jhb171achill

So, a BnT 6-wheel full brake has a quite different use to a green one. It is best matched with green or black & tan IRM Park Royals, and Bredins or laminates either in later green or BnT. An occasional Craven too in the midst of this, though an all-Craven train would stretch credibility. That’s the four, then! Slight possibility of one more though; I’d forgotten about 18.

Only 2 or 3 became black & tan, and after the passenger-carrying ones were withdrawn. So no BnT 6-wheel van ever ran with other six-wheelers! Only six of these vans were still in use when the BnT livery came into use, and two of these were withdrawn within about 18 months, so probably remained green. Nos. 69, 79 and one more (11xx) were certainly BnT; not sure about the other one. Last two were in use on the Galway mail until circa 1968, and while not officially withdrawn until 1970, certainly looked well out of use by that time.

I remember the donkeys too, often pulling turf trailers!

Mine is 4 wheel drive and runs on renewable eco-friendly fuel. I remember the donkeys too, often pulling turf trailers!

I think we’ll all be back on the backs of donkeys before all this gets sorted…..!

The gentleman who designed this livery in real life (and several others) is a member on here - ye know who ye are! I have no doubt he will be HIGHLY impressed!

Outstanding, simply outstanding.

Very many thanks, Leslie, for your absolutely invaluable input into model Irish wagons. You have been instrumental in assisting many of us in turning train sets into model railways!

Charles Friel, of the RPSI, has done several fascinating talks on this area, and may have images to help. Contact him via the RPSI, maybe?

Next time it will be Mary Loo Healy Rae.

I wonder would a Crossley rescue it - or would it be the other way round! Or - I have visions of an ageing SG3 hauling both in disgrace south past Howth Junction.....

Saw this on YouTube a good while ago - apparently he's been working on this for some years! Most ingenious.

Now THAT would give him indigestion as well, not to mention a bad case of the Vapours, the Critical Collywobbles, Heeby-Jeebys and Multiple Conniptions....

Had jhbSeniorx2 still been in the Drawing Office, I think he'd be weeping buckets into his porridge at that sight or thought of that thing......

That brake van is really top class!

That's by far the best way to approach the planning stage! If your terminus eventually resembles something like, say, Docklands, you'll have an island platform with two faces. You'd expect trains to leave on one line and arrive on the other, with access to both platforms fropm either.... often, in cases like this, there's an "arrivals" and "departures" side. the arrivals side would need a loop unless there's a shunting loco to release stock on incoming trains.

Evidently Mr Bullied was not a man who took criticism well, and was not at all happy with the less positive comments following trial runs of that thing! And MOST of the comments were less than positive…..!

I think that one’s GSR….

In that pic, I look like I've stuck my finger into a live electrical plug......... Thanks, Leslie, for the (non-live) plug, and many thanks for your usual expert job of organising these events. Unfortunately the book isn't QUITE ready yet, but it's with the publisher as we speak. The delay was due to computer difficulties in getting all the images together to send off. I am hoping it will be published in late spring. It will be called "Farewell to the Dunsandle Express" - a reference to graffiti written on the back of a seat in the carriage when I travelled on the line two weeks before it closed. Publisher will be Colourpoint Creative Blackstaff of Newtownards, Co Down. Despite being virtually ignored by enthusiasts until the mid-1960s (largely due to the late Padraig O'Cuimín's excellent book published in the late 60s by Transport Research Associates (of whom he was one), highlighting its uniqueness due to having G class locos on passenger trains), it had an interesting history, with some little-known facts, such as being the home for some 20 years of two ex-WLWR 2.4.0s..... It saw quite a few unusual types of locos in its time - you'd expect MGWR 0.6.0s and 2.4.0s of G2 and J18 / J19 classes, but apart from the WLWR locos, an "Achill Bogie" worked there for a time in the very early 50s. It saw a trial run by the Sligo railcar, but since this was unsuitable for mixed trains, that was the solitary visit of anything not steam until the G's took over in spring 1963.... It had cattle traffic until its last summer, though had the line remained, the cattle was gone anyway - but it also had mixed trains to the end, even though by then they rarely had more than the one coach. The train I travelled on, behind a C class, to my disgust (I wanted a G!), was technically mixed, but on its way both in and out, no goods wagons that day at all. Sure ye can get an oul C class out to Howth or Bray any oul day.............. Fun fact: during the troubles in the 1920s, Loughrea station was raided and an incoming consignment of timber was torched by members of the Irish Volunteers. They handed the stationmaster a receipt for the consignment!!! We'll probably have a book launch for it which I will mention here nearer the time. Probably in the Spa Hotel in Loughrea, but we'll see. IRM readers will be offered a pass out of our self-imposed asylum for the day!!

Can we pay in cowrie shells?

Indeed. Now that you mention it, Senior used to mention my grandfather poring over coal consumption and other related figures back in the day. While technically this has more to do with the mechanical engineering side than the role of a chief draughtsman, his early career was on the engineering side. When locos were new, or rebuilt or had various modifications made (e.g. a new TYPE of boiler), he often went out on trial runs. Why a draughtsman would get involved with that is beyond me. He drove and fired during a general strike in the mid-1910s, I’m very ashamed to say, and received £5 for his efforts. I am aware that in the 1915-18 period, he was very much involved in engineering matters, but Senior never knew the details, so I certainly don’t. But there it is.

I'd say No. 4 probably the best of those. To some, not as photogenic as some blue things, but in company use up to 1970 - and Leslie still has spoil wagons.....!

As far as I am aware, and certainly in the case of the 800 runs I mentioned above, Edgar Bredin and my grandfather, plus several others with various responsibilities for timetabling, loco allocation, and engineering matters (plus my dad, as a youth!), perhaps a dozen in total, travelled in a first class saloon, and apparently had nothing more than stopwatches and notebooks. Bridges had already been inspected prior to that, by persons and methods not recorded anywhere I am aware of. I don't believe such a thing ever existed anywhere in Ireland, unless the GNR had one at any time.

I don't believe that there was - if so, my grandfather, who would have been very familiar with such things, never mentioned anything about it.... my late father did mention something, though, about fellas with stop watches on trial runs of 800 to Portlaoise in 1939, on which he hitched a lift....

One observation - it seems that within the terminal there are no run round facilities, and the only means of crossing from one platform to another is via the green crossover at the top. This would mean that a train entering the terminus would have to leave the same platform (whichever it is) running "wrong line"; thus reversing. Would it not be better to have a connectiuon between one platform road and the other within the station for operational purposes?