jhb171achill

Mulling over the latest offerings from IRM, and such items as Provincial Wagons' UTA spoil wagons and other GNR-related stuff, it recalls to mind what potential there is for very individual layout ideas or lines in the North. Small though the system would become after the catastrophic policies of the Stormont government 1950-65, it is a case of small but interesting. Railcar trains with no two vehicles alike, trailing so much goods that they were to all intents and purposes main line mixed trains operated by railcar, a la CDRJC, anyone? Last steam in Ireland, north or south? Modern (brand new 80 class) railcars mixing and mingling with one of the only three Hunslet types ever built, hauling an excursion of de-engined railcars and ancient steam stock, again no two alike..... the lack of goods and lack of mileage is more than made up for with the above matters alone. Go back a little to the 1960s, and we have steam and huge goods traffic on the Derry Road, CIE excursions to Omagh sitting side by side with ex-GNR AEC / BUT railcars. And the wagons. Just like CIE in the fifties had an eclectic mix of brand new goods stock and antique stock from its constituent companies, so the UTA had ex-GNR stuff, ex-NCC and ex-BCDR also. It had the very different designs of NCC goods brake van, among those of GNR origin (like Whitehead's "Ivan", but without those black stripes!), though i don't recall ever seeing any ex-BCDR brake vans. Also the classic GNR Mills architecture (GVS - Dundalk, Newry, & Derry Londonroad), and the very picturesque and unique architecture of the BNCR and later NCC, with the iconic wide-roofed signal cabins and somersault signals. And scenery: Portadown to Finaghy may not inspire - but Castlerock, Downhill, the Warrenpoint branch, much of the Derry Road, and the dramatic coastal scenery of parts of the Larne line? By proportion, even the modern NIR probably has more scenic bits than IE! (N I Tourist Board, please send my payment cheque to the usual offshore account. It would be unfair to burden our tax authorities with even more work). I will be known here for long ago banging on about "when will a Jeep be offered". I sense this may become a more viable issue in times to come - I certainly hope so. Over on RM Web, in between the awful pop-up ads, we see the very excellent Northern Ireland based layouts, not to mention railcar building skills, of the likes of Kirley and others. The interest, like that of CIE, is growing. So what have we - how do we put together a layout based on the UTA / NIR? Let's look at it in two bits. First, pre-65, when you've steam and double the mileage; latterly, the post-1965 times, when the 80 class ruled. 1. UTA At the VERY start we still have the Ballycastle line open, so a layout based on a Ballymoney-style interchange would be interesting. But let's look at stock. Carriages are EASY. Remember the Bachmann set of three "CIE" coaches with a Woolwich? These are standard early 1920s LMS stock in CIE livery In rality, while CIE never posessed a single coach even vaguely similar to these, they are perfect for UTA.The reason is this. We may thank a small Austrian gentleman with a Marx Brothers* moustache who was elected to high office in Germany in 1933, and went on to become famous in the early 1940s. He decided one day to drop bombs on Belfast. In doing so, he obliterated much of the carriages sidings at York Road, and a fair slice of the goods yard. This meant that the still LMS-owned NCC system there had a sudden stock shortage. Large numbers of old secondary, and in some cases withdrawn stock was hurriedly shipped in from England from the parent LMS. All of this was (English) MIdland Railway or LMS origin (no LNWR, funnily enough, as far as I'm aware), and hey presto! Actual LMS designs operating here, the very last of which lasted until the mid 1970s as excursion stock - hauled by none other than IRM's Hunslets. Since the NCC was owned outright by the LMS, their OWN designs built in York Road were built to standard LMS overall house design, albeit with very many local differences - a bit like some of the later Mk 2 BREL types that ran on NIR & CIE being of the same broad dimensions as British equivalents, but door spacings and other things specific to here. Just as in CIE areas, ex-MGWR, ex-GSWR and other stock might be indiscrimately mixed in with their own modern builds, same with UTA. There are Worsley and SSM kits of GNR carriages available, ready to run LMS types, both wooden panelled and steel-sided, which are as near as dammit to what ran on the UTA and later NIR systems. In steam days, we'd still need to botch some sort of Fairburn 2.6.4T; hence my repeated plainmtive wailings for a RTR Jeep. For those lucky enough to have got one, the 00 Works GNR 4.4.0 and 0.6.0 RTR locos are necessary, especially if you're doing the GN section. I remember both types on local trains. Wagons - Leslie's GNR vans - these will be essential. Leslie also does the GNR four wheel passenger van - wodely used for parcels traffic on the GN sections of the UTA. For the NCC the equivalent Brown Van. Model the GN section, and you've a possibility of a newspaper train hauled by steam or a CIE diesel, and with a truly eclectic parade of varied vans behind it: around 1963 it was possible to see, at least in theory, such a train consisting of a new black'n'tan "tin van", andother in green, another in filthy silver, a fitted ex-GN goods van, an ex-GN passenger van in brown and another in UTA green, and as many brown vans as you could shake broiwn van monster at - with perhaps a bogie brake third and a goods brake van. We won't go into fintona trams, but that yoke on the back of a consist like that would hardly raise an eyebrow. While CIE goods stock was very distinct from British designs, and thus an irish layout with simply re-liveried British wagons and vans is really only suitable as a stop-gap measure until Leslie or IRM do a "proper" one, the convenient fact is that while the LMS shipped carriages into belfast in the 1940s rather than large amounts of wagons, the NCC themselves, being LMS-owned, built their own wagons to designs of the same type as the LMS! In several books, or online IRRS photos, the eagle-eyed will spot these "British"-looking designs a mile off. Therefore, certain types of ex-LMS off-the-shelf Hornby / Bachmann / Dapol etc designs will be fine. As with CIE of course, no black chassis; the NCC painted them body colour same as further south. Just as with CIE, there are several MASSIVELY glaring omissions in the RTR - even kit - markets. With CIE, the gaping voids are the lack of the absolutely essential 1950-70 AEC railcars, plus the equally necessary tin vans. I have several JM Design ones - wish i had got more. The Silverfox ones are very crude indeed, and like anything ordered from Silverfox in green, the colour is completely wrong, as is their obsession with light grey roofs. With earlier UTA, it's hardly surprising that none of the railcars like MEDs and MPDs exist - scarcely two of the latter type were alike, and some were converted from 1920s carriages! But if we had the AEC sets, some could be in CIE liveries, of course, but others would be in GNR, UTA and later NIR liveries. But the gaping omissions are Jeeps and the AECs. 2. Late UTA and into NIR days In the late 60s, you've no authentic goods wagons to worry about, as they are all gone. But ballast trains remain. Both in UTA and these later days, Leslie's GNR brake van is key to that. Any old British open wagons can be painted up to look like the old Courtaulds wagons in their unique reddish-brown livery, and the cut down versions hastily slopped over in thin pale grey paint by NIR. (Spare us the black "Ivan" metalwork, though; nothing was ever like this!). You can get away by now without a Jeep, but a couple of filthy ones hauling Leslie's spoil wagons is a great, and unique touch. But as the UTA and CIE have their glaring omissions, the BIGGIE here is the 80 class railcar. Just as iconic as the AECs in the preceding 20 years, or the ICRs in the last 20, a 1980s / 1990s layout based anywhere in the North without 80 class sets simply isn't doable. We can improvise, though. We now have the IRM Hunslet, plus IRM NIR Mk 2 coaches. Soon, it will be possible to have a 1970-early 80s Enterprise. Use a few ex-LMS coaches like the ones with the Woolwich, repainted in NIR's plain maroon, and you've Portrush summer excursions. A change for your maroon Hunslet to haul. We need the 80, but if you're post-1986, if you can get one there's the blue NIR 111, IRM Mk 2s in appropriate livery, and those yellow bopgie ballast wagons. But there are British railcars with sliding doors in 2 or 3 car sets - don't ask me what class - too modern to be of any interest to me - which look near enough like the "Castle" (or 450) class railcars of NIR. Naturally, if modelling the GNR main line, we've the Dundalk goods. Enter, stage left, IRM's "H" vans, Leslies' also, and Leslie's GNR brake vans, JM Design's excellent-looking CIE brake vans - another essential on an all-Ireland basis, of course, the SSM kit of same; and for the later period IRM's bubbles, Guinness, ferts and container flats. And of course we have the 121s and 141s and A class of Messrs Murphy / IRM. None existed as the UTA was formed, so every livery that each of these appears in is appropriate to at least some period in the existence of UTA & NIR. I am hearing noises about growing interest in pre-CIE in the south - will we see GSR carriages some day? It is not long ago that the idea of the grey'n'green era on CIE would have been considered a step too far for the commerical market, but IRM's silver and green "A"'s changed all that. Hatton's ex-GSWR six-wheelers helped, as did JM Design's and Provincial Wagons' earlier designs of brake vans. I am a great believer that if a small number of very high quality RTR models of something appear, there's a very good chance interest will follow. IRM started by producing Mk 2 coaches. Murphy Models' 111 (which, according to Paddy Murphy at the show the other week, is due a re-run) and his 121s and 141s were a ground breaker too. Now we've Hunslets, and 1990s-type NIR ballast wagons can be had commercially and repainted, as they were BR imports of ex-Southern Railway origin, with a nickname of a shark, antelope, mollusc, or tree-eating skunk, as per BR nomenclature. We have Cravens, and a BR GSV van can be had or repainted from a BR Mk 1, so we've the Enterprise (bar its dining car). So we already have the beginnings of northern-based locos and rolling stock. Hopefully a new extension of our interest range into earlier times (GSR) and northern climes (UTA / NIR) will develop. This will leave, as the only voids in the RTR world, the GNR and BCDR. But those are for another day. I sense that such evolution is already beginning to take place. I hope so. Meantime, we may hope for 80 class and AEC railcars, tin vans and laminates.... and a Jeep and a RTR GNR loco. (* Those youngsters born from 1970 onwards, look them up!)

In reality, if you take any batch of any type of wagon ever built here (or for here in this 9rare) case), you will find that after not too long a time, at the very least lettering styles, positions of wagons numbers, location of logos or lettering, and even fonts used, can vary significantly. These hoppers were very short-lived by wagon standards - very short-lived indeed, and limited in where they went. They never saw Newry, Omagh or Enniskillen, let alone West Cork. Compare with batches of, say, goods vans, built in 1890 by one of the bigger companies such as the GSW, examples of which were still to be seen bumbling around the place seventy or eighty years later - think of the potential there for "no two alike"; and we're still only talking of livery! Add to that differing wheels over the years, differing buffers, changes to the side strapping, non-standard doors, different ends after some sort of reconstruction, and so on. Wagons weren't seen as being as "glamorous" as carriages, so often there could be hastily improvised alterations. Going back to liveries, back in the day care would be taken to adhere to the company livery policy if a coach was altered, repainted or rebuilt - but that wasn't seen as being so important with wagons, which were basically workaday Amazon Prime boxes on wheels.

Someone, somewhere, recently asked me about this. The answer lies in this (Cyril Fry) model, and / or the (correct) livery currently carried by 90 at Downpatrick. Fry’s model carried one of two lining styles used approx 1880-1902, whereas 90 has the earlier style. Same green, though. The pale green seen at the 1996 open day at Inchicore was entirely incorrect for any era, as were the shade on 90 when in Mallow, and on 184 in its last years in CIE use. It is likely that this isn’t a million miles off what the CBSCR used, though further research on that is necessary.

I dream of Achill….

Whatever about renumbering, from recollection the vast majority retained “U T” until their demise….

And, of course, modellers of the NCC area in UTA and early NIR days can find room for Lough Erne and Lough Melvin…

Nor me - yet the evidence was hiding in plain sight!

We await their hatching out in the spring!

No, it's the standard length for many six-wheelers in the mid 1870s - early 80s period. Short six-wheelers (under 30ft) were still to be seen on the West Cork system, albeit rarely in use, into the 1950s. The left hand coach would be 1875-85, probably. Carriage design from early days to the 1890s in Ireland was very different indeed to the Larger Neighbouring Island. When we look at the Genesis coaches, one important thing to remember is that while (as we've seen) their six-wheelers are very like a number of types we hd, especially of GSWR design, the long-wheelbase, but more modern body shape FOUR wheelers seen commonly in Britain were entirely absent in Ireland. Thus, no Genesis long-wheelbase four wheeler, nor any Ratio GWR kit of same, is even remotely like anthing that ever ran here. There were one or two "one-offs" of six wheelers having a centre pair of wheels removed in later years, usually GSR times, but (a) these were exceptions, and (b) long gone before CIE days. In Ireland, almost every railway company went from straight sided yokes like the Ulster Railway saloon at Downpatrick, to equally straight sided SIX wheelers by the 1870s. Very few of the much older four wheelers lasted beyond that, though the MGWR had at least one which lasted until about 1920. However, our early six wheelers had a very ancient body shape, while the British ones were by the standards of the day, fitted with modern bodies. So, if populating an Irish layout with early coaches, six-wheelers are really your only show in town, unless you'd be modelling pre-1880, or certainly pre-1900, and any four wheelers you had would have to be scratch builds of the entirely different Irish prototypes.

Broadly south-east-ish!

Indeed they did. When the wagons were empty, the vans were loaded, when full, vans were empty. Barry and are preparing a Volume 5 in that series now. Historical background research largely complete, photos selected. Hope to get a good bit done on it over the winter.

Wow!! Agree with others that this is a fantastic new burst on the scene! Very well done indeed, love the way it captures different eras 1969-80, and the detail! Whole thing works really well.

This would make sense. Any “snail” applied to anything after 1963 would be a surprise indeed, and probably (if it ever existed) some sort of localised “one-off”. Personally, I’m unaware of any such phenomenon! However, examples of wagons still retaining pre-1963 snails were still to be seen well into the 1970s.

And there you have it. An Enterprise the way I remember; nine vehicles of seven types.

EXACTLY! If anyone has a model Park Royal, eg the old IFM one, as far as I can see its dimensions are correct. It looks like 800 beside 90 when sat beside a SSM (scale) GSWR six wheeler. Same with older bogies. Very much lower roofs than anything built after around 1912/15. One of the many reasons why in the pre-1972 days, trains looked such a mish mash to those accustomed to sleek Mk 2 sets with zero variation. And, the reason why so many of our older enthusiasts would see passenger trains from the 1960s/80s onwards as bland. Never any more than one body shape. Before 1965, you’d go a long way to see a train with even two vehicles alike!

If this is 1964, it must be a special of some sort? Passenger service to Tralee finished a year earlier.......... or is it just parked?

Three times the brand-new price.... some nerve!

The Fry model of Drumm train unit C / D differs from the real thing as it was built off plan, but there were amendments made while the real thing was being built!

NIR is a small area, with less variety (no internal goods trains since before inception and only half a dozen locos) but the “might have beens” like the C classes pulling lignite and so on… or loco hauled trains on the Derry line. So here’s more!

Most interesting!

That one's grey. Interesting that by a very long margin, the oldest coach in the trai8n - is in the then-brend-new livery!

Pretty sure they weren't.

The answers to these questions are as follows. The initial idea behind the green vans was that, being vac-braked, were to be used on Cork-Tralee mail trains, doubtless in place of several ancient 6-wheel full brakes. Initially, there were either 4 or 6 of them - I can't remember. Official CIE records suggest that there was a whiole series of them in green - this was absoluteloy not the case. There were (a) only a very small handful in grey, and (b) they weren't that way too long. Next, that van in a very dark livery. Until about 1960, many older wagons were a much darker grey then the bulk of "H" vans or Palvans were - this is because about that time they started using a much lighter shade. This one could either be that in shadow, or possibly a "local" job in Cork or Limerick with an uncharacteristically darker shade. It isn't green - as standard carriage green was used.

Indeed. In original form, as per recent IRM models, the bpdy was just galvanised steel. They were never painted at all in "single deck" days. The chassis, like those of all CIE wagons before 1970, were grey. Very few ever saw a coat of paint again; any that did had brown paint roughly slopped on them in sugar-beet days, again as per the IRM model of that. In their last days, when double-decked, all brown and all fitted, That's actually the first time the corrugated bodies ever had paint on them - no wonder they just looked like a "dirt colour".

In the wagon world, there were many, many variations of most things - just like locos and carriages, also, in the steam era. Thus, I cannot state as an absolute fact that not a single solitary one of those was ever vac braked, but I would consider it to be exceptionally unlikely. Of course, when they became "double-decked" for beet in much later years, those were vac braked - but on a different chassis.