jhb171achill

Dunluce Castle is the “one that got away”. In the late 1990s, as RPSI Treasurer, I was approached by a member who I also knew outside the RPSI too. He was a man of means and had just seen No. 74 in Cultra. He recalled having been taken by his parents on one of those old Sunday School excursions in the 1930s (poor man has gone to his reward now) and on arrival, been invited up onto the footplate of that very engine, which he had remembered. What they put an engine like that on a presumably heavy excursion for is beyond me; while fast, these engines, in the words of the late Harold Houston, probably the greatest ever authority on NCC engines, "couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding"! Our friend told me that if the Society sought grant aid, he would match it pound for pound. At the time, the ERDF funding was in full flow, as was IFI funding. I informed the Society's Loco Officer, and a major inspection was organised. The report was brutal. Like No. 30 beside it (the BCDR engine), the UTA had absolutely run it into the ground. Polished up though it is, from memory, this is what No. 74 "Dunluce Castle" looked like 25 years ago; it's condition won't have improved since. 1. Boiler - scrap. Straight to skip; new one needed. 2. Smokebox - not good, probably better replaced. 3. Cylinders - one scrap for sure, other one looks ok, but just about ok. 4. Driving wheels - one scrap, other 3 badly worn. 5. Tender - from floor up, scrap, entirely; floor down in need of serious TLC. 6. Motion - while I cannot recall the details now, there were major issues here too. There was more, which I can't remember. I have a note somewhere, probably. Basically, the loco requires a total, and very substantial rebuild. It is held together with shiny paint and Mr Sheen. Once restored, No. 74 is not a strong engine - they were not one of the NCC's finer moments design-wise. Whereas, the 2.6.0 "moguls" very certainly WERE. Thus, yes, you're right, a new "W" class 2.6.0 would very certainly be a much better bet operationally. but also no more expensive. The bill at the time worked out at £250,000. Recent rebuilds of 4 and 461 had cost less than £100,000. At today's process, you're looking at the guts of a million euros / sterling. The new No. 105, if that's what it will be, will come in cheaper! I agree that 184 and 186 are unlikely to run again, though it's a pity. I have always had a soft spot for 186. They are too small for mainline and too big (only in a coal consumption sense) for Downpatrick. Often, in the preservation movement, hard decisions have to be made and the stark reality is that 27, 184 and 186 are museum items. Unless the Society literally wins the EuroBillions, there is zero financial case to be made for restoring them to working order. Whitehead train rides can adequately be taken care of by the Guinness loco, or (if you're wearing sunglasses!) the Derry engine No. 3. Talking of "soft spots", in my carriage restoration late teenage years, all shunting at Whitehead was done by the clapped-out suitcase-sized Planet diesel No. 23. I'd love to see that quaint little thing operational again! ANYWAY........ I applied for and got the approval for the funding. Our generous benefactor, God rest him, was unperturbed. But the paperwork..................................the PAPERWORK!..............to get a loan agreement drawn up with UFTM and approval for the RPSI to gain grant aid for something it didn't own, was so interminably drawn out, that the funding offer period had expired by the time outline agreement was reached. By now, funding rules had changed and it was no longer possible (this is still the case) for anyone to get any grant aid of any sort from any fund for something they don't own. So that was that. Given the great limitations of this loco, it was probably as well in the long run. 131 is much better machine.

To distract from cabin fever, I was delving through Senior’s photos today. Let’s go Northwest in the late 1930s, when he made his only foray to Burtonport just before it closed. No. 12 was out that day, though I’ve an idea he came back on one of the big 4.8.4T tanks the next morning. Footplate ride both ways! View from the tender looking back on one.

I believe that no two were exactly identical as a result, Irishrail201 - is that correct?

And that is.......N GAUGE!!!??? WOW! Impressive if it was 00, but even more as N. The class 50 is the bee's knees. I love the BR blue era.

This one is of interest to a wider audience too, as it shows a very nice example of the standard concrete posts and surrounds for the then-quite-modern black enamel standard GSR station nameboards. Some of these concrete jobbies were to be seen in a number of locations well into the 1970s. I wonder if plans exist. It would be nice little thing for 3D printing, especially if a few of us wanted them.

Are these a new invention? All my stuff has just “traditional” 00 gauge couplings, as on Hornby etc middle 1970s to date. Then we have kadees and Hunt. I’m unaware of any other than what I have, in terms of the pros and cons. What are people’s opinions in the advantages of one over the other?

There’s your 425th from me, Leslie!

Good for measuring up, anyway! Nice find.

Any pics, Andy? Yes, you're right about, say, Valencia. Such a loco had a very limited area of operation, both geographical and time-wise.

A puzzling thing. Unless they plan to amend a British design to look Irish? Anything Irish is to be welcomed, though I suspect the most financially viable Irish steam engines, if any, would be a GNR "S" class 4.4.0 and an NCC / UTA "Jeep" 2.6.4T. If you go to Wisht Caark, you do be lookin' at a Bangdin Tank, boy, as probably the bisht option. I tell ye, boy.

It's getting closer now - only another sixteen years to employ all the consultants, then a 23 year approval process, 15 years "signing off on" things, 67 years testing, verifying and hiring consultants to approve the work of the consultants who are by now dead. Then the compliance stuff, and the health and safety audits. Hey Presto! Construction starts in 3019, and takes only four times the time expected, and only 13 times the budget. First train: 1st June, 3267. I can't wait....................

They were introduced in the summer of 1970. 102 and 101 were the first into traffic, with 103 shortly after. They were maroon at first, as on 102 in Cultra. The maroon is correct, but the yellow bits should have white lining round them. They were initially used "topping and tailing" the "Enterprise" on a 7-coach set, but in winter one push / pulled a five coach set. 103 never seemed as reliable as the other two and spent long periods out of use. The last time I saw one of them in passenger traffic was one evening I think in the early 1990s. Some time between 1990 and 94, as I was travelling on that line regularly then. I'm nearly sure it was 101, and it had three old Mk 2s in PP mode on an all stops Central - Portadown. I got out at Lambeg and off it went. I believe it broke down before it returned from Portadown, and it never ran again. 102 meantime went on, and actually received the darker blue NIR livery, surviving to become 8102 officially, although I'm not sure if it carried that number. It survived as the Adelaide yard shunter, sans nameplates, until about 2002. They were a bad buy. They were underpowered for the work they were called upon to perform, and became unreliable. My sources in the railway at the time took the view that with their genesis was in conversations in late UTA days, CIE's 141/181 classes were seen by those in the loco dept. as the best things to buy. With the 181s only having recently been delivered, it would have been a simple matter to get a few, and they would have been cheaper, with a very good proven reliability record. But there was political pressure to "buy British", so a reluctant NIR ended up having to pay somewhat more for an unproved design. Within a year or two, the loco dept. was saying "I told you so" to the management; and thus it was. Had they bought 141s, they might have taken four. And if that had been the case, interchangeability with CIE examples, as well as double-heading, would have been possible, so it is quite possible the NIR trio of 071s wouldn't have been ordered! Maroon 141, anyone?

Ah, but there are two toilet rolls included! A bargain.....

Bits and pieces in Bill Scotts’s extremely excellent NCC loco book too.

The Rosslare livery was lined black, yes, not red-lined green as I wrote above - this oul cabin fever is getting to me....... lined black, as on the Murphy model, yes. I've corrected the bit above. So, plain grey or lined green for all the others, with a slight possibility (though I can't be certain) of a plain black one - maybe - towards the very end.

Ah, that's better. I couldn't seem to enlarge it that much. You're absolutely right. And we can get a look at the coach behind it too. Looks like a MGWR bogie mail coach, unless my eyesight needs more enlarging!

..

Nicely done!

Now that engine is a puzzle. The train is mostly six-wheelers, and elderly ones at that, but the third vehicle is a bogie third in the then-main-line brown & cream livery; this will be a Dún Laoghaire Pier boat train. But the ENGINE! Looks like some sort of saddle tank - I have absolutely no clue what that might be. Any suggestions, folks? So, Broadstone might have been Dublin "Clarke". What about Harcourt Street? And if Broadstone would have become "Clarke", what of Dundalk? I'll get my coat first, and open the door, before shouting "Adams" and running away quickly.....................................!

Not all were rebuilt. Many J15s ended their days almost in original condition. There was never a single programme to do the whole lot in sequence. There wasn't the money - ever - to do 111 locomotives all the same. Thus, they tended to rebuild a few at a time, or one-offs. In jhbSenior's time in Inchicore, various experiments would occasionally be carried out on a locomotive in for repair, to see if performance or fuel efficiency could be enhanced. Therefore, like most large and / or long-lived loco classes, by the time the last few were withdrawn, hardly two were identical in every single respect. 184 wasn't the only one that lasted until the end of steam in essentially original (or early) condition, whereas 186 had been very substantially rebuilt. New wheels, new cab, new smokebox(es?), new firebox(es?), numerous tenders..... Trigger's Brush!

Many thanks for that, Ironroad, much appreciated. Regarding liveries, they were indeed painted that way. These engines were among what were classed as express passenger or suburban engines; they hauled main line passenger and goods. A now-deceased driver I knew told of having one with an extremely heavy cattle train out of Ballinasloe one time. He was pleased to have it, as apparently this service would normally have an 0.6.0 of some sort, doubtless the famous midland "cattle engine"! Anyway, obviously they were plain grey from the outset/ The very first was finished in Broadstone and fully painted in the then current Midland livery, lined black. But this was for photographs (anyone got a copy?) and before it was ever even steamed, it was repainted plain grey. So they all started grey. From 1945 onwards, they repainted these engines in the lined green you have, and very attractive it must have looked, but only as they went in for a major overhaul. So it is likely that at least one or two started the 1950s still in grey. It is probable that all became green by, let us say, maybe 1952-ish. Unfortunately, apart from the 800 class, many green engines got so extremely filthy as the 1950s wore on, that they could have been painted lime green and tartan for all anyone could tell. One only, uniquely in the entire CIE steam fleet (I think it was 388, but I'd have to look it up) received a very attractive black lined in red only, and with a light green cabside number instead of the usual light yellow, and of course the normal light green "flying snail" on the tender. It was painted thus specifically for the Cork Rosslare "Express". This was short-lived, as this service was dieselised not long after. I don't know where this loco went after that, but it's reasonable to assume it wasn't repainted again. By 1956/7 few locomotives were being fully repainted. But in these final years, many that were became black. I am unaware of any "Woolwiches" were ever treated thus, so staying green in final steam days is playing safe. Within CIE loco classes, most ended their days with all remaining examples grey. I have two of these, both green. I intend to lightly weather one and (vandalistic that it will seem) heavily weather the other one within an inch of its life, to replicate a colour pic I saw of one some years ago. Livery-wise, the 400 class were also painted green, though at least two of these ended their days either in black or very heavily work-stained grey. Steam engines were dirty things. There's a photo in one of the books of a 400 at Inchicore. The tender is green, but so filthy you can't see the lining; I wonder was it an exception without any? But the engine has just got to be black. Things got mixed up. Tenders were routinely swopped. Maybe the engine IS green... but it LOOKS black. Think of the number of blue GNR engines on which the domes look black, maybe the boiler too; Ernie's photo of an S class at Adelaide posted the other day shows this. And look at pics of Donegal tanks - even some Donegal experts today will insist that they actually had black domes - they didn't. They just never cleaned the domes and boilers, but they did the tanks and cabsides... I saw this in India too in the 1970s. I digress; some here will be reaching for their smelling salts. But I hope that has answered your question. In self-isolation, one has to pass one's time as a tea-guzzling keyboard warrior of an evening......................... You're quite right - it's not its original tender. Most of them got new tenders as long ago as the 1915-20 period. For some years, many at Whitehead insisted that it was off a 400-class but it isn't one of those either. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if some 400 ended up with a tender of that type at some stage, and maybe it was last seen with a 400, but it's not one of that type. Inchicore tried to standardise on tenders and various tenders designs were intended for more than one class of loco. Thus, it is now impossible to tell what locomotive class or number this tender was originally paired with. The same, of course, is true, of the RPSI's ex-GNR engines.

.....and could very well have been swopped from time to time, like almost every single part of any steam engine. The RPSI's 184 and 186 have numerous bits with the numbers of other engine stamped on them. I believe 461 and 462 swopped boilers at one time - a variation within a class of but TWO locomotives! When I was in Indonesia in the late 70s / early 80s chasing the last of their steam, the loco livery included the loco number painted on both the tender and the cabside. I went to Madiun to see the legendary B50s, of which only about ten of the original sixty were still in traffic - nominally, at any rate; the daily traffic requirement was for two or at most three. So, B5006 had the tender of B5010, while the tender from long-scrapped B5001 was behind either B5012 or B5004, one or the other. Oher 4.4.0s and other tender engines were the same. C1101 had connecting rods stamped with the number of a different C11. It was the same here! talk about Trigger's Brush..... hardly a thing on 186 today, if indeed, literally ANYTHING at all, is original from 1879.

1st & last Inchicore 2nd Queens Quay 3rd Rocksavage The van in the 3rd last is a standard covered van - there's a plank thing in front of it making it look like a cattle van.

Thinking of getting GSR numberplates for one and painting it grey, in the hope of someday have a few GSR-liveried coaches to run behind it. Then I can cover 1945-55-65......1970 max! Beyond that it's brown wagons, diseasels and all that oul shtuff! Actually, who is it that does those GSW / GS / CIE numberplates?

I've a couple of those locos. I've never run them so I don't even know what state they're in. However, my question: are they easy to convert to DCC?