jhb171achill

Those are CARD? Wow - they look very good indeed!

Very true - and of course no Cravens - either singly or in a train of ten of them - could EVER run WITHOUT a van..... nor could anything else going back to steam days!

I was on an 071 once which was doing about 85 mph on the down line between Templemore & Thurles......

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!! These fellas are buying up the whole country for overpriced apartments............!

Terrible shame the company couldn’t have survived at least in part, maybe just the busier routes from Derry to Buncrana and Letterkenny.....

Indeed - too true!

Yes - and there were several variations of these, but all BR Mk 1 outline, hence narrower and noticeably lower than Irish-built stock attached to them!

Yes, indeed - SO many rural trains in the 60s were 2 or 3 coaches and a van - sometimes just one. Trawling two photo collections last week (for a reason!), I found a Limerick - Ballina train with a 121 hauling nothing more than a single laminate and a tin van! Usually, though, that service was 2 or 3 + van. I was on that service with 2 + van, Loughrea with a solitary coach - the unique one on that line which had no need for a van as they plugged it into the mains at night in Loughrea, having fitted it with storage heaters, and 3 laminates with tin van Rosslare - Limerick. Just before the railcars arrived in Limerick, I went down to poke about in Ireland’s last city terminus with proper trains. I watched as the Nenagh train was backed into the platform, then the Rosslare one, awaiting their couple of passengers each....both sets were a BR van and just one Craven.

Recent discussions have focussed on what new (grey) 121s would have hauled. Above, from loco working backwards: - 4-wheeled luggage / guards “tin” van (silver) - Park Royal (green) - Four wooden bogies of at least two, possibly three types, all GSWR-origin, dating from 1902-15 builds (green) - Park Royal (green) - Another two wooden coaches, probably GSWR, inevitably green - Tin van, probably a GSV (heating van). Could be green or silver.

Baltimore, Co. Cork, Valentia Harbour, Co. Kerry and Westport Quay, Co Mayo are all perfect for a small terminus. There's even scope for a passenger train in all three - albeit a prototypically small one. And if the line leaves the station and disappears into an Albert Quay-like cutting........perfect. Two engines, half a dozen goods vans, an open wagon or two, a bogie coach and a tin van, and you're good to go!

Wow! Is it still in existence?

1361 and 1367 - Bredins? So, no catering on that Westport section? 2422 - one of the RPSI preserved ones!

There was always this dilemma with working steam: do you stay at the back to get decent photos on curves, or up front to hear the music!

I recall a story told to me by the late, great, road steam man Rory Wolff from north Antrim. Rory was coming back home from a steam rally at Shane's Castle one time in the mid or late '70s. He was driving his famous preserved steam lorry (I think Lord O'Neill might have it now?). It was the height of the troubles and in those times the police (then the RUC) often had more important things to do than worry about people speeding or driving with drink taken. Now Rory was stone cold sober, but in his steam lorry he was exceeding the speed limit - on a MOTORWAY! (The M2). There had been 12th July related trouble in the area, so one might expect the RUC to be even LESS interested in road traffic offences. Yet one of those armoured landrovers they had then pulled him over. Here we go, he thought, I'll get a ticket. Policeman, on getting out of landrover and approaching Rory: "What sort of thing is this?" Rory" "It's a steam lorry" - "A what?" "A steam lorry". - (Policeman summons colleague from van) "I never knew there was things like that. How old is it?" (Rory gives date). - "Where'd ye get it?" "I bought it from XCVCCFFG" - "Oh - and it's steam powered?" "Yep." - "Like an old train?" "Yep." - "Ye were doing a right speed in it. We clocked you at over 70!" Rory is thinking, OK, gimme the ticket, I need to to tend the fire...... - "Never seen a thing like that. I just pulled you over 'cause I saw the smoke. I thought yer truck was on fire!" "Ah, emm, no. It's just the coal smoke." - "Ah, OK, give'us a minute, I'd love a photograph of it, is that OK?" "Sure!" Policemen get Rory to take their picture beside it, on the hard shoulder. - "OK, thanks! Away ye go, then!" No ticket.

Yes, looks like it to me!

The second van is a standard CIE one - so Leslie does the exact one there!

The GNR wagon behind it is a long way from home!

First time I ever went to the Adjacent Island of Narra-gauge things, there were still quite a few green diesels and maroon coaches to be seen among the sea of "Rail Blue" - interesting times. Where I was, long trains all of Mk 1 coaches, and even longer loose-coupled goods trains.... very interesting times. And now they have gaudily-coloured plastic tubes, in which you pay the price of a detached house in Ballsbridge to travel in a seat designed for a nine-year-old of unusually small build, with no window to look through at overgrown bushes, graffiti, security fencing, concrete walls, crumpled supermarket trollies and burst black bin-liners and old mattresses. Just like the approach to Islandbridge Junction, in fact, or bits of the Belfast Central line.... Gimme the Ffestiniog, North York Moors, Swanage or Worth Valley lines any day!

Perfect, then - colour light shniggles!

The "Woolwich" 2.6.0 in the set you mentioned is a nice little thing, and there were a small few of them which managed to make it just into the '60s. To run behind it, the only thing ready to run right now is the silverfox coaches in green. Cravens didn't appear in traffic until literally about a month or two after the last steam engine pulled its last passenger train. There are some nice steam-era kits for carriages from Studio Scale Models, and if you've the time to put in, Worsley Works. For the late steam era, as well as laminates and Park Royals, the "tin vans" are again necessary. But also six-wheelers. To complete the scene, the BIG "missing thing" is AEC railcars, which monopolised many longer distance passenger trains from the early 50s to the mid 60s. In the long term, if we get a tin van, 6-wheeler, and AEC cars, we've got the "grey'n'green" era as well wrapped up as the "black'n'tan" and "Supertrain" and later eras are now.

If it is intended to be in works grey, it's spot on - I had forgotten, but I did read that somewhere too.

I had thought..... some sort of shunting model of either Penrose Quay or Victoria Quay sidings in Cork - where it DID work - would be an amazing model!

Not really! You've GNR designs, which are - GNR.... and the NCC's "somersaults". Neither are like the standard British upper quads at all.... Remember, the railways here were all built before the border was, so there's no "British / Irish" divide. Having said that, the whole Ballyercall looks mighty with either set of rolling stock.........

I absolutely second, third and fourth that. Paddy, you've been an inspiration to a whole new generation of Irish modellers. You've enabled exhibition-standard modelling of the period from 1961 to the present with consistent high quality. Very many thanks from an owner of a 121, soon to be two, a good few black'n'tan 141s, and several "Craven" coaches!

I think the last was about 1943.... They never left Wesht Caaark, of course, but would possibly be a very good thing for a shunting layout; in theory, one outlier might have ended up pushing things about Cork yards, or North Wall to Inchicore, until 1960! Maybe a model of the "Young Offenders" driving and firing it? I'm tempted myself.