jhb171achill

Very much so. I my Achill book, there's a picture of a DSER wagon at Achill, and I saw some pics in West Cork recently showing two GNR vans in an up goods train from Bantry or Skibbereen heading towards Cork. You don't get any further away from the GNR than that!

Midland Great Western Van No. 19, photographed by Senior in 1939. Location unknown. I am puzzled a bit - presumably there’s an “M” after the number by this stage? It can’t be seen, though, and the thing carries neither “G S” nor “M G W R”. I am assuming it’s in Midland markings, as there was no “No.” in front of a number on a GSR-marked vehicle. Then again, the MGWR didn’t either! At first I thought it was an SLNCR vehicle, but for that line one would expect the number on the end too, and “SLNC” on the side. And you can see the cast-iron MGWR number plate, though even THAT is not typical!

Looks interesting indeed, Edo!

A veritable treasure chest indeed!

The Alphagraphix stuff does make a nice low-cost option, and contains many unusual prototypes, as well as things that aren't otherwise available much. However, beware of liveries - many are inaccurate, some considerably so! Not knocking it though, as I say some nice stuff. Probably the solitary company left on the entire planet that does EVERYTHING by "snail mail" and has no website or email address!

Yes, very much so. In terms of fonts, the lettering "M G W R" tended to be one plank high - a good bit smaller than railway company's initials on many British lines, or one the GNR or GSR here. Sometimes it was "M G W", which on a van or wagon with an opening middle door or gate involved " G" on the left, and "W" and the wagon number on the right, e.g. "M G W 3451". Other times, "M G W R" was all on the left, with the wagon number on the right. Some goods brake vans seem, at some stage anyway, and probably in your era, to have been a mid green of some sort, but I have yet to establish details. Lettering on one photo at least that I've seen appears to be in black, implying a light shade. Mind you, other vans were clearly grey, so I would tend to stick with that. The font was plain - pics in books will show this.

Hello Victor, and welcome to here - you will find much help with every aspect of Irish railway matters here. Regarding the above, for the period you have chosen, yes, station colour scheme was as you say. Goods stock lettering was a pale cream colour too. In the period you have chosen, goods stock was a very dark grey, bordering on "weathered-black" looking when old and tatty, but cleaner when newer. After probably about 1910-1915 it was a more "wagon grey" colour; LMS wagon grey is a good standard for this, and indeed for most Irish railway companies prior to 1960, when a somewhat lighter shade appeared. Locomotives will be a green colour, perhaps marginally darker than Isle of Man loco green, with carriages painted a mid-to-dark brown, perhaps a slight shade darker than 1950s British fitted wagons. Lining was gold on carriages, black and white on locomotives.

WOW!!! Words fail me! Absolute (and typical) EXCELLENCE personified! Spare J26, MM - you'd need to buy a kit, I would think....

I think the Sligo Leitrim had at least one "road van" type also. Must investigate - I have a pic somewhere. The NCC narrow gauge used them, especially on the erstwhile Ballymena and Larne.

Thank you - if your photos of your layout are anything to go by, I think I will get this stuff - it looks very natural and realistic. That transformer thing - do you attach a plug to it and just plug it in? Is that the way it works?

An absolute beauty, Galteemore!

Oh, that is truly ghastly - a very tragic loss indeed to us, to the IRRS and to his family. Anthony, you were an absolute gentleman, and always super-helpful with any IRRS queries I had. Rest in Peace.

That one's a standard CIE 20T guard's van, as used everywhere. No doubt the locals will tell us that "it was built specially for Kinsale" or something! There used to also be a heavily-altered old six-wheel coach there too, and a corrugated open wagon - are they still there too? Exactly! Boxing in one end almost seems more bizarre than boxing in both! Mind you, it brings one issue into focus: even as Inchicore was churning out standard 20T and 30T vans in abundance, the occasional oddball or one-off was still kicking about, like the sole-remaining Timoleague & Courtmacsherry item of rolling stock, guard's van 5J, which wasn't withdrawn, I believe, until 1960. At first, I thought the above beast might be something similar, but as other say, it's probably an ex-GSWR one.

This strip lighting - excuse my ignorance, how does it work? Is it some sort of plug-in thing? Is it good for lighting up a layout where the natural light isn’t great?

No, unfortunately not! Though he will certainly have been familiar with it, as it was sitting about within Inchicore when he worked there.

There were a number of these, several adapted for 3ft gauge. The Achill one was a different design and a “unique”-looking one-off! It survived out of use well into the 1930s, gradually falling to bits....

Yes, there's a chimney, thus a stove. I'd say it must be in use as a brake van still, otherwise I would have thought they block both ends and out double doors in the middle - or use the chassis for a rebuild maybe.

GSR Inspection Car No. 4, c.1940. And a free pass, “access all areas”!

Yes, indeed - I always thought that at the very least, Cork - Bandon should have been retained as a commuter line....or Cork - Clonakilty.... And then there's the light grey roofs......

Folks, I was perusing two photos of the fascinating but little-known Polloxfens Mill siding at Ballysodare. The track layout there was extremely compact, and as can be seen from the attached rough doodle, achieved but means of one of Ireland’s few three-way sets of points. With seven adjacent, but short tracks, as a shunting layout exercise you could play about with about a dozen “H” vans at a time, with an oul J18, a “C” class or a 141, depending on what era you were interested in. This sort of thing would fit nicely into any tight layout corner.

Main line services, West Cork, summer 1935.

This is the timetable mentioned above Regarding West Cork. This is September 1960 onwards, the last timetable issued for the section before closure six months later. It was much the same as for many previous years. The two return passenger trains to Bantry were AEC sets, normally three-car. By this stage, the branches and goods trains were all “C” class diesels.

Hopefully there will be some day a model of one.... they are a completely essential item on any GNR, GN-area of UTA / NIR or CIE layout of the 1950-70 period.

I like the cloud of coal smoke hanging over the loco shed area in the distance! There could have been a dozen locos in steam in there at any time.....

The AEC 2600 cars were very comfortable seating wise and very solid and steady. Like all older railcars they were noisier, though, especially in later years. They did all the routes you mentioned above, plus others. The GNR used them in Belfast - Clones and Belfast - Portadown - Derry as well as Dublin - Belfast. CIE used them to Kerry, both the Mallow route and the North Kerry Line, also Waterford - Limerick and Limerick - Sligo. They appeared on Dublin - Wexford too and, of course, Cork to Bantry. (They only did that one route in West Cork). Indeed, immediately before the “A” and “B101” classes were introduced in 1955/6, they were the principal main-line power.