jhb171achill

Yes, airfixfan, I would say so. I do have an exact date somewhere, but I’m just posting these pics as I find them! He took a few CDR shots about 1937/9 when he went to Burtonport on the Lough Swilly but I haven’t come across them yet.

Yes, I’m aware of that, Airfixfan - I was particularly referring to operational preserved railways. You are absolutely right, however, in terms of railway (and other) museums as well. It is going to be an exceptionally, indeed uniquely challenging time for these bodies too. Whitehead Railway Museum, the largest, will be very seriously financially compromised - and that at a time when it’s deeply “in hock” to the rest of the society anyway. For smaller bodies, or operational lines forced to operate only as museums, they deserve and need all the help and support we can give them.

WHERE am I?

Another of the move of the Fintona Tram. Here, it has reached Omagh. The loco left it there and another one hitched up and took it onwards. Albert Quay terminus in Cork too. Perfect modelling subject for a small city-type terminus.

He carted this thing about everywhere - inside, a flask of tea, an apple, and his paperwork! Once a month, the “Railway Magazine” came home in it. Several times a year, the IRRS “Journal” would be seen in it - he had been a founding member in 1947, written to, along with various other CIE, GNR, BCDR, SLNCR, CDRJC and NCC staff, by Kevin Murray......

Nothing among these, unfortunately.

Again, 100% on the money, if you pardon the pun. It's the way it is. As said by many elsewhere, we are lucky to have the few narrow gauge organisations- Dromod, Stradbally, Moyasta, Finntown.... and the sole 5'3 one at Downpatrick plus of course the RPSI.

Yes, and it looks as if he got up onto the roof of the coach to take the picture! Goods traffic was very heavy in those days into Letterkenny, and that's only the stuff for the town. Any laden wagons and vans to go further on, up the Lough Swilly, will have been siphoned off and shunted way out to the far left of this picture, into the Lough Swilly yard.

Absolutely correct, Minister. It is interesting to note the political affiliations of a local representative who despite professing an interest in the Tralee scheme, seems to have deliberately hi-jacked it to prevent a voluntary group getting near it, then ensuring that its accelerated rot continues, and that of the single most vociferously anti-railway councillor in Downpatrick when I was trying to get money out of the local authority. These two gentlemen would share a party leader, let us say. But they are a product of the low interest in such things, not the cause of it. I have been involved in three different feasibility studies over the years, which despite much in their favour, never stood a snowball's chance in hell, due to 100% total, TOTAL disinterest locally. And that's even before money was mentioned. It's a pity, but it is exactly as you say, and "it is what it is".

Time we went back to the narra gauge. This shows just how busy the County Donegal could be. Had the border never appeared, it’s likely we might still have Derry - Strabane at least, maybe Donegal..... First, an absolutely chaotic Letterkenny in the early 1940s. Secondly, a not-quite-so-busy Victoria Road (Derry). Shunting is in progress, and I understand that it was a hot sunny day (whaaat?). I think the date is either 1944 or 1947.

You mean a "where is this"? I have nothing which isn't glaringly obvious, to be fair!

I suspect that a CRAFT shop might find a market, but model railways would end up being a very peripheral aspect of it.

In the 1960s when he did various work at No. 148, the desk could also look busy....today we all have it in screens and computer files..... My understanding was that the pic was taken earlier in the year when things were in full swing and the closure announcement had not been made. He had an extensive weedspray programme planned and costed, and a loco and crew organised, as well as a schedule for ballast trains out or Goraghwood, with loco crews, guards' vans and guards, PW gangers and foremen allocated by Newry or Portadown. He had had these duplicated, and piles of them were used by myself and the rest of us to draw and doodle on as children. You'll recognise that battered old brown leather case on the table.... that had followed him from Westland Row to York Road to the LMS in England, to the NCC, Amiens St., Enniskillen, Amiens St again, York Road again....then the civil service.....

Yes, the house on the hill is where he lived! Prospect House, Chanterhill Road, overlooking the station. It's gone now, after the bridge over the Pound Brae over the railway was demolished. That's the bridge from which the pic I posted the other day of the goods yard was taken from. Today, there is a different house along that road which has been named "Prospect House", but that's not it......

Yes! This is the office of the (Western) District Engineer, GNR, Enniskillen. It's not often that we see the inside of where office-based staff worked in railway companies, nor indeed offices at all - not a computer in sight. Not even a typewriter. the small pad in front of where you'd sit, on the desk, is a little pad for writing telegraph messages on in pencil. For many years, the chair just visible on the right was in our house, until it became home to a thriving community of woodworm, and had to be destroyed. The upholstery was worn out anyway and it had become very uncomfortable to sit on. When he wanted to dictate a letter to the typist, she would be summoned to sit beside him taking shorthand notes, and then she would go off to type it up, carbon copy included. The wicker basket on the left was the "in-tray", and there's plenty in it. A leaking gutter here, a broken rail there, plus a list of bridge repairs to be investigated or costed.....

Next quiz question; where is this?

This is EXACTLY the issue. The reality now is that there's a building, up and paid for, which as Eoin says, isn't big enough to take any sort of decent 0 gauge set-up, let along anything remotely like what was in the castle. The Fry models were always going to go back in glass cases - but many, many people THINK that what they saw running in the castle WERE the Fry models - they were not, as Fry decreed in his will that his own were never to run again. What ran in the castle were models made by seven (identified so at) or possibly more, model-makers. So, building-wise, it is what it is, and we just need to make the best of it and enhance the entire experience as best we can. In the castle, SOME of Fry's models were in glass cases. In the new place, at least ALL of his Irish stuff is, and once more display cabinets arrive, it will be possible to display his British, American and Mainland European stuff too, either in rotation or with representative samples being exhibited. All there was ever going to room for is the 00 gauge layout, made by one of our colleagues here. Over the next while, once Internment is over. the whole display of the non-model artefacts will be re-done, as stuff was just stuck on walls to get the place open. The whole issue of Fry's actual photo collection will be another matter, along with correct display, labelling and so on, of railway crests, signs, nameplates and so on. There is a lot of work yet to be done - a huge lot. A selection of the 0 gauge models which ran in the castle will eventually operate on the raised track.

At the DNGR station at either Dundalk or Greenore, late ‘30s.

Welcome to Dundalk (or possibly Greenore), late 1930s....

That certainly sounds right, Irishrail201. Even one 400 class 4.6.0 changed identities mid-term, as it was scheduled for scrapping, but the men on the ground knew that it was in better order than another one. details in McMahon & Clements' "Bible" - the "Big Green Book". Yes, indeed - yet no mention of this brake van! The very latest photographic evidence of it (still in tattered CVR livery) appears to be in 1947. It may be reasonable too assume it wasn't in use much longer. I feel that we would all know well about it after photographers started visiting in the early 1950s......

That is a seriously excellent layout. What's that Hunslet - MIR? The cements look amazing - well done. And is that "The Wanderer" or "ttc" down on the track taking pics with that tripod?

Sadly, that's all the space there is! More exhibits will be displayed in the place by degrees. There's an attic full of non-model exhibits still....

Disgraceful, yet sadly I could believe it. That was always a mess, and they vandalised coach 14 inside it, to try to turn it into some sort of 1st class open saloon - when I had a run in it in the early 1990s (late 80s, even), it was in pristine ex-Donegal condition. The best that could happen that lot would be if the Donegal station people took it over and ran the two with "proper volunteers"!

EXCELLENT little article.

That’s 100% true, Minister. I am aware of Irishrail201’s efforts, plus those of the erstwhile GSRPS. It simply amplified the point I have made elsewhere that in Ireland as a whole, there simply is little or no interest among the public in “old trains”, and ZERO interest, but some hostility, at the idea of putting local authority money into such a scheme. When I was involved with Downpatrick, and the restructuring of it in the early 2000s, I had to attend meetings of Down Co. Council to try to get money and funding. I needed £50k badly, and I told them that the railway would go bankrupt otherwise, which was true. I got the money - a lump sum plus the annual subsidy which keeps it going - but quite a few councillors were vehemently opposed, taking the view that the money would be better spent on other things.