jhb171achill

I'll take the chocolate. Someone else can have the silver "customer pipes".

I forgot to mention that due to ventilated sides, cattle trucks were occasionally used for transporting boxes of fish.

My grandfather (1879-1951) started building this (live steam) model in the 1910s. He never got it finished. Too busy working on boiler drawings in Inchicore Works! I think it was intended to be a 60-class 4.4.0. I believe that at some stage he was working on improvements to these locos. Sound familiar? How many of us never manage to get a model finished!

This is a model of a GSWR "soft-top" which my grandfather built about 1910. The scale ends up with a track gauge of about 7 inches.

Hopefully this goes ahead and isn't stymied by the new variant of covid....... excellent experience. Last years' took place with "staycationers", at whom it was aimed, as are those for this year, as there aren't exactly going to be droves of Americans coming here. This train is not to be confused with Railtours' "Emerald Isle Express" of a few years ago, which used IE 071s and the RPSI Cravens set. That one is unlikely to return for the time being. The harsh reality is, as others have commented, is that the LOCAL market for a luxury train is small; and what there is, is fraught with whingers and typical Irish begrudgers! We need the 'Murricans back before many aspects of tourism can walk and run again.

Ventilated vans were used, and the fish were carried in long flat wooden boxes, packed in salt. While I cannot put my hand to any photos, they were like standard goods vans of the day, with slats at the upper or lower parts of the sides. Fish were also sometimes carried in "soft-tops" - convertible goods vans with the tarps open on the roofs. Livery - soft-tops - grey, standard wagon livery. Ventilated vans, depending on type or railway company, could be the standard wagon colour, or possibly a coloured livery - often that of carriages on the same line. I have a notion that MGWR fish vans were at least at one time a lighter colour to reflect heat, but I'd have to look up details. Since my house move there's a load of stuff I just cannot find! On the GSWR, you're safe with the wagon livery of the day, a very dark grey, sometimes almost black - not unlike what locos would end up having from 1915 onwards. I cannot say for certain whether any GSWR vans carried the passenger dark lake, but I wouldn't be surprised. Do you have any drawings or pics of such a van? If so, let's have a look at it..........

A PROPERLY restored “shell” would be fine as an exhibit, but it would have to be kept covered, at the very least with a roof. Out in the open simply is not an option long-term for a yoke like that…..

Very rough - yes! Similar to be seen in many places then!

Got ya!

At least with these things, the corridor gangways were more compatible. Cravens and other pre-1972 CIE stock were entirely incompatible with anything Mk 2 onwards (i.e. post-1972) on CIE.

and the fella sitting on the platform, “gotta few coppers, bud?”

No copy of the Indo on the drivers desk, and can of 7-up?

Ah, buseszzzz………!

1950s two-tone green with flying snail?

Coming to a screen near you - Episode One of a new major fifteen-part series shown weekly between now and 23rd November. “The Unboxing Video”! (Subtitled “A” Class Act) Episode 1: “The Lid”

I certainly did, Jimmy! But I left Australia............... ;-)

Excellent articles, Jimmy. Congratulations!

An Australian train!

What was that as a matter if interest - a service train? Or a GAA or pilgrimage special? I think the most I ever saw was something like 11 + two tin vans, and another time 12 including a BR van......... Recently saw a pic of a Youghal summer seaside special probably about 1960 with about 16-18 six-wheelers behind an "A" class!

I wouldn’t have thought that a 3D print at that small a scale would look anything other than crude - but those lol superb!

I can’t make out a CIE device, but it’s unlikely as they simply bought things like this from a standard hardware supplier.

Glenfarne on the SLNCR is also worth a look. This had the goods bank facing the passenger platform, like at Dunsandle (itself an EXCELLENT choice for a minimal layout). If the modeller just used the main through line, plus one set of points backing onto the goods siding, that would do; while there was other track, by the end it appears to have been mostly weed-covered and unused.

Mine too!!!!

I have a bona fide address on a neighbouring island as well as here. I get stuff delivered to Neighbouring Island (no, it's not Achill - it's a bit bigger) OR to here, depending on which shower of tax-gougers I perceive i will have to pay less to. If the GNR drivers could smuggle butter, poitín and stockings in the 1940s, who am I to break an old railway tradition.

No, they're standard (darker) wagon grey, but covered in a patina of cement dust. Same colour as the brake van - BUT - the sun is shining on them and that also makes them look a bit lighter. Up close, they did not look that light at all. Very soon after, they started painting the bodies orange, though the chassis would remain grey for another generation until they started painting the "bubble" bit cream - and THEN they painted the chassis black - a rare thing!