jhb171achill

Thanks, Edo, I'll pass that on! Enjoy! Follow-up now with publisher.....

If ONLY!! It’s a thing of great beauty from Brazil; a number of these were built in 1936/7 for the Paulista Railway in São Paula State for heavy goods trains up-country. (Actually, the Lough Swilly built 25 of them for their proposed extension to Youghal and Armagh. They were carefully hidden in a tunnel near Portadown where they remain to this day......)

A very Happy Christmas and new year to all here.

I saw a “pair” heading the up midday Westport at Claremorris one day, mid-70s. Both were still black’n’tan. At first glance I thought I had spotted a previously unseen variation of 141 livery. The “tan” was only on the front! Sides plain black. However, as it slowed to enter the station I realised it was normal black’n’tan - plus filth! The other loco in the pair was spotless, though by the mid 70s the paint was fading and long overdue a repaint.....

Good pics..... My recollections suggest that MOSTLY, things were kept very clean - certainly cleaner than on British Rail, as many cross-channel visitors often remarked - in the 1960s to 1970s, and passenger-carrying stock to this day. Wagons seems to have started going downhill badly, almost to 1950s level of dishevelment, in the 1990s. But locos, and - peculiarly, perhaps - NON passenger-carrying stock (mail vans, full brakes, tin vans, genny vans - were often in a MUCH more filthy state at any stage, comparted with their companion vehicle containing seats....... A rake of spotless carriages could often be topped and tailed by a couple of FILTHY gennies, tin vans or Dutch vans.........

..........added note - was looking last night at a pic of the set made up for the North Wexford service in Waterford station about 1963 - a dirty silver tin van, a green ex-GSWR wooden-bodied bogie coach, and a black'n'tan tin van.........

His new wife can hardly complain if he gets a huge layout based on Pearse Station...... and Eoin Murray might expect an order for an 8-coach DART!

Superb work - the result, as always, will be amazing! Happy Christmas to all here!

Indeed - "tin vans" in all of their variations are as essential to any 1960s passenger train as the actual locomotive is. Small point, though - the six-wheelers were delivered 1964/5, so were black'n'tan from new. The very first PO vans, heating vans and luggage vans (all being 4-wheeled) were initially silver, but later ones were green from new, and many of the tatty old "silver" ones were also repainted green, but obviously repainted black'n'tan from late 1962 onwards. Thus - and this is of interest to owners of either grey or black'n'tan 121s, it was commonplace to see a mail train in the 1962-6 period with maybe three "tin vans", one in each livery, albeit in the case of the silver, really just a coat of 100% weathering.

Ah! THAT thing. I cannot be certain on this, but i believe that at one stage anyway it was used for providing power to PW and maintenance gangs who were out'n'about.

Clements loved the Midland! I had several long conversations with him about it right up until a few months before he died. He was, as one would expect, probably the greatest authority on this system ever to have lived. His encyclopaedic knowledge of Midland (and other) engines lives on, through the work of Michael McMahon and Jeremy (unrelated) Clements in their GSR "bible". I cannot open this link above - mentioned in first few posts. Can anyone copy the pic here? "Anyone know what this is at York Road, NCC 3099? https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/50736845218/in/photostream/"

If I ever find it, Ken, you'll be the first to get it! For the livery freaks like me, it was also to be the same lined blue/green that the trio of 800s were. Senior believed that five were planned, and they would have been used at least on the DSER section. But we will never know.

I must try to find an outline I had for the proposed 820 class 4.6.2T proposed but never built by the GSR. I don't know what I've done with it. My grandfather did an outline diagram of it - it was basically a tank engine version of the 800 class with a huge coal bunker at the back.

I wish Senior could have seen this develop.........! There would have been compliments about, and reminiscences about the horrors to be found when inspecting the SLNCR's track, culverts and bridges!

Which ones........where......

I must have got it just before demolition, then - it would have been 1969 or 70 when I was in it.

A thing of beauty! Was nice to see it just now - as said above, even better “in the flesh”!

So is Mr Riley in that group photo? Correct. "The King" was used so little she never lost her livery of brand-new delivery! In general, yes, the GSR did melt down nameplates - one must assume that the "King's" were thus disposed of when she was eventually scrapped.

Absolutely superb stuff - cannot wait to see the results! I'll need a few..........

I will advise my niece accordingly.......

Well, "Isabel" appears to have been prematurely named after my niece in England.........

Nobody seemed to have a clear answer to that, back in the day....I don't think they have one now? The Mullingar museum thing was, as far as I remember though, before his time. They didn't have one then.

Sadly, there's been talk about a Republic-based museum for almost fifty years, with successive governments having had zero interest in same. On two separate occasions - the first in the 1980s - when i was involved with the RPSI there were moves made to try to bring this into being. Sadly, neither local or central authorities wanted to know. The harsh reality is, as many of us will be aware, interest in railway history throughout Ireland is very much a niche interest; thus the potential popularity of local authorities coughing up loot to fund same is "nich-er" still. Mullingar would have been the target for both the studies I was involved with, using the loco shed and surrounds as the central part of it, and with the RPSI maintaining a working base there as well as a transport museum. Had such a scheme ever materialised, I'm quite sure that one of these historic diesels would be there as an exhibit, along with the sadly defunct W & L Director's Saloon (934) which fell to pieces on site, thanks to weather, passage of time, and unwelcome attention from some fine vandalistic folks who partly set fire to one side.... But, sure, that's another story!

The The coach is freelance, but the END profile is very unmistakeably DSER design; the side could be anything - though as Galteemore suggests, bears a resemblance to one of a set of old GSWR types which ended up in West Cork. The bogies are freelance too.

Only one?