jhb171achill

The very last GNR coach in service was 727, a K15 open third, which was still in use as a 70-class centre car as late as 1981. And the last NCC coach in use was open 3rd no. 526 (I think), same period. It ended life as an MED centre car about 1981.

A couple of 70 class sets would indeed be a great longer-term plan, and of course it has to have 80s! I agree with Galteemore - the 70s had great character. No two centre cars seemed the same!

171, ex-GNR Director's saloon No. 50, and ex-GSWR "Rosslare Express" twelve-wheeler No. 861 (1906).... I think this was when 50 and 861 first went to Whitehead. Both still in departmental liveries of CIE & UTA.

Illegally? What was the background? I knew it was scrapped there and in that year, but I assumed that since the CDRJC still existed, and still owned it, and it was on their land.....it must have been them that scrapped it. Is that not correct?

Much of the soundtrack on those is dubbed, as the originals were mostly silent movies.

They had a very distinctive sound, minister. A bit "throatier" than anything seen after the 1970s! I looked up one of the preserved AEC cars of GWR origin in Britain. They sound much the same as I remember, though I think the Irish ones were a bit louder - maybe bigger AEC engines?

Yes - it would be an interesting rarity. Before seeing it, I'll wager that it was an ex-GSWR dining car! It is just a terrible pity that Jimmy O'Dea took nothing but black and white. I have been through his entire collection several times, and he has some amazing stuff. It is all available via the National Photographic Archive, free for view. However, errors in captions are very common, some ridiculously so. the photo above of an AEC car being built at Inchicore as late as 1960 may be an error - it is at least as likely to be a refurb, perhaps after accidental damage. Knowing the railcar number would assist in this. I notice in the GNR set at Clones...look away to the right of the photo in the distance; a DNGR brake passenger luggage van, still in brown and cream. I might add that these photos simply amplify, if such was ever necessary, the great necessity to have a ready to run AEC set; these monopolised many services on the GNR, CIE, UTA and NIR for twenty five years.

Yes, that is indeed his signature! Know it well from my RPSI committee days........

Love the worn-weary looking van! Many vehicles on layouts look too toy-like because they're so shiny! I remember those vans - like all pre-1975 vehicles they tended to rust WAY more than today! My mother's 1967 Morris Minor ended up very shook looking........! And there was no NCT then, so bald tyres and cracked headlights were seen more frequently!

Yes. The whole idea, as you'll see when weeds and so on are added, is a place very much like the places I mentioned above, or Whitehead when I first saw it about 1969. Buildings that look half abandoned and weedy track. It could have a look of 1970s Castleisland too. The idea is to use the small space to try to create visual space. To try to be artistic in the scenery, giving a sense of scenic openness as far as possible. Initially I had simply planned a shunting layout with a pile of Mr McAllister's excellent wagons - it would be like Castleisland or Ardee were while goods-only. But I couldn't resist some of the SSM and Worsley coaches, and of course just one or two Cravens. And I've a couple of excellent tin vans from our colleague "down under". So there has to be a sparse passenger service. Maybe it'll only be GAA or pilgrimage specials. The place sleeps otherwise! Given that if prototypical, it would simply be a 4 or 5 mile extension beyond the terminus of a secondary route (North Kerry, Mallow-Waterford or Cork-Skibbereen, the loco shed and turntable would probably not have been used for many years, as most trains into the place were just short workings from "town". Maybe I over-think the setting, but I'm probably not alone on that! I like a setting to be either absolutely factually accurate, if of a real place, or if necessarily fictitious, based on how it most likely would look if real.

Indeed. Others were filled in too! I do have several 121s ordered, so it did provide a bit of a dilemma on that score! The hypothetical setting is that this place isn't far from the real terminus, a nearby large town. Think Westport Quay or Valentia Harbour - there would be a terminus nearby with loco she'd, full facilities. Any steam loco venturing "out to the Quay branch" would be there and back within 45 minutes. Westport Quay lost even its water column (in a working sense) years before even steam stopped going there. The idea us to create a sense of open space, as the actual layout is of necessity quite small. A future extension is a matter for submission for planning permission to the Dept. Of Domestic Matters at some appropriate future stage!

It would. But getting an automated one made specially was, for the moment anyway, a bit pricey. The idea is to make the place look as if it's on its last legs, and ready for its pre-closure repainted!

Corrugated iron mostly. I’ve a small goods shed half built and the main station will be loosely based on that at Caragh Lake, Co. Kerry. Signalling will be very minimal; based in Valentia Harbour, which in latter days appears to have had nothing but a home signal. The turntable road will be disconnected as shown, with the pit filled with old ballast and rubbish, just as some were. In the long run this could possibly be resurrected. The period will be the end of the grey/green era, and dawn of the black’n’tan era, 1955-65.

Probably!

Superb stuff - wish it was still like this. My point about the 071s was in relation to a layout based as Strabane would be in 1995......had it survived.

Once the 10:40 mixed from Ballysomewhere rolls in! Hopefully not far away.

Is that the original train shed roof? I agree that the GNR line would have been better - more hinterland, and Omagh could have fed in traffic from even as far as Enniskillen. While freight would have still gone, it's tempting to think that the Derry / Donegal traffic would have lasted longer and been heavier with Strabane as an interchange. The former CDR narrow gauge station, if levelled, would have provided ample ground for a container yard. Local traffic Derry - Omagh might have been a little more feasible too. And 171, 461 or 4 with an RPSI set on the Carrickmore bank???? Strabane and Omagh would at one stage have been familiar to 071, 141 and 181 classes... maybe 121s too..... (Idea for layout: Strabane, 1995?)

My understanding is that there had been a view within IE for some time that having the Galway line as a "brand" might assist in generating tourist traffic, and possibly local too. This seems to have developed when they had the BREL "International" set - possibly the most comfortable carriages ever to run in modern times. The livery was supposedly based on the influence of the yellow bits on the 201s (which, personally, I thought was hideous), and continental practice with class numbers higher up beside doors, rather than lower down on them. This would become the "branded" Galway stuff, the logic would seem to go. A full set of Galway Mk 2s looked quite well when new and clean, but they seem to have deteriorated - possibly because the administration were running down Mk 2 stock anyway.

Yes, they were the only type of coaches painted thus. They were initially intended for the Galway line but they ended up appearing in other places too, and they got mixed up with coaches in “ordinary” livery. I saw one (and a very grubby example at that) at Heuston in the consist of a Westport train.

That looks right indeed. Ii suspect there were differences here and there. Undeniably, the one above is gated. I do believe though, but can't (yet!) prove either way, that some were open. Possibly not initially, but latterly. A gated one couldn't have been in order to fill it up, as all the coal would have spilled on the track when you opened it - that's IF you could open it with the force of the coal against it - unlikely. In MGWR day's station paintwork and ironwork was "post office" red and cream, or possibly a light buff beige colour. Station building interiors (MGWR) were mid brown lower, cream upper. Once the GSR took over, green and pale cream inside and out. In the interiors only, booking office or waiting room walls were green to waist height, cream above, with a 1 inch black line separateing them. No black line externally. I think SLNCR buildings were always a dark leaf green with very pale grey / white. I've no idea what the internal station colours were on the SLNCR, but I think possibly green also. If doors to coal bunkers were painted, and they almost certainly would have been initially, they would certainly have been all rusty and grimy internally. In Midland days, I can't see them painting any if these red - maybe black? I don't know. Rust would seem a good idea, perhaps!

Love the Portadown roundhouse! Superb. I remember UTA steam well!

Exactly - so that they can whine about the cost of retaining it for annual three trains; this will be taken as justification to close it. They've been using this trick for sixty years.....

And is the track REALLY so worn out that it needs to be closed entirely and lifted? With a service of two trains a year, and lengthy closures? One wonders how long it will be closed. I hope someone who is better informed than I can come on here and give credible reasons why this, and the Junction - Waterford line, have to have so many bustitutions; and can any reassurance be given that IE, and Shane Ross-Bus, are NOT determined, absolutely determined, to undermine any focus on getting more people to use it.....

Years ago, I travelled all round India and Java, chasing operational steam of course. I have often tried to find any site (or models) dealing with Indian railways, in particular a metre gauge YP or YG class model, or anything steam era PJKA (Indonesia). No joy. Any ideas?

Must delve..... I think I took a pic of it some years ago. It’s still intact.