jhb171achill

Indeed. Like railway preservation, many recognise the historical or cultural value, but ask them to give up their time to make it happen, or worse, get out their wallet, and it's someone else's job to do that..........

It wasn't too bad until the roof started deteriorating, which from my own observations was about 6-7 years ago. It's beyond hope now, unbfortunately.

I would guess this would be when CIE closed it, so probably 1963/4-ish?

I love this layout - an absolute stunner, as noted by many others! The strong corporate image of BR in the "blue" days - one of the best such i've ever seen - was of great interest - a but like CIE in the late 50s / early 60s with the tail end of steam intermingled not just with new diesels, but newer rolling stock too, and a new livery dosplacing an old one by degrees. My first exposure to it was on a family holiday in North Wales in about 1969, when the local trains were railcar sets, and a number of classic diesel types were on main line stuff - I remember 47s and either 24s or 25s, and (I think) 37s. The railcars I saw were all plain blue - none blue and grey - with the odd one still green. Similarly, most carriages were blue and grey but maybe 20% of them were still maroon. Blue diesel locos and green ones intermingled too - much for me to see. We went to Crewe one day - Senior doubtless wanting to do a bit of train spotting - and I got several of those old ABC "spotters" books. One on locos, a couple on railcars. Had 'em for years. (Sorry; being Brexitstan, I probably should have been referring to railcars "DMU"s.....)

Let’s hope so!

Indeed - almost certainly so. Much as it would be welcomed by many, and doubtless used, the reality is that railways cost money to run, and the government will know this.

The issue seems to be the NTA, who in conjunction with the government hold all the cards. If and when there is enthusiasm within that body (e.g. re a new proposed cycle lane) it tends to get done, with or without local council funding. As far as rail is concerned, local authorities will doubtlessly be deterred by the colossal bill that the NTA would wave at them if they offered to fund something like this. This should not be, but it certainly would appear to be the case. Yes, Brexitstan and other countries are ahead of us on that point in some cases, but the NTA is often referred to as the "No Trains Authority"; their fascination with roads and motorways and buses is reminiscent of the UTA in the 1950s.

One argument against reopening Navan - and, in truth, it is the only argument aganist, albeit a fairly powerful one; is that from M3 Parkway to Navan via the D & M route, or from Drogheda via the GNR route, neither of them pass through any other significant population centre en route, therefore the reopening would be just to serve on single significant terminus. Much as Navan COULD do with it, the NTA are unlikely to consider it as a priority for a very long time to come. More urgently, something simply MUST be done about proper long-term planning and significant infrastructural modifications along the Drogheda - Bray (and Howth) corridor.

As a "Deviationist" (before imaginations go wild, that's a "navvy" who worked on the Dduallt deviation round the lake in the 1970s!) I remember our foreman, a (then) serving British soldier whose interests were (a) the FR, and (b) eh, explosives..., inevitably referring to DDuallt as "DDT" as he couldn't pronounce the Welsh version which sounds something like "Thee-acht".... Despite his dismissive attitude to the Welsh, which was richly reciprocated, as a FR volunter his extensive knowledge of explosives was put to very good use when the new tunnel was being built.

Looking at them a bit closer, they are not really all that "Irish" looking at all. They are too short - while we did have 48-footers, they were few and far between and not similar. The Genesis Hattons six-wheelers at least bore (by sheer conicidence, obviously) a more than passing resemblance to several GSWR designs, which is why they appeared in Irish liveries in the first place. Looking at the diagram above, the middle left one, a composite clerestorey, probably looks best, and it would also be a GSWR type. We have yet to see anything on the model market that approximates to the GNR(I). Naturally, if one were to take one of each, paint green, and place in an assorted rake of GSR / CIE stock of all types, the overall impression of the whole lot would look very convincing.

Available in DCC, flying snail or Kadee flavours. The snail-flavoured ones are, I am told, quite disgusting....

The whole range, yes.

Nineteen RTR steam engines, twenty new diesels and 58 new carriages due this afternoon............... I'm off to put my house on the market!

The fictitious Castletown West and Dugort Harbour line lost its passenger services in 1975 along with Loughrea. From then until closure a few years later it was goods only. In the last few years, re-engined A and C class locomotives were often seen there, though Cravens coaches were rare, as they were almost without exception used on main lines. However our intrepid photographer caught A23R with a Craven on the branch service one day in summer 1975. Here it arrives, and the loco A23R is shown backing onto its train again before departure.

Firstly, the grey. The 121 class arrived stiull in the green era, when almost everything was the later lighter gree, but with some newer stock still very dirty silver, and other very old stock (pretty much confined to a few 6-wheelers) still in the older dark green. The 121s, of course, were never green - they were delivered in grey and yellow, a completely unique example on the railway (later repainted black'n'tan). First repaints of 121s into BnT were not all that long after they were new, but there were quite a few in grey and yellow around 1965. As far as I am aware, the last in greay and yellow was about 1967 or so. By 1968/9 they were definitely all BnT, but since Cravens were introduced first in 1963, a grey one could have hauled Cravens for a short time. A 121 on a branch would have been a rarity, but they certainly were seen on the North Wexford line in its last full year (when they were new). It is perfectly plausibe, though, for a 121 to appear on a branch (one did once in the final days of the Ballaghaderreen branch, albeit on an enthusiast special) in 1962. In such a scenario, since diesels weren't allocated to particular lines like in steam days, it wouldn't be that single one which would stay there until 1965, but various members of the class. In 1962 all were grey; in 1963, 4 & 5, some were, with others in the new BnT livery. So between '62 & '65 it's perfectly realistic. Rolling stock then was a mix, with some stock still in green, a very small number in dirty silver, and even smaller number of ex-GNR coaches still in either their brown or their navy & cream; but most, and increasingly most, in BnT. All wagons, without any exception, were all grey. Of nthese, most still had the old flying snail, but increasingly the new roundel logo was appearing on them. Chassis of wagons were also the same all over grey. Southern Railway green is not the same as either CIE shade, nor the UTA.

I contacted Rails about my missing stuff. Email: no answer. Phone call: we’ll look into this and get back to you (about 10 days ago). Loud silence so far. Yes, I guess they’re overwhelmed, but I will hold me powder for the time being. But I DID order one of everything, and I will expect to get that.

At school I had a teacher for who the word “tremendous” was inevitably “tremen-Jus”! Plus, the endlessly irritating “irregardless” instead of “regardless”, and something “comprising of” whatever it is, instead of “comprising”!

If they were to try to develop any of it as track for trains to run on, to give short journeys to people, the existing track would not be in any way satisfactory. The type of track the C & L have would be what would be required, proper ballasted bed and all. Not sure if anyone is proposing this anyway, but if they were the existing track would have to lifted in its entirety and binned to start with.

Unfortunately, it was exactly the same fifty and sixty years ago. I watched a crowd of village idiots smashing windows in a derelict house nearby. Go back earlier, and it wasn’t quite so bad, and there was zero graffiti either.

Raymurph The BnT 6w brake will be authentic with the following vehicles: in green OR original-version BnT, Bredins, all types of laminates, Park Royals; even the odd ex-GNR K15 still in GNR livery - brown or blue and cream. Or, original BnT version only, Cravens. Locos - A, C, B101 classes in silver, green, black or black'n'tan. B121s in grey or bralck'n'tan. B141s, and at a stretch B181s in BnT. Anything in Supertrain livery or the later IE / IR liveries would not be authentic. Any fitted wagons on the back of a train would only be grey, as the brown wagon livery wasn't introduced until 1970 by which time the last of these vans had been withdrawn. In operational terms, with vacuum braked / fitted rolling stock, it didn't matter where the brake vehicle was situated, but in the case of loose-coupled stock it had to be at the end. So, if your layout has a goods train coming in (pre-1970, loose-coupled grey 4 wheled wagons), you have to shunt the van to the end before departing again. With your passenger set, it does not need to be shunted. If you're operating a mixed train, like Loughrea, Kenmare, Ballinrobe and Foynes had in their final days, the fitted stock, namely the coach / coaches will be behind the locomotive, thus ensuring continuity of vac brake, with loose coupled wagons and a guard's van behid that. Hope that helps!

Correct. Six wheeled coaching stock by 1963 were confined to spare stock in Cork, and one or two branch lines. The very last of the passenger-carrying ones were withdrawn in March 1963 from traffic. While the black'n'tan livery had just been introduced months earlier, only a handful of newer stock, like Park Royals and laminates, were in BnT. Not one single six wheeld passenger vehicle was ever thus painted, which is why only the full van is offered in this livery. Even at that, only three six-wheeled full passenger vans that are known of, received this livery. They were numbers 69, 79 and 10xx (xx = I forget). All three were ex-GSWR. This trio and two or three others survived the extinction of all other six-wheelers in 1963, although the three others, being withdrawn by 1965, may actually no longer have been in use. So CIE knew there would never have been any point in repainting anything at all on six wheels bar the three vans, the last of which was only withdrawn in 1970. The last record I can find of any of these three being actually used is 1968, by which time they appear to have spent their time on the Galway mail trains, alongside a motley collection of tin vans, GSWR full brakes, Bredins and Laminates. All in BnT. The van on the 1964 tour was 10xx. No. 79 was scrapped about 1970. 69 is at Downpatrick being rebuilt as a brake first. When the six-wheel vans received BnT, all other six-wheelers were withdrawn, so no BnT ones ever went with any green six wheelers at all. The solitary instance, lasting only a few months, of a BnT six-wheel van working with steam, was on the Ballinrobe branch in its last months, when one of these three ran with a green BOGIE coach (a 1920s GSWR composite). If we model a Galway line mail train, it is at least hypothetically possible that between 1964 and 1968 a BnT 6W van coukld have ruin with Cravens, only in their original livery; alongside laminates, bredins and Park Royals, and even the occasional old wooden (GSWR) bogie.

The turf wagons, to be fair, were functional and hastily assembled in a time of exceptional austerity. I agree with you about the railbus; odd though it might look to some, there were a sufficient number of them in Ireland to warrant a degree of normality in Ireland. To my eyes, the only "ridiculous" looking things that ever ran on rails here were the Achill railbus and the unwieldy garden shed contraption on wheels that the Castlederg & Victoria Bridge line used as a "railcar"!

Very true; and that very fact blows right out of the water any claim the perpetrators might have as to boredom as motivation. The fact that they put diesel all over the floor of a carriage, and also tried to break into the building, I’d exceptionally worrying too. Again, my thoughts as to suitable punishment are far too extreme to put into print.

My grandson has the kitchen floor covered with that stuff on an almost daily basis!

That’s exactly what happens in the north too. ”Poor fella came from a broken home” ”He didn’t realise that bricks break glass” ”He’s studying hard at college” Verdict: Guilty! Fined €10, if he has it; if not, sure lookit, never worry….