jhb171achill

Quite a few livery options for AEC railcars.... 1. GNR navy & cream 2. CIE light green (post 1955) 3. CIE dark green (with option of top-of-front-roof stripes, as in one example in Wisht Caaark) 4. Black’n’tan 5. Short-lived UTA plain green 6. UTA green with front wasp stripes 7. UTA riviera blue & thin cream window band 8. As above with wide cream band (Both the blue & cream options were very short-lived and only applied to some vehicles) 9. NIR maroon & light grey.

You're thinking of Tralee, where sadly this is the case, and it doesn't look as if it'll change any time soon.

It was operating the other week when I was there and they are submitting a grant application for a number of improvements.

Brake wheels were never red on anything until comparatively recently, nor were bogies multi-coloured until even more recently. Until about 1970, when all normal wagons were grey, brake wheels, bogies, ordinary wheels and running gear were too. Once wagons started being painted brown, all these bits were brown too, including in the fertiliser wagons. I can't recall if any ferts got red brake wheels before they were scrapped. I could be wrong but I very much doubt it. Certainly, no ferts ever had the current style of black bogies with green and blue details. Always brown bogies.

It was the West Clare.

I’m unaware of any land rovers on CIE.....

All of the above, Leslie! Serious point: it is simply not possible to accurately model the 1950-70s period without several staples. Cravens, A & 141 classes, 42ft flats, H vans and corrugated opens, and AEC railcars. Thanks to Messrs. Murphy & IRM we now have all of these bar the AEC. As a reminder to perhaps some of us here who have had fewer birthdays than I, the AEC cars were as integral as an 80 class in a north-based 1970/90s layout. CIE and the GNR has large numbers of them, initially used on the sort of duties ICRs have today, but also commuter traffic. The GNR ones would be divided between CIE and the UTA, later NIR. They were everywhere on the present system (except the NCC, where visits were extremely few). But they also got to Clones and Enniskillen, the Derry Road, Wisht Caaark boy, and Tralee - Limerick - Sligo.

The letters “AEC” just came into my head for some reason.....

I wish I could say otherwise, PorkyP, but a well-meaning fledgling volunteer group was usurped a couple of years ago by a couple of local councillors. Despite great promises made, nothing whatsoever was done. The whole thing is now in ruins.

It’s in bits, well out of use and criminally neglected by Tralee council.

That trackwork looks amazing!

I think the rationale was that even refurbished, they would cost more annually to maintain, while eventually living on a shorter time than the ICRs anyway.

Much as I hate to say it, given traffic requirements on Irish railways, railcars are unfortunately the most efficient way of doing things. If IE were starting this again, push pulls as on the Belfast and Cork routes would be another way of doing things.

A 400 would be amazing! Anything passenger-carrying, 6-wheeled and RTR would have my vote.

I've developed a bit of a soft spot for the little 26's in Cork - the only trains left in which you can open the windows and get fresh air, thus the only trains in Ireland that aren't fixed at sweat-boiling temperatures inside! And the noise of them going up the tunnel..... I liked the 27s for that reason too.

Now THAT is something I’d love to have - 532 was a D16 4.4.0 “Achill Bogie”! And still in GSR grey!

Why can't they employ staff 24 hours to chase away the vermin who do this, and cover everywhere with graffiti!

I hear ya, Glenderg! (Glad it was long after jhb171Senior's time in the Inchicore Drawing Office! )

Thanks to Roderick Bruce for this, it might be useful to those modelling CIE steam.

Superb weathering job!

I think the IRRS may have track plans - certainly they'll have photos. Very welcoming for documentary stuff and visits, but they don’t let even members near their photo archive.

I’ve tended to read these mags the day I get them, and set aside to leaf through over coming weeks. After that, with a few exceptions they get recycled! I almost never buy them now, though Santa always brings me some....

I cannot provide numbers, but a few I recall, which may be taken as typical of the 1972-82 period, on the Nenagh branch, and Rosslare - Waterford - Limerick, Limerick - Athenry - Claremorris - Ballina, and Mallow - Tralee. I travelled behind 190 or 191 one sunny evening from Rosslare to Waterford. It has a Dutch van and three laminates. The service from Rosslare to Limerick often, in those days, had 4 or 5 bogies, but with enough passengers to put in one. I never saw a Craven once on that service at all, though of course the odd one might have put in an appearance. The service was almost always 141 / 181. The Limerick - Ballina was usually two carriages and a van. The van was a four wheel genny - in fact I think this was the last line they were used on. Latterly it was a BR or Dutch. No Cravens - here it was the last few Bredins, Park Royals and various laminates (usually laminates). Haulage was within that time almost exclusively 141 / 181 type. Mallow - Tralee could be an "A" or a single 141 or 181. I think they sometimes used an engine that had been on a goods - which would explain an "A". Bogie vans were here earlier, with up to five behind them. As well as the inevitable laminates and Park Royals, which formed most rural services (plus Cobh), this particular run might also include Cravens. In this period, main line services on all lines were indiscriminate mixes of Cravens, Park Royals (including former suburban types), the last few Bredins (up to about 1975/6), and all the variations of the laminate theme. 24XX dining cars were the norm everywhere, Cork and "Enterprise" included, irrespective of what stock was used - with the exception of the Mk 2s, the forst air conditioned carriages. From 1972, these AC stock were introduced as the "Supertrains", quickly taking over many main routes. These ran in sets, never being mixed with other services, except if a mail train of Mk 2 had an older TPO or other stock behind it, or in the case of an AC train taking locked-off stock trailed behind it. Even this was exceptionally rare, and it may be taken by modellers wishing to run accurate trains that for any period when both AC and non-AC stock was running, that the rule is - Supertrain - BREL Mk 2 stock ONLY, with appropriate genny vans. Not Dutch or BR vans, let along 4-wheel ones. Everything else - anything BUT Supertrain stock, mixed and matched. So - that means (in the BnT era), any four wheel van, BR van or Dutch van, can run with any Craven, laminate, Park Royal or Bredin. Up to 1974 in the Cork and Dublin area, an occasional (now BnT) old GSWR wooden bogie too. Sets all of one type would have been very rare indeed, even on the Cork line, where the dining car at least would be a wooden-framed 24XX type, as at Downpatrick.

May?

I see what you mean, DiveController. Several of these vans (four, I think but could be wrong) were actually used as brake vans for a while, so it isn't totally unauthentic. Naturally, in this state it should be technically only black'n'tan, while if converted to a TPO it could be silver or green. DCDR policy at the moment is to paint all coaches green, much the same shade which is close to earlier CIE, and lighter than UTA. The idea is uniformity rather than accuracy, much like the RPSI's Cravens. You know me - I think anything preserved should look the way it was, but that's just my opinion and I respect those of others....the RPSI's "Harvey" is now, I understand, being painted in Isle of Man apple green, to match a badly inaccurately painted GNR guard's van...there's "uniformity of inaccuracy" for you...but again, having been that youth with paintbrush myself forty years ago, I will never, ever criticise the work of any volunteer in any sphere. Just the colour! Rant over; back to the TPO: my understanding is that the DCDR will use it as a passenger brake, and to carry children's buggies in. A space for a wheelchair has, I think, also been considered, but I would advise against it as there are only windows on one side, and these vans were NOTORIOUSLY bad to ride in! Noisy and bumpy.....