new house, with the probability that once in, it would be installed in one of the bedrooms. Enter, stage left, PJ the loft conversion man. Long story short, there's now an attic room which I posted a vidjo of the other day. This is a much bigger room, with planning permission from the Domestic Authority for a full possession of it. I attach below a very rough sketch; the longest wall is 19ft, and the other two 14ft each. I know, I know, metrication.... bear in mind, O Younger Folk, that I went to school in the north, where distances are still measured in quarts, and time is measured in perches and roods; AND it was almost sixty years ago, when blue steam engines..... enough! I've heard comments before about how house moves interfere with layouts to the extent that a perfect one for one house simply will not satisfactorily fit into a new one; now I have that issue. Had Dugort Harbour not been started, I would now have it an entirely different shape, but it is what it is, so I have had to arrange the way the attic room will be with its current state in mind. Luckily that's do-able, so once it is delivered I'll show pics to illustrate what I mean. So, the plan now is to extend it. Due to initial space constraints it was designed with a run-round loop which could barely hold four bogie coaches and a van, although a local train rarely reached that length anyway, so all good there. Thus, in extending it, there's no point in any other station being much longer, as a train despatched from there to Dugort would not not fit in the platform. I wanted to apply a broad principle that "less is more". Artistically, we've seen the superb results achieved by some of the layouts that feature here regularly which are set in rural locations. What makes these look so realistic is as much - if not more - the wide embankments, hedgerows and sparse "clutter" (as opposed to the necessity of this in an urban setting) - as the accuracy of locos and appropriate rolling stock. I want to show a rural setting of the mid-50s to late 60s period, with enough steam engines to operate the entire thing with steam only, and realistically. Thus, I do have enough steam engines to operate the whole thing, but also for a later period, A & C class diesels, finally 121 and 141 types. Anything later I'm not interested in personally. Carriages similarly; from a few old wooden bogies (and six wheelers eventually), and some laminates and Park Royals and appropriate vans - the point being that the whole layout can be operated as if it's 1956, 1963, 1966, whatever. Such a terminus will have looked very shabby indeed, the sort of place where if you turned up there you'd be compelled to wonder how long more before CIE would close it. This, of course, makes one scenic item simpler; it's easier to put weeds on a platform than convincing-looking people! Looking at the plan below, you can see that the train will leave Dugort and head round a sharp curve - this is necessary due to the shape of the room and is just over 2'6" radius - sharper than I'd like, but it'll have to do. Childhood layouts were 6' x 4', thus a curve of under 24" radius. It then travels along a nine-inch-wide "shelf" along the wall, which will be in open countryside, before rounding a curve at the left-hand bottom corner of the drawing, into a somewhat busier "Castletown West". This is suppose to be a bit like Skibbereen or Cahirciveen. It's a terminus in a way, but the Dugort bit was a Balfour extension in the 1890s, aimed at traffic which never materialised. Now it's a bit of a backwater. The purpose of this is for variety in operation. Moving on to the fiddle yard at the top right, which is meant to represent the "Big Shmoke" (Cork or Dublin), a main line train leaves there, heads to Castletown, which is somewhat inspired by Westport, or Newcastle West, or the two south-west destinations above. When it arrives, a branch train takes over and toddles off down somewhat indifferent track to Dugort, which might have been about four miles away. This will allow a Woolwich to arrive at Castletown in the steam era, and a dirty J15 takes over for the branch train. However the goods will work straight through - two more dirty J15s (I've three). In diesel days, a similar working pattern with an A on the main line passenger, a C on the branch, and 121 / 141 types gradually taking the passenger over and displacing the A to the goods. So we have operational variation, but not too much clutter; the whole thing will look rural. I will keep posts updated as it develops, if anyone's interested. It's going to be a challenge, as it's years since I've done anything this big. Some I'm doping myself, but I've had to "sub-contract" other stuff. I haven't mentioned the red lines on the diagram, nor the green rectangle yet. The fiddle yard has these red tracks too. They are 12mm gauge, of H0 scale 3'6". This will enable me to develop a small adjacent layout to indulge my interest in South African and Indonesian steam. Not a diesel will sully these tracks. When Dugort Harbour was ORIGINALLY planned, the intention was that it would be portable. Long story, but as you can see this isn't happening. A chance conversation with a fellow enthusiast of Cape gauge stuff recently got me thinking, so this green rectangle is a portable board of 15" x 7'6" (in quarts) which rests on supports but may be lifted out when I'm operating the Irish layout. It shares the (fixed) fiddle yard, and I am talking to "those who know" about a dual gauge turntable in the fiddle yard. This will represent a Western Cape branchline somewhere on the edge of the Karoo, in the 1960s - 70s period. The beauty of South African lines is that many branchlines, even those which saw but one mixed train a day, lasted right until closure as late as the mid 1990s without ever having seen a diesel; so, perfect for steam fans even into the modern era with 2.8.4s hauling goods trains with modern bogie container wagons - same stuff you'd have seen at North Wall in 1995. This one WILL just be a terminus-and-fiddle-yard thing. What's with all those turntables? Steam engines and 121s, that's what. In the era I'm dealing with, 121s rarely if ever ran in pairs, and on most branches, CIE turned steam engines. On the South African Railways, while it did happen the odd time, tender-first working on lines like the one shown were almost unknown. The narrow gauge thing will be limited to maybe 15 items of rolling stock - a typical train of the appropriate type might have had two four wheel wagons, two bogies and one coach. Locos will be two 6J class 4.6.0s, and IF the IRM "A" class budget doesn't have the damn house back on the market, maybe a 19D. Lottery win needed, maybe another 6th class derivitave of the 6J kit. If anyone has any idea where I could get a 24 class....do ping me.

Yes, I've actually just emailed him! I am in the lucky position of having a bona fide address in the UK (Wales) as well as here...... I can get stuff delivered to either.

Ah! I was getting mixed up. I know SSM did them too, or perhaps first! I've seen finished examples of both, and they both look very well (SSM and Worsley).

Now the CBSCR green one is sold out, and probably only one GSR grey one left.