jhb171achill

Wondering about the 0.6.0 progress?

The Hattons Genesis stock have gaps between them which must be about 8 scale feet.....

Woohoo! My Time Machine is going to have to make one turn up in Dugort Harbour in 1962…..

Pic 1: Claytons on W & T: old dark green with lining. Pic 2: same on 2nd, 3rd & 4th coaches; lighter on first one. Pic 3: hard to tell due to light, but very probably older livery, but as with some secondary stock, especially round Cork and on the West Clare, with no lining. Pic 4: sunlight!! Pic 5: Dark green unlined and lighter green. Pic 6: Lighter green Final pic: Railcar in lighter green, old coach in background unlined dark green.

Two. These variations are all from lighting and varying survival of film emulsion.

Worth pointing out, too, in general for those with Hattons 6ws in both greens - by the time BnT came in (1962) no passenger carrying vehicles still had the “old” lined dark green, and all of the six-wheelers still in use were by now the light green. There were still a handful of old vehicles hanging about in sidings, though, in dark green. Last dark green in actual use likely to be on the Clonakilty and Drimoleague-Baltimore branches.

So, a BnT 6-wheel full brake has a quite different use to a green one. It is best matched with green or black & tan IRM Park Royals, and Bredins or laminates either in later green or BnT. An occasional Craven too in the midst of this, though an all-Craven train would stretch credibility. That’s the four, then! Slight possibility of one more though; I’d forgotten about 18.

Only 2 or 3 became black & tan, and after the passenger-carrying ones were withdrawn. So no BnT 6-wheel van ever ran with other six-wheelers! Only six of these vans were still in use when the BnT livery came into use, and two of these were withdrawn within about 18 months, so probably remained green. Nos. 69, 79 and one more (11xx) were certainly BnT; not sure about the other one. Last two were in use on the Galway mail until circa 1968, and while not officially withdrawn until 1970, certainly looked well out of use by that time.

I remember the donkeys too, often pulling turf trailers!

Mine is 4 wheel drive and runs on renewable eco-friendly fuel. I remember the donkeys too, often pulling turf trailers!

I think we’ll all be back on the backs of donkeys before all this gets sorted…..!

The gentleman who designed this livery in real life (and several others) is a member on here - ye know who ye are! I have no doubt he will be HIGHLY impressed!

Outstanding, simply outstanding.

Very many thanks, Leslie, for your absolutely invaluable input into model Irish wagons. You have been instrumental in assisting many of us in turning train sets into model railways!

Charles Friel, of the RPSI, has done several fascinating talks on this area, and may have images to help. Contact him via the RPSI, maybe?

Next time it will be Mary Loo Healy Rae.

I wonder would a Crossley rescue it - or would it be the other way round! Or - I have visions of an ageing SG3 hauling both in disgrace south past Howth Junction.....

Saw this on YouTube a good while ago - apparently he's been working on this for some years! Most ingenious.

Now THAT would give him indigestion as well, not to mention a bad case of the Vapours, the Critical Collywobbles, Heeby-Jeebys and Multiple Conniptions....

Had jhbSeniorx2 still been in the Drawing Office, I think he'd be weeping buckets into his porridge at that sight or thought of that thing......

That brake van is really top class!

That's by far the best way to approach the planning stage! If your terminus eventually resembles something like, say, Docklands, you'll have an island platform with two faces. You'd expect trains to leave on one line and arrive on the other, with access to both platforms fropm either.... often, in cases like this, there's an "arrivals" and "departures" side. the arrivals side would need a loop unless there's a shunting loco to release stock on incoming trains.

Evidently Mr Bullied was not a man who took criticism well, and was not at all happy with the less positive comments following trial runs of that thing! And MOST of the comments were less than positive…..!

I think that one’s GSR….

In that pic, I look like I've stuck my finger into a live electrical plug......... Thanks, Leslie, for the (non-live) plug, and many thanks for your usual expert job of organising these events. Unfortunately the book isn't QUITE ready yet, but it's with the publisher as we speak. The delay was due to computer difficulties in getting all the images together to send off. I am hoping it will be published in late spring. It will be called "Farewell to the Dunsandle Express" - a reference to graffiti written on the back of a seat in the carriage when I travelled on the line two weeks before it closed. Publisher will be Colourpoint Creative Blackstaff of Newtownards, Co Down. Despite being virtually ignored by enthusiasts until the mid-1960s (largely due to the late Padraig O'Cuimín's excellent book published in the late 60s by Transport Research Associates (of whom he was one), highlighting its uniqueness due to having G class locos on passenger trains), it had an interesting history, with some little-known facts, such as being the home for some 20 years of two ex-WLWR 2.4.0s..... It saw quite a few unusual types of locos in its time - you'd expect MGWR 0.6.0s and 2.4.0s of G2 and J18 / J19 classes, but apart from the WLWR locos, an "Achill Bogie" worked there for a time in the very early 50s. It saw a trial run by the Sligo railcar, but since this was unsuitable for mixed trains, that was the solitary visit of anything not steam until the G's took over in spring 1963.... It had cattle traffic until its last summer, though had the line remained, the cattle was gone anyway - but it also had mixed trains to the end, even though by then they rarely had more than the one coach. The train I travelled on, behind a C class, to my disgust (I wanted a G!), was technically mixed, but on its way both in and out, no goods wagons that day at all. Sure ye can get an oul C class out to Howth or Bray any oul day.............. Fun fact: during the troubles in the 1920s, Loughrea station was raided and an incoming consignment of timber was torched by members of the Irish Volunteers. They handed the stationmaster a receipt for the consignment!!! We'll probably have a book launch for it which I will mention here nearer the time. Probably in the Spa Hotel in Loughrea, but we'll see. IRM readers will be offered a pass out of our self-imposed asylum for the day!!