jhb171achill

Could have done, Flange; it’s going into a book, so I do want to find out exactly what it’s doing, for the caption!

Yes, I believe so.

Hi Mark To answer the above, my thoughts for what they're worth... 1. Blue livery - very few. The origin of the blue livery was the idea of having a special livery for the "Tourist Express". It was never meant to an actual change of livery as such, for the whole railway. But when you dedicate a livery to one service, you need a few spares, so perhaps 15 or 20 carriages received it - though there appears to be no record. The vast majority of coaches remained brown, and the majority of locos remained green, though, and it would go without saying that this included the tank engines. I suspect that no locos were blue other than a few "A" class for the main line. There is a lovely painting showing a 2.4.0 at Ballynahinch in blue - it will actually be the cover pic on my forthcoming book on the Clifden line - but I strongly suspect that even that is artistic licence. 2. If you want to go for a branch which would have been primarily operated by the 0.6.0 "E"s, you're looking at Achill 1895-1905, and Athboy and Kingscourt mostly; probably Crossdoney - Killeshandra also. Other lines, such as Ballinrobe, Killala and Loughrea, and the Cavan branch, tended to live on a diet of tender engines due to occasionally heavier goods traffic. You have good "excuse" to have an imaginary branch run with "E"s only. 3. If you manage to get anyone to do a few credible six-wheeled carriages (a minimum would be a first or compo, a third and a brake or 3rd brake) I would definitely be in for a few. 4. If having a blue engine is a deal-breaker (and why not!), you might model a junction station with a tank engine on the branch and a blue 4.4.0 passing through on the main line. That's my tuppence-worth...

The platforms signs are GSWR - many such survived until quite recent times in obscure places. I think there's still one at Clonmel inside the building.

Hi BTB - the first is one of Cyril Fry's of A19 and a van in the old Limerick / Waterford bay at Limerick Junction. It will appear in a forthcoming book (if we ever get out of the virus "internment"!). The older lower height of GSWR platforms is evident (Mallow was still like this well into the 1980s). The second pic is from a 1947 CIE magazine showing a GSR truck recently repainted into CIE green. It is taken at the RDS where it is delivering cattle for the Spring Show.

Years ago, I saw a picture of a model someone had made (or repainted!) of a (British) LNER J72 which he had tweaked a bit - I can't remember how, but it involved filing a few bits and gluing on some small bits - not a huge conversion job. Now, it was most certainly not an exact model of a Midland "E" class, but painted grey and with a big number "555" on the side, it looked convincing enough to pass at least the "three foot" rule... The British equivalent of the K class (the Southern Railway's N class) 2.6.0s can be adapted as Irish, if you can't get an actual Bachmann K class. Mind you, all of these entered traffic just after the MGWR had become but one part of the GSR, so reference to them as "Midland" engines is stretching things a bit, as in addition to this many spent most of their working lives nowhere near the Midland - used on Waterford - Limerick, Waterford - Cork and Dublin - Cork. Naturally they were also regulars on the Galway and Sligo lines too. So a GSR-era layout will have those. While I have not researched it, there may be some Bachmann or Hornby 4.4.0 which might warrant conversion to half-reasonable approximation to an "A" class 4.4.0, and a J18 goods / mixed traffic 0.6.0 could be made up by altering some "bought" 0.6.0. JM Design (John Mayne, here) is offering an extremely nice brass kit of the G2 2.4.0. A model of a D16 4.4.0 would have me running to sell the car! There's a model available of several South Eastern & Chatham bogies which if you shorten them a bit bear a vague resemblance to some MGWR bogies of 1900-05 type of design. The six-wheel carriages, though, are the killer. A MGWR layout based on anything pre-1960 will need them in some shape or form. I asked questions here the other night about the Shapeways 3D prints, and replies from those who know about such thing were far from complimentary about them. Plasticard, in reality, seems the best option here. Drawings are readily available.

A road bridge over a cutting was my (unoriginal) way of dealing it with it in the past, and also in the forthcoming "Dugort Harbour" a similar theme, a tunnel mouth in a cutting.... I had been thinking about a small diorama-type thing in the future, too, based on a small wayside station alongside a road, a la Courtmacsherry, Castlegregory or Arigna branch. At one end the road would rise up and turn over the railway on a bridge, but I thought at the other end if the line disappeared among trees - any thoughts on that, anyone? At each end, of course, a small fiddle yard. I'll be discussing this with Baseboard Dave at some stage soon.....

Worth every cent. I've two ordered.....

That engine is an absolute beauty - as are the carriages....

Ex-GNR (and NCC) Locos awaiting scrapping at Maysfields, Belfast c.1961.

In 1939 or 40, Senior spotted this.... I wonder where! Over the next few visits to the catacombs, we’re in GNR territory.

You’d have arrived at Athlone, then through Moate to Mullingar, through Amiens St (Connolly) and ended up at Westland Row (Pearse). ”Flying snails” were still reasonably plentiful on wagons by then, and probably notices or signs, though no longer locomotives or carriages.

Possibly unshifted stock - or do they print them to order?

Many rural lines were built with higher hopes than realised - even today we hear of schemes like the Larne - Scotland tunnel or bridge; back in the 1880s - 1910s period, before the war. numerous schemes were put forward which even then could be seen as fantasy economics. This is good for the modeller, as it gives good excuses for very small termini with (as seen above) two to three trains a day and minimal rolling stock. Some of the branchlines I have posted timetables for above could be operated with one 0.6.0, two six-wheel coaches and a dozen wagons, running between the terminus and a fiddle yard. Someone mentioned using the 3mm scale somewhere above. In doing this, virtually all stock would have to be scratchbuilt. One can obtain kits of open wagons, and a LNER J72 class tank engine which might just about pass the 3-foot rule as a Midland J16. There are not, to my knowledge, and goods vans, guard's vans, cattle trucks (ESSENTIAL for ANY Midland layout!) or coaches which would come close to being suitable. Motor bogies can be obtained, but going down one more scale to N gauge would be easier if space for 4mm is unavailable. Worsley Works do "scratch-aid" kits of several modern CIE carriages in 3mm, and a G class diesel. So if you went for the 1960s you could, like the Loughrea branch, have a "G" and a one-coach train, hauling wagons back and forth..... but even these kits need a lot of work.

Here ye go! Both of Clara’s branch lines.

Indeed - nor did I, though I couldn't help wondering. Senior used to mention an oul boy in Enniskillen who took small parcels from the station round the town - I suspect he was probably one of the porter staff.

I'd be interested to see a pic of "Naomh Eanna" with a snail - when I saw it years ago it didn't have one then, nor in any pic I saw - unless it had one when new? I had forgotten to mention the cruisers at all above.... Makes me wonder now - I wonder did CIE have any delivery bicycles in small towns, like the GNR did?

OK, to show service levels on Midland branch lines, these are from the GSR 1926 Working Timetable. I’ve a couple of actual MGWR ones but they are not handy to access, and tell 99% the same story anyway. These are typical not just of the Midland, but the great majority of the GSWR, DSER, CBSCR, GNR and NCC also, and the narrow gauge lines. Trains marked “Mail” were mixed. They were only designated as such on branch lines because they connected with main line up and down, day and night mail trains at junctions.

Yes, a common feature. For loading hoses into horse boxes.

Do we mean Killala here, north of Ballina, or possibly Ballina itself? Ballina certainly had a turntable. As for Killala, I would have thought it did too, as it was operated by 0.6.0s. This was a system in use at a number of locations. Few, though they did exist. Useful for modellers!

Yes, six-wheelers. On most branchlines, not just Midland ones, you don't really see bogies appearing all that much if at all until the late 1920s / 1930s, when one bogie compo tends to replace a couple of six-wheelers; many branch trains then become one bogie with a six-wheeled brake third or the like. Once bogie coaches started being built in the 1890s (there were but a handful before that), gradually the newer six-wheeled stock, including a few with an internal "corridor" between the few compartments, but no gangways, were "cascaded" onto secondary lines, and were more than adequate for that type of work. Thus, on a typical 10-15 mile branch, you were to see many six-wheelers lasting until the final pogrom of such branches in the late 50s and very early 60s. What was left of six-wheel stock was all concentrated in Cork, where they were used as spare excursion stock on the Youghal line until late spring 1963, after which the only six-wheelers in traffic were the handful of GSWR passenger vans I mentioned earlier. How often would trains be mixed - an absolutely typical rural branch line service on most country lines from one end of Ireland to the other, and on both gauges, had one return passenger train per day and one mixed - all year round. On market days or summer season usually a second passenger service would run. Fair days, especially in the midlands and west, would often see an extra train plus a cattle special. On main lines, mixed trains were less common, as goods levels warranted separate goods trains, but separate goods trains were only on some branch lines - which, as a result, would probably have the daily goods and 2-3 passenger trains, but not a mixed. Mail was often carried on the mixed train too, as the delays at stations due to shunting trucks allowed mails to be loaded and offloaded too. For model railways set in the first twenty years of the century, mail carriage was universal, and you might have an RIC man (on a bicycle!) at the station to supervise the post office men loading and unloading mailbags in case they were "interrupted"! So, for a model of a branch, you're looking at a set which prototypically will be three or four six-wheelers which shuttle up and won the branch two or three (maybe four) times a day, one of the return trips being the mixed. On fair days, for modelling interest, a cattle special or two - your branch terminus could be a bit like Loughrea with a huge cattle mart right next door. GAA specials, pilgrimage specials, and one not often considered by modellers - harvest emigration specials (common in the west of Ireland) could bring in a six-coach train of mixed bogies and six-wheelers. Compared with Britain, where long-wheelbase four wheelers (like the Ratio plastic kit) were common on branch lines, Irish main line companies didn't really have four-wheelers much after 1880. The MGWR certainly had ONE as late as 1914, whose design incidentally was utterly unlike anything in Britain, but that seems a one-off. So, recourse to a 6-wheeled chassis is going to be obligatory. Even on the main lines, most trains had at least one or two well into the 1940s and earlier 50s. Sorry for the long ramble. Give me an idea of what area of the country you plan to model and I will post scans of the 1921 or 1926 timetables for that area.

Just thinking of your chosen era, Mark - for a branch line setting, if that's what you're going for, the Midland (similar to the GSWR) had an almost standard set-up for a passenger train, which was: Full brake or brake third First Class coach 2nd / 3rd composite ...with an extra all-third added as required - or - Full brake or brake third 1st / 2nd composite One or two thirds.

Interesting, gentlemen, very many thanks. In the long run, with drawings readily available, probably another option is just to scratchbuild in plastic, perhaps on the chassis mentioned above. The one vehicle I did want would have been the full passenger brake, but without the birdcage on it - these were removed on some that operated into the late 1950s. I don't think I've ever seen a picture of one WITH a birdcage beyond maybe 1953 or thereabouts. The GSWR full vans last longer with at least three making it into the late 1960s, and becoming the only six-wheelers (albeit non passenger carrying ones) to be seen behind 141s and 181s and in black'n'tan! Funny thing about six wheeled stock which lasted beyond, say, 1957 - while GSWR types dominated among the older wooden stock by then, among the 6-wheeled stock, Midland carriages dominated by far in passenger-carrying types, but GSWR types as vans - DSER types were extinct by then. Plasticard it is, then. I made a plastic "0" gauge one for Senior about thirty years ago, but all his stuff was sold off or given away long before he went off to the Great Locomotive Shed in the Sky.....

That about sums it up, NIR, more concisely that I have! Yes, exactly. On such vehicles, whichever side you looked at, it was always pointing forward. I might add that curiously, examples of both "correct" and "opposite" ways round were to be found at the head of newspaper advertisements!

An update to Midland brake van livery. I had mentioned earlier that there was uncertainty about the green shade, but the carriage brown IS known of, and horse boxes were brown. It seems that brake vans were also brown - when they were green or brown, or when any change took place, I have not yet established.