jhb171achill

The other replies above regarding reliability are exactly right. Basically they got a very good deal, as EMD already had an unrivalled reputation, and the financial pigeons were already coming home to roost in terms of the shockingly bad reliability of the Crossleys. They considered German stuff too. Clearly, they made the right decision, and therefore stick with them. Had Dick Fearn's railcars not come along, I daresay we'd now be seeing the "251 class" in traffic, whatever they might be. British Railways were hamstrung, as they were tied to buying British products, long after it was clear that the American stuff was better quality and more reliable. The Americans had way way more experience, having largely dieselised over a decade before anywhere in Europe. A former friend of our family was a senior engineer with the GNR in Dundalk, and he knew my grandfather in Inchicore. Through this connection I am aware that CIE's senior figures in the fifties were talking to BR, Dundalk and various others about the pros and cons of American versus British technology. As others have commented above, when you buy a widget from Tesco and it won't widge properly, you go to Supervalu next time.

Yes, that’s the way an “unboxing” video should be! I can never understand the mentality in making an epic “war and peace” out of taking something out of a box! .......seems like making a documentary about opening a tin of beans, or a seven-part series about opening a cupboard door..... Surely nobody buys a model just to take it out of its box....

Take one plank, three times daily before meals, until it’s a flat wagon..... Do not drive while taking this medication.

That's EXACTLY what I was thinking for a possible future project....

That's not water, Galteemore. That's poitín, all the way from Wisht Ciarraí, boy! It is an interesting thought that the likes of IRM, neither British nor large, might have seriously rippled the waters of Bachmann Hornby Overdrive & Hattonsheffield Corporation PLC Inc., and had them summer-salting over their smelling saults over high-quality standards.....

So all of them about 3m or 10ft high, thus in 4mm scale 4cm?

Roughly what dimensions would be appropriate for the large billboard advertisement hoardings normally seen on the likes of railway embankments near road bridges, etc.? Roughly 2.5 or 3m high, perhaps?

Many of us would need to go on diets to stand on THAT platform!

They ran in what nowadays would be called a “block train”, but artistic licence might allow a four-coach set? The brake van was a standard 6-wheel passenger brake. The “3”s on the doors relate to the GSR’s livery which includes the passenger class 1 or 3 (2nd long gone by then) on doors. Probably non existent in many cases as the coaches were scrappers. I think they had already been withdrawn. This was in normal open wagons - but - layout “artistic licence”. Very much so. The sides were all boarded up, doors and all. It’s possible an odd foot still worked, but they were loaded and unloaded by a squad of men flinging the turf pieces over the sides! Labour was cheap then..... Yes, any old grey paint - or just about anything. Some with bare planks too probably. Re. the few W & L vehicles, that’s true, and there were almost certainly a few DSER examples, but GSWR stock formed the bulk. To run on a layout, in reality you’d need a set of them to be realistic - even 3 or 4, plus a van. Turf in small quantities just went in normal open wagons.

These "wagons" were converted from withdrawn six-wheel coaches (no bogies). Doors were locked shut, and door handles removed for the most part, though the odd one might still have one! Some had random planking filling up doorways, some had wooden boards inside windows, some outside - the pics show that these were scrap vehicles resurrected IF the brakes could be made to work. They were used from the mid-1940s to the late '40s. Most were of GSWR designs - certainly all that I can make out in the above picture are of that origin, though I know I've seen Midland stock in this state somewhere else. Really, no two were alike. In some cases, the footboards have been roughly hacked off, leaving broken or twisted brackets, in others the brackets are gone. Some have mostly coach panelling, some have most planks instead. Many have part of a side made up by several old doors strung alongside each other - look at the picture above and see how many "3"s there are along the side of some - the number "3" indicating third class, on that type of carriage was carried ONLY on doors. Livery - very very badly worn GSR "maroon"; by this stage, a faded, peeling or streaked salmony-pink colour, very heavily weathered with brake dust. Thus a brown shade to the weathering. The planked bits are likely to be either unpainted, or a rough coat of wagon grey. None were actually PAINTED in any livery - they were basically taken off scrap lines, on which some of them had sat for some time. This one's a GSWR brake or brake third. Double doors - but replaced with two passenger doors - hence the "3" on each, and the erstwhile guard's lookout ducket removed and planked over. Still has its door handles! Footstep brackets hacked off.

I was just looking for that brochure, which I have somewhere! Obviously, I've already posted it here before! And yes, I suspect that's exactly where Bullied got his crazy idea for churning out diesel locos and coaches (AND, of course, the corrugated wagons!) in plain bare metal.........

The Summerhill terminus had a single platform, and it even had an earlier temporary incarnation in the form of what was probably a temporary wooden structure out at Tivoli. There is a small piece of wall remaining, if you know where to look. Obviously, it was built by the Cork & Youghal Railway, as StevieB says, not the GSWR who later took it over. I believe there was an accident in this station at one time, where an incoming train failed to stop. As mentioned above, while the last passenger train departed just after Glanmire Road was opened, it was used to store spare rolling stock for some years afterwards. A single siding into it remained as late as the 1950s, I believe, and each year CIE ran an inspection car or something down it to preserve the legal right-of-way.

That really is quite an eclectic collection of stuff, Sean! I'm following your endeavours with great interest! The "Little Giant" and (red) "Hornby" 0.4.0s are, as you point out, the same as the green one with the CIE logo. A lick of paint on both of them and you've three "CIE"-ish engines. Paint 'em dark grey - and the green one is your "passenger" steam loco, and the other two are "mixed traffic" or "goods" locos.......

Interesting take on it, Buz, and I suspect you're not alone. The reality is that ANY niche interest - and railways are one - will carry a price tag; the meter's running! Much as I'm on record here for extolling the virtues of times long past, and having little interest and less knowledge in anything after 1980, it has to be accepted that something like a cheap ready to run ICR (I know, I know) is what young potential enthusiasts SEE when Favourite Uncle takes them for their first trip ever on a "REAL" train. My earliest memory was a first class compartment in a musty old wooden bogie behind the GNR's no. 207 "Boyne", and seeing the vastnesses of the old ("proper"!) Portadown station, not the shamefully ugly concrete bunker heap that's there today. But to be fair, I realise that this is utterly irrelevant to, let's say, a 13-year-old who is now getting interested, and whether we all like it or not, is the future of the hobby. For him (or her?) it's an ICR, yellow machines or a Mk 4 or "Enterprise" set. There's nothing much else operating on almost all railways now; NIR CAFs are an even smaller market. But to GET the youngster in - maybe a generic round-ended cheap railcar which comes in ICR livery or NIR livery. Once smitten by THESE, they can be gently introduced to the goodies of our well-known manufacturers. MY first "layout" was a circle of super-4 track (or whatever it was called), a Hornby "Polly" 0.4.0, two wagons and a guard's van. Gawd knows what I did with them over the years - think I gave them away............my point being that at THAT time, no "serious" modeller would have given such items a second look.....

I could well believe it! Having been brought up on the originals, which I still have somewhere covered in my childish scribblings, I concur with His Reverence!

And you’d get some side panels still grey, and others newly painted brown on the same wagon...... I remember the B2B’s passing along the GNR to Belfast around 1969 / 70.

“Thomas” has been mentioned above. The late Rev. Awdry must be owed great gratitude for getting a lot of “young’uns” interested. I know at least one indispensable volunteer on the 12 inches to 1 ft scale who cut his railway teeth (probably literally!) on “Thomas” toys.

Larnecabin, that's one of the most inspiring projects I've seen in a long time - a prototype I haven't seen before, nor anything like it. It promises to be a great project! Superb finish on the brickwork.

G S. Both the Great Northern Railway and the Great Southern, as well as the GSWR before it, tended to make the letter "G" look like a "C". This even gave rise to an error in CIE's designation in the early 1960s or ex-GNR railcars, where the GN number was prefixed with a "C" instead of a "G"! Thus, railcar 609 (imaginary number) would become C609N instead of G609N! If that happened today, we would be screaming about the illiteracy of the "youth of today".......... And yes, the wagon is new in the picture.

Then I’ll go with my initial instinct: it’s a VERY RARE Cork & Macroom Railway coach.

That’s perfect for any Irish layout, BTB. The GNR, GSWR, NCC, UTA, DSER, W & L, MGWR and CIE used these, or ones extremely close to them. Slightly darker grey all over (use British LMS shade, with marginally lighter for CIE) for both body & chassis, and “flying snail”. By the 1950s CIE are churning out the corrugated opens at a great rate of knots, so by the 1960s the wooden ones, while still about, are gradually becoming a minority. Despite that, a few survive to get the “roundel” logo, and a smaller number still even manage to get the brown livery after 1970, by which time they are a rarity. I am unaware of any in traffic after 1973. The UTA painted some in a reddish-bauxite colour in 1965/6 or thereabouts for the Courtaulds traffic. A couple survived as ballast wagons with NIR got a few years into the 1970s.

Indeed; a totally new one to me too........... wonder were there any others?

Those are the original grey, with (unusually) black chassis. The orange came in the late sixties, with the final ones delivered in it. The ivory came much later, in the 1980s - long after the last ones in grey were repainted orange. Grey and ivory never ran together, and thus "black'n'tan" locomotives never hauled anything ivory. Also, loose-coupled goods brake vans were history before bubbles appeared in ivory. That is one FASCINATING bit of film..... Those "bubbles" appear to be in undercoat - maybe a test run. They entered traffic in standard wagon grey, albeit uniquely with black chassis.

I remember reading in a model railway magazine in the 1970s a comment, possibly about the late Mike Sharman’s early GWR broad gauge modelling, which suggested that many enthusiasts seem drawn to a period around or just before or after when they were born. Evidently there’s some psychological reason for that! Whether true or not, it applies to me; my main area of interest is 1950-65. By the time I’m in my teens, my interest in anything new wanes, thus while 181s were items of interest, there’s something in my head which says 071s are just “too new”. Similarly, I’d love to see the SLNCR Railcar “B” or an AEC or BUT set back in use, but a 70 or 80 class, or one of the ghastly 450s or Drogheda green things, zero interest. And yet, I’d be the first to say that the 80 class, especially, had one of the most important roles of ANY passenger tolling stock in Irish railway history, including bringing a drunk me home on Friday nights in the late 70s..... Senior was the same. His main interest was 1920s, and he was born in 1918. Now, Noel will kill me for saying so, but I appreciate the gaudily-coloured plastic tubes that populate today’s railways for three reasons (only?!); - They get you from A to B, like a bus. - They will, whether we like it or not, attract people who are learning to talk and walk right now, to model railways, and railway interest in general; new volunteers in 20 years’ time for the RPSI, ITG, DCDR, the 3ft gauge lines, and the IRRS. - Better a railcar railway, complete with weeds, overgrown hedgerows with no view, graffiti, security fences, graffiti, yellow lines, litter and graffiti-strewn concrete.....than NO railway.

The locomotive is a Great Northern loco of a type used (latterly, at any rate) on the Dublin - Howth, Belfast docks area, and the Belturbet - Ballyhaise branch. The Ford railbus was one of a pair that the Dublin & Blessington Tramway had built in 1928 to carry mails and off-peak services. They were underpowered and lightly built, and soon were worn out. One ended up only fit to take mailbags and was scrapped, with the other soldiering on to the end. Its body was bought by the County Donegal Railways and made into a narrow-gauge railcar trailer, in which guise it lasted into the 1950s. This 2nd pic is particularly interesting in that it may be in the rarely-photographed walled Terenure terminus, and shows the peculiar terminus building and ticket office on the left. It’s been mentioned in another answer as Templeogue; the buildings were similar and this is possible too. Tis indeed what it is.