jhb171achill

Yes, indeed - that shows, I suppose, the efforts necessary to do a credible job. The pic of the Timoleague area above shows what can be done, and the above colourisation of the scene on the Cork City Railway is nice - but perhaps easier for the AI to do! Anyway, overall, I watch this technology with interest. I am definitely not a fan of the current rash of "colourised" photos all over the internet, which in reality look like a black and white pic with a mug of coffee spilt of bits of it, and the thought of a bullied railcar with a "desert sand" front like a Dublin bus in 1980, or blue coaches in Kerry, would induce attacks of the Screaming Fits, Multiple Conniptions and Heeby-Jeebies in any mere mortal, but the long term will bring out some beauties, I am sure. "Hey, Sarge! I think I've found him! ..... Come ON out, you, with your hands UP! We're gonna TEACH ye to colourise carriages in BLUE!"

Seeing that is tempting me to buy one in GSR livery............. With six-wheel coaches shortly to be a reality, perfect loco to go with them.

Is that one of Roderick’s CBSCR tanks, the GSR 472 class?

Even then, the entire train and water tank are all the one colour. You would need faded wood colour for the tank support, rust and faded black paint on the tank, grey on the locomotive and maroon on the carriages. This, to me, is the problem with this medium - you’ve got but two colours - green and unintelligible drab..... According to an expert in this technology who I know, with current methods, to do a half-decent job you need the VERY top of the range gear, and hours and hours per image. He has done a book which was released recently to much fanfare, and featured on the Late Late Show. I tried to persuade him to do another one of railway images but he’s no plans to do anything more (yet, anyway!).

Indeed; and their carriages were mostly unserviceable. Had they survived, you would have seen wholesale scrapping of much of everything they had by mid 60s, and the probable purchase of second hand items from CIE and the UTA. The entire track, every yard, would have need complete replacement. The management were deeply embarrassed by the state of the three bogie coaches, one of which was only used in the most dire emergency. I think that all of their museum-piece six-wheelers were done. jhbSenior did some of their civil engineering work for no charge in his own time, as they couldn’t afford a civil engineer, even part-time. The two railbuses were worn out and only one was in use at the end. The Walker railcar was in good enough order, but with a low-maintenance regime and the rough track, it would have started giving trouble before too long. Senior watched a loco couple up to a train of cattle trucks in Enniskillen station one day in 1955/6. As the loco went to move off, it simply yanked the whole coupling assembly out of the buffer beam of the leading wagon. An SLNCR one..... The buses were worn out too. None ended up with CIE! They were all scrapped. The whole enterprise looked very tatty, with almost nothing having seen a paintbrush in years - locos, rolling stock or stations.

The “UTA factor”! Run into the ground, with little maintenance! If you were to look beyond the varnish and Mr Sheen on BCDR No 30 & NCC No 74 in Cultra, you’ll find that both of them are in a very bad state mechanically and boiler-wise too!

The summer of 1977 saw the two B113s in the “barrier” siding at Inchicore. Once CIE started painting wagons brown in 1970, you’d still see the odd grey door (replacements during repairs) or even wooden planked doors off older wagons on “H” vans. This was in the goods yard in Kilkenny in July ‘75 or ‘76, I think. Loose coupled goods ended just after that. Note how much higher the “palvans” were than other vans - there’s one to the right. Also note the “hybrid” end of it.

There’s junior membership available, Westcork.....

Yes, indeed, perfect examples of both! That Bullied Railcar one I had seen - it had me running for my smelling salts......! Is that YOU, Mike? Are we talking about a journey in 1979?

Good to see a colourisation (West Cork) which is half-way realistic! Most of the "colourisations" seen online are truly AWFUL, with just about everything in them a mawkish shade of grey or beige, even if in real life it was bright blue or red - but with nice green grass! The above two are worth looking at - the people on the platform on the first loom realistic, but the carriage should be green. On the overhead station view above, I've seen several of CBSCR views online, most with grass and hedges looking as realistic as above, but often with the entire trackbed looking green too, as if the entire thing was covered in moss or grass. As to the colour of the trains - less said the better. I've seen one somewhere which has the vegetation accurately done, but the entire train shown centre stage remains in black and white, plus one somewhere in West Cork which had green vegetation, green trackbed, a station apparently a dull orangey-brown all over, and an AEC railcar with orange sides and a purple tint to the roof. I was speaking to someone in Galway University a while back who was involved in a research project there to explore how this process can be seriously enhanced. He did a few images which had been taken on Achill Island (non-railway related) in 1913, and these are so accurate and good that you would think they were taken with an iPhone yesterday. But as he says, the off-the-shelf technology has a very long way to go before it is anything like accurate. A.I. will doubtless assist in the near future. I have sent Galway Uni some glass plate images taken on my ancestors' family farm in Co. Offaly in the 1910-30 period to see what he can do with them. For now, though, certainly as far as RAILWAY colours are concerned, such things are best avoided like a plague, as they are woefully inaccurate - and that's when they can even be made out. It seems that the technology has a habit of simply adding a slight tint of something broadly brownish to things in backgrounds, which makes them look a tired, nondescript "weathered" colour, as misleading as it is wrong. The footbridge in the above pic is a perfect case in point. If the point of "colourising" a photo is to show colour, then what colour is that footbridge? It is a murky "something" colour; in other words, the software which purports to "colourise" it appears, for this type of thing, to be useless. It would have been better left B & W. In the CBSCR pic, a man in a brown coat has a RED arm. A green carriage is brown on top, grey below. I rest my case! Superb! Very true.............

You'd want THREE for that sort of money..........

Yes, it WOULD be red lead, and that was an economy measure, just like the CDR once put TAR on some wagons! Red lead had an orangey brown colour; I recall Senior had a pot of it which he got from Inchicore when I was a Small Person. He was fitting out a shed with shelves at the time and building a wheelbarrow 9with an old railway wheel, which I wish I'd kept). He told me that in wagon building in both the GS and the GN, and probably further afield, red lead pain was often used as both a preservative and undercoat. Once dry, it protected wood very well indeed and hardened it. The CBSCR have clearly painted some wagons with this stuff, and always with an eye to cutting costs at Albert Quay, have then just lettered the wagon and placed it into traffic like that. Now that you mention this, I remember it. I cannot tell how many wagons were treated this way, or how many were treated in the other ways I mentioned. Interesting stuff! Naturally, when the GSR took over, everything was gradually repainted their standard grey. Hope you enjoy the book! Next one's with the publisher now, but he has to work from home right now........... Yes, as "niche" as you could get! My understanding is that no further Irish locomotives are currently planned by 00 Works, but who's to say there never will be! I know he has a good few British items planned.

From various bits and pieces I've picked up over the years, it would be my impression that CBSCR green was something broadly like this, maybe not QUITE as "olivey", but with no definitive proof that I'm aware of, it's open to the elements. Locomotives the same, of course.

The "sage" green on the CBSCR has also been described as "olive" green; from what I can gather, there is no certain shade to be seen, although one Cyril Fry model is of a CBSCR coach in a green which wouldn't really qualify as either. Fry was generally extremely accurate with liveries where he could, but to be fair to him, it's unlikely he was ever in Skibbereen as a small child. I'm not even sure what "sage" would look like, but I wouldn't have put it too much of olive.....? Regarding the brown wagon, that's quite possible. I know of no comprehensive archive regarding CBSCR wagon liveries, but from what details I've picked up, at a very early stage some appear to have been varnished wood with black ironwork, later they were black or a very dark grey, though I have no further details. And I cannot currently find all of my notes, as I am in post-house-move mode, with all sorts of stuff still in boxes! Once I get sorted out I will look up to see what else I may have. Out is interest, where did you pick up on the brown livery?

Yes, that's the olive green and white - and you can see that the coach behind it is olive green all over. I'm sure some of the Hattons six-wheelers will be in (British) Southern Railway green. Now, before I go on, beware - the SR had, at different times, two VERY different shades of green, one of which is completely unsuitable. The "malachite" shade is wrong. I can't recall what they call the other shade, but it's an olive green. IF Hattons do any of their 6 wheeled coaches in the SR olive colour, all you have to do is gently remove "SOUTHERN RAILWAY" from the sides, and you'll have something about right. These things aren't expensive - I think they will be maybe £30 a throw? So, you get the 00 Works loco in green, and two of these things, and half a dozen wagons (all in very dark grey; I have an idea that at one time the CBSCR may have painted some wagons black but I'd have to check), and hey presto! A CBSCR branchline train.......

The CBSCR always painted carriages the same olive green as their locos, at various times with white upper panels, other times plain green. The lining on carriages was a pale yellow. The GSR initially painted carriages an extremely dark maroon colour - check out the preserved GSWR coach at Downpatrick, No. 836 - so dark it almost looks brownish. From 1933 onwards they used a much lighter shade - what would nowadays be called "burgundy". So if you like maroon rather than green coaches, maybe go for modelling the 1925-30 period - you can still have your loco "not yet repainted" in grey if you don't like that! - plus this very dark "crimson lake" colour on carriages. Go for late CBSCR days and loco and coaches are green. Unfortunately, for GSR days, every single solitary loco they possessed was plain grey bar the three 800 class - like the 071s now! It was only in in the mid-50s that CIE started painting some locos black - though the majority stayed grey (covered in seven layers of soot!) until withdrawal. The one and only black loco I am aware of that ever worked over the West Cork system was the "Bandon Tank" No. 464 in its very last few years (it had been grey up to mid-50s) and literally about a year or 18 months before withdrawal, preserved No. 90 seems to have got a new coat of black paint. Out'n'about round the system, though, always grey, unless a green "Bandon Tank" got an occasional run there in the early fifties - I doubt it, as the only reason one was painted green was to operate on Dublin suburban services. Again, always go by "Rule No. 1", which states "It's your layout"! I had many a layout in my youth which was far from correct historically! However, simply as a matter of record, the situation was as above. You've got me looking up 00 Works again.....! I have two of Roderick's J15s - excellent locos. I missed the GNR ones, but everyone I know who has one is WELL satisfied with it.

A loco like this would probably have worked the Kinsale branch. There seems limited info about what they actually DID on their home turf; my guess would be mostly branch work. In steam days the main line was to Skibbereen (in diesel days they switched this to Bantry), so I would suggest that the 472 class were probably mostly to be seen on Drimoleague - Bantry, Kinsale Jct. - Kinsale, and the Ballinascarthy and Courtmacsherry lines. If you take this loco in green, you're pre-1930 - although the livery changed to grey in 1925, they took their time repainting the lot, and there are contemporary reports of a number of CBSCR locos still green for a few years afterwards. But you'd need six wheel coaches. Get some of the new Hattons ones and paint them the same green as the loco. If you model a branch line, the typical pattern in West Cork was 2 or 3 trains a day - one mixed and the other(s) passenger only. You can use a bit of "licence" and fast forward to the 1950s and get a Silverfox railcar in CIE green, or a Silverfox "C" class in dirty silver, and pretend that one of these 472 class types survived a bit longer - but then you're looking at the grey model. All in all, many options! By the way, if you ever want details of a West Cork timetable, PM me privately - I have all of them from 1926 onwards. I can copy the relevant bit for you.

He offers it in both CBSCR green (pre-1925) and also GSR grey. Different numbers - the 00 Works website has all details. There were inly a few of these locos, and they were gone by the mid-40s; also, their range of operation was quite simply nowhere but Wisht Caaark plus shunting between Albert Quay, Victoria Quay, Penrose Quay and Glanmire. It's only just occurred to me to wonder if one of there locos ever made it to Macroom; it's possible but I'd say unlikely. It's a very nice little model and suitable for an imaginary branchline anywhere - if they could send MGWR tank engines to Ballinascarthy and Tramore, who's to say that a West Cork loco didn't end up on the fictitious Ballygobackwards branch in Co. Cavan! "Rule No. 1" applies! Might get one myself............

£900??????????????????????????????????

What's this, Galteemore - not marrying a Leitrim native? What's got into ya!

CIE & NIR used them well into the 1980s. Inchicore had its own printing press - I think there were two. They bought card and cut their own blanks. In the 1950s to 70s, the UTA and NIR curiously got tickets from the NCC lines printed in Britain; a throwback to the NCC, while those for the Bangor line and GN section (what was left of it) were printed locally. The SLNCR got many tickets printed by the GNR, tough I am unsure if it did the rest itself or got them done by Inchicore. You could set up Edmondson machines to do whatever letters or numbers you wanted, but the typical style was 14MAR56.

Well said!

Thats exactly what it looked like. Hadn’t seen that before. Mystery solved!

That’s what occurred to me!! Does it have lights along the side, almost literally LIKE the “holidays are coming” ad?

Love the sound effects! (May we say 1970s, with all the brown wagons? ) Keep 'em coming!