jhb171achill

Is that particular one recommended as a good general-purpose primer for 00 gauge stuff?

I'm afraid not. Senior watched one of those railcars labour past him near a rural little country village called Templeogue (!!) and I think he saw one sitting in Blessington, but he never took a pic of it or travelled in it.

Flat sides on both of them. Both only ran a short time, and were quite unsuitable for the line. One got so rough and mechanically wrecked that after a very short time it was only used to carry mailbags.

Looks very nice indeed for "N", Tony! Big advantage for fitting more into less space.....

My first sight of one, as far as I recall, was in a loose-coupled goods train and it was loaded with new-looking wooden beams of some sort, sticking up slightly over one end...... easy to model with those longer matchsticks (the thicker ones) cut to suitable lengths....

I've nothing in the GSWR station as it had been closed for a very long time when I was travelling about! Indeed, so long, that Senior has nothing of the place either!

Drumm trains

The coach is at Claremorris and I think the loco was Athlone.

It’s 1976, and the summer is hot and long....

Yes, I couldn't agree more, minister. NIR have had variations of the exact same logo from 1968 to 1996 when they became Translink in image terms - now, here's a weird one logo-wise: how can it be that twenty-four years after Translink decided to put their own oval-shaped logo across buses and trains, the three 111 class, alone, still - even after modern repaints - sport the old NIR logo! I would have thought that the marketing geniuses would have started painting them the darker blue used on railcars, with a huge "translink" on the sides.... I'm not saying that i would LIKE it - I just would have expected it. When IE (thanks to some persuasion from at least one member here) decided to do two 071s in heritage livery, it was a good move. Maybe NIR missed a trick in 2018 for their 50th in painting the three locos one in GNR blue, one in dark BCD green, and one in NCC maroon! Even a CAF in maroon and light grey might be nice - but those yellow ends would have to go.

Both. It was painted green almost immediately. It does not seem to have even entered CIE traffic in SLNCR livery. It had a black roof. Despite having been painted thus, one must assume, in 1959, it seems to have been an early conversion to black'n'tan, and obviously it retained that until withdrawal. Indeed, what's left of it still does. In my DCDR days I put in a grant app for that thing, and got a tender from Rail Restorations North East in England to fully restore it to full running order. Technologically it's a dead simple one. The cost was £170k, later reduced after bargaining to £160k. However, the funding didn't appear as there were too many projects in for the same funding round. Otherwise, it would have been off on a low loader. It's just as well that it didn't. RRNE would receive the RPSI's 171 a few years later, and they started work on it - but then went bust! Luckily the RPSI got 171 back just in time. Had the railcar been also there at the time, it would very likely have been seized and scrapped to pay off the bankrupt firm's debts...certainly, the DCDR would have ended up with a very nasty bill indeed to try to get it back.....

Shows how different shades can indeed show up quite differently in different lights! Which also explains the oft-repeated myths that there WERE in reality a million different colours. In later years, any livery will fade too, and depending on the pigments in paints used can look quite different.... But for this model, it certainly looks the part, especially in that second photograph. Excellent - absolutely excellent - work, as always!

And quite rightly so! Until at least 1976, Lisburn station was issuing UTA Edmondson return tickets to Dublin.......

No, not at all - this is the T & D's inspection car, which later went to the West Clare. It is pictured at Ennis after the line closed during demolition. Regrettably it was scrapped.

Outside framed, MM - there were a few designs like that.

Yes, nowadays the new “corporate image” / marketing people would throw every single thing with an old company name out when a name or even logo changed. Today’s pics show commuting forty years apart. A nice Harcourt St Line scene and Hilden NIR in May 1989. Two NIR liveries add interest, but nowhere near as much as a ten year old “Bredin” suburban and two (then) 60 to 70 year old Midland six-wheelers behind it! All three are recently repainted from GSR maroon to CIE green. Since this is in the late 1940s, there will still be a goii oh d few maroon coaches about - possibly further down this train.

Janey Mac - a white one would look strange! But as you say, just for the craic.....

AAARRRRRGGGGHHHH! Found these. WHY was I born too late!!! And why didn’t yer man take ANY pictures of these particular jaunts!!!!

Sorry, MM, that’s actually silver - they were never white at all. The colour rendition in that photo is inaccurate - the “A16” on it looks grey or even black, but was light green..... and you can see that the green on the hill behind (and the carriages) isn’t right either. Many old colour slides deteriorate. One of Cyril Fry’s slides shows what looks like a bluish-purple B101, with an embankment behind it - grass covered - in some weird pink / purplish colour! First thing in examining old photos is to look at the background. Vegetation, sky, peoples faces (ideal) or the like. If they’re not right, the railway vehicle isn’t either.

He didn't make any of the type of wagon shown, but he DID make models of some DBST wagons. You'll see them in Malahide when it reopens!

Here’s another of that loco at Templeogue - date unknown. Side buffers are interesting....

Ah, yes, I know the one. I've one of his 800s. Cabin fever being what it is, I'm off to revisit his site.

Well, the one colour photo shows it as per the list above, however even within the final year between May and August Sir Henry had both styles. I can't help feeling that many or most of them started out as your model (very nice one!), but later got black paint just slapped over them. I can't see any great economy in it, either, if that was any sort of reason. So, Sir H had a shiny polished one in May, but painted over by August. Thus, it is at least possible, but probably likely, that "Hazelwood" was as per your model for much of its life. We could trawl older B&W photos, but they're not ideal. As I said above, while it cannot be categorically denied, there is certainly no evidence of red connecting rods. Thus, in terms of strict accuracy, I'd yours passes the test. Even if it didn't, it wouldn't matter as it is a very fine model. Scratchbuilt?

You mentioned Egan's comments about paint styles - he was always mortally embarrassed by the state of the SLNCR carriages, with rich maroon paint faded to a dirty brownish pink, and peeling to show bare wood. Maybe he wished all the con-rods to be a nice red!

I'm not entirely certain that all SLNCR locos had a red connecting rod either. Dirt, of course, and lack of many photos, will "colour" this one forever at this stage! One thing is evident - EVERY colour photo I have seen of ALL Sligo Leitrim engines appear to show a black connecting rod - even on withdrawn ones, where workaday grime could be expected to have worn off and revealed some sort of salmony-pink faded red. there is no sign of red at all.