jhb171achill

Good to see a Dublin bus and two CIE diesels making inroads into Brexitland!

Done. (I voted for the Republican Loyalist Shinner Brexit Arlene Party).

Yes, re-engined Cs & 121s in "supertrain" livery. No genny vans; the gennies were in one of the ex-AEC cars.

GNR and NCC and GSR / CIE - pretty much the same, and I think the same wheelbase. Any RTR would do.

"The Farranfore to Valentia Harbour Railway" by Patrick O'Sullivan, volumes 1 and 2, were excellent publications by Oakwood Press about ten years ago. Within are several drawings of the corrugated iron sheeted station buildings along that line. Given the branch line nature of these buildings, they are a good size for any layout and could easily be scratch-built to have cement-rendered walls.

Most NIR opens were, as you say, cut down wooden opens. They were fairly standard across the board. Most were NCC with a few GNR - same design basically. Get one of Leslie's and give it a lick of paint (or, indeed, brake dust and filth!). If you want to scratch build, I don't know where you'd get a drawing - though many here might - but a few kits or bought standard wooden opens from one of the British lines would probably do too, unless you'd be a "rivet counter"!

Did a little research. Of the four CBPR 2.4.2Ts that went to Leitrim, two had specially cast numberplates and two had painted numbers. No. 12L had cream painted numbers - never cast plates, and was grey to the end. As mentioned towards the end it was, like other C & L locomotives, in very rough condition.

Happy January!

Happy New Year and best wishes to all here. Someone gimme a refill.

It was very dark grey, made darker very quickly by lack of care! As far as I can ascertain, one of the T & D locos on the C & L was the only narrow gauge engine to be painted black, and even that only in the last few years. Regarding 12L, I’ll delve. There was ONE of the Passage engines in the C & L which received a non-standard cast numberplate which it retained to the end, instead of a cream-painted number. It was very much smaller than the standard Inchicore plates as worn on West Clare or Dingle engines, and unusually the raised rim and number were picked out in red instead of cream.

Any of those things that I ever saw seemed very shabby, as mentioned above almost home-made bits added, and grubby.... I don’t think they lasted that long.

Heavily weathered grey will look amazing too - you could paint a locomotive as beautifully built as that, in purple with tartan spots and it would still look great!

Absolute beauty! Will it be in lined CBPR livery?

If it's been cashed, don't give up. if you want to privately PM me and give me your addesss, I know who (within the RPSI) deals with this. I will inform the relevant people.

I'd love to do Lisummon tunnel.....jhbSenior went part-way on the lifting train.... The line had been abandoned so long that saplings were growing between the rails, and many sleepers were rotten. As a result, a PW gang had to go out to repair the track so that the lifting train could get over it!

That is stunningly realistic and prototypically spot on. Absolutely superb work, and I agree with Mr Holman’s comments on small layout track detail - “Arigna Road” set a very high standard for this sort of thing a few years ago. On first seeing the pics above I was tempted to ask “where’s the photo of the model?”!

Interesting. I was unaware of them. Must have been extremely short lived.

In the photo with B131, what are the yokes in between the 4w container wagons, anyone know?

Great selection!

Great potential there!

Good thoughts, DJ!

I think the RPSI stock may be sold out now. I think but am not sure, I got the 2nd last one for a friend.

The Society still has one or two Mk 2 vehicles at Whitehead for future restoration. For those who don't know, the Society's stock of Mk 2s consists partly of vehicles from the original 1970 NIR "Enterprise" set, when the trio of ill-fated "Hunslets" were introduced. They looked very modern among NIR's increasingly dilapidated MED, MPD, AEC and BUT railcars, and elderly steam stock carriages. I remember seeing them for the first time when they were about a week in traffic. Other RPSI vehicles include ex-British Rail stock which actually never ran in Ireland at all, plus one or two that came from BR to NIR, to be used as 80-class centre cars or Enterprise stock. And one or two are ex-CIE / Irish Rail. I know that there are a couple of folks on here to state which is which. It's on the RPSI website anyway. The Society has four genny vans - two BR type and two "Dutch". Currently, the former are in Dublin and the latter at Whitehead. In each case, one in use, one not.

Many thanks, irishrailwayman. Just looked them up - very nice stuff, albeit perhaps a little pricey. Pity they're closing, all the same - might order one or two items.

What sort of a kit is that? I presume laser cut wood? Looks very well. Is the detail printed on or is it low-relief? Presumably door frames can be painted in a suitable colour?