jhb171achill

Excellent addition to your range, Leslie. Best of luck with it.

Those are looking great! Not sure when they started painting them yellow, but probably after they covered them in steel sheet. In this guise, either a slightly darker grey all over (inc. chassis obviously), or brown all over..... The DCDR one, as most will know, is completely incorrect in its livery. GSWR markings, but CIE brown on sides; and black chassis - a mix of the unmixable, and the never-used! SSM have suitable snails or roundels.

I think that this would certainly have improved them, and I also think it likely that they were unstable at speed - CBSCR track wasnt GSWR standard anyway. If it did occur to the CBSCR to alter them, it's unlikely they had the money spare.

Most Irish narrow gauge lines carried smallish amounts of traffic, so a shunting layout wouldn't prototypically allow much action. There were exceptions - I always thought Letterkenny (CDR) might be suitable. The beauty about the CIE lines is that if based in the later part of the 1950s, stock from a number of lines can run together as on the C & L and West Clare. Depending on space, maybe an Arigna / Drumshanbo set-up with coal trains being shunted? Something based on Ennis, Dromod or Belturbet allows the added interest of a broad gauge interchange. Dingle allows busy periods with cattle trains shunting, while Castlegregory was a very compact terminus. While it closed long before CIE days, a little poetic licence might see it survive later, receiving stock from other closed lines too. The same could be said of Schull.

I meant to add.... re the level crossing gates. They were worked by a large wheel in the signal cabin, a common enough arrangement where the road was busy. You can see the signalman turning it if you look at the cabin in the clip. The train makeup, looking at it slowly, is first, a Bredin in GSR livery. Second, with the vents, what looks like a MGWR dining car, hence the extra vents. Next two are a pair of MGWR composites or thirds, both of different design. Can't make out what's behind that but it could be a six wheel second.

They did on some stock but not all. Today, we have only a handful of carriage designs (ICR, DD, Mk 4 - only three in the entire country!); and in the railcar world 22, 26, 27, 28, 29 class plus NIR's two very similar styles, plus a few darts. And none of them ever are mixed in one train. You'd have got more variety that that in a single train well into the 1960s. In fact, through all railway history on all lines, a uniform train was the rare exception rather than the rule - passenger OR goods. If you look at that vid clip you'll see that no other vehicle in that train is like the one you mention, and indeed no two are alike.

Tony, perhaps you might PM me with details of wagon kits / "bits & pieces" that you have?

Now, can I teleport myself to that meeting and back again in one night!!

Nothing, Rangermouse, nor was there ever apart from a handful of small makeshift ploughs to be attached to fronts of locos. We get so little snow it isn't worth the money buying them. Northern Scotland, however, is a different matter with heavy snow virtually every winter.

Firstly, GSR station green. It was originally very like the darker CIE green, though shows in manynof the few colour photos as being quite uniform in tone when faded, as in this shot. I am tempted to think that there might have been a lighter shade in use too, but I have absolutely no evidence to support that guess. If modelling the GSR era, or indeed, many rural stations in CIE days, I think I would go for a "washed out" look of standard green. I have samples taken off door posts at the derelict remains of Achill goods shed and Ballaghaderren stations. These show the earlier Midland colours - bright red and light grey or buff. On top, the GSR green, clearly same as CIE green later. CIE continued this green, obviously. Water tanks were painted green years ago and this, I would guess, was standard in GSR days. However, in CIE times it seems that mostly a type of galvanised grey paint was used. Tubbercurry, when derelict and with layers of paint peeling off, appears to show black paint too at one stage. Regarding the upper parts of windows in that clip of Castlerea station, there's nothing covering any windows as such - do you mean the ventilators?

Nice job!

Sweeeeeeeeeeett!!!!!!!

Once CIE took over the remnant of the GNR lines in the area in 1958, I always wondered why they didn't use Mullingar - Inny - Cavan - Clones - Monaghan as a single route, with maybe 2 or 3 through passenger trains a day. I think a GAA special did that once.

They all arrived that way, Glenderg. Inchicore gradually painted them the correct colour by degrees. This would also have been before "SA" was added to any numbers. The medicinal compound injection will be very welcome, as commenting on liveries is extremely thirsty work..........!

Yes, not sure Ernie. Ciaran Cooney is probably a good bet to help. The midland engine does indeed appear to be a J19, so we may assure that the picture is 90% likely to be in MGWR territory..

I haven't posted anything here yet re a 21mm gauge line, as I've nothing to post, but it is my long term ambition to do a small, and simple short line based on the Dublin & Blessington - but it will have to wait a good few years until I have undertaken my fiscal responsibilities in a number of current areas!

I can't log in to comment, but the two of the AEC railcar set, and the 4.6.0T "Bandon Tank" locomotive, were all taken in Bantry station.

Old news post now, I know, but it just occurred to me: the 071s were delivered in an entirely non-standard (non-CIE!) browny colour, all being repainted fairly quickly. This was a one-off.

Sitting on the roof again, Neil?

Yes, it's the planning process and long term vision that is the issue. Irish politicians (north and south) are a shower of self serving gombeen men, without the education, let alone the will, to plan anything sensibly; let alone again to do so with any sort of long term strategy in mind. The Port Tunnel and Ardnacrusha Dam are about the lot! We can all, politicians included, witter on interminably about preference for this, that or the other; rearranging tram lines, bus lanes, private car routes, electric car charging points, blah blah blah zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. However, a brain-dead dung beetle would be able to grasp a solitary important truth: the amount of land available for anything from bus lanes to tooth fairies is finite, and already heavily saturated. The only way to actually increase capacity to get people from A to B in a large and crowded city is to do what other cities do. Take Vienna. It is marginally larger than Dublin, but has a very much larger amount of traffic everywhere as it is a an important international crossroads. Traffic moves freely. Virtually every street in the city has trams, with a network of bewildering array, but more importantly, there are eight separate underground lines operating almost 24 hours a day with in some cases four or five minute frequencies. There's the clue: underground. Dublin's railways were constructed by commercial companies so the imperatives then, in planning them, were utterly different from now. Thus, where a railway route suits modern traffic, it's an accidental benefit rather than anything relating to deliberate good planning. Docklands to anywhere is crass. Connolly and Heuston operate to near capacity. Harcourt Street, even if still open, would be no good as a final terminus. Buses are saturated, so are the city centre trams. Closing the entire city centre to road traffic is not practical. Some years ago, Dublin Bus reorganised itself so that the quays were not clogged with bus termini - that was a good move. What's past is past, and good riddance; what's future MUST be underground railways. Yes, it'll cost a fortune, especially when billions are squandered on endless consultants and appeals. CPOs must be handed out all over the place where necessary once and for all, and I would say the northside needs probably three routes; one towards the Coolock / Baldoyle / Airport / Swords area - and that, with an extremely regular frequency. Another via a different route to the Broombridge LUAS somewhere in the general area of Finglas / Clonee, and perhaps curving back to Blanchardstown, interconnecting with one of a number of west-side routes to serve Ashtown / Blanch / Castleknock / Clonsilla / Clondalkin - maybe even to Lucan. Other underground routes need to serve Donnybrook / Rathmines / Ranelagh / Rathgar / Terenure / Rathfarnham / Kiltipper / Knocklyon / Tallaght areas. The LUAS and DART should suffice for south east Dublin. By my estimation, you're looking at maybe an absolute minimum of five routes there, possibly six or seven. There would need to be a central underground station, maybe under St Stephen's Green, but with connections to Heuston, Connolly and Pearse stations, Busaras and the airport. Another thing that could be done is to get rid of Dublin port, sell off all that land, and shift the entire port operations to somewhere like Mornington outside Drogheda. No, I know, there's not a snowball's chance in hell of this happening. But otherwise, we will all end up in forty years time going round and round and round and round and round in the same discussion....

Lovely C & L shots, Ernie

Couldn't agree more. We can mess about with traffic lanes and bus lanes until the surface is covered with white lines, in and out of tram tracks, but the amount of land on the surface will remain the same while the population and economy improve. Sooner or later, it HAS to go underground. There's no more room on the surface for anything, so trying to "revolutionise", "improve", alter or rearrange private and / or public transport becomes progressively more expensive and less effective. It's like trying to rearrange dirt on something instead of cleaning it.

That is nothing short of OUTSTANDING!! Superb work!

Noel, you're a man of great wisdom, foresight, and intellectual articulacy! Agreed on all counts........ don't forget the 201s and Mk 3s, but don't tell anyone here I said it.

That weathering job on them is very nice - good luck to new owner.