jhb171achill

A pair of 121/141/181 roaring up the gullet with about eleven heavily loaded laminates & Park Royals (10:30 Dublin-Cork about 1977), or a single 141 lifting nine Mk 2s stuffed with commuters (Lisburn-Belfast about 1995-2000) was the best I ever recall hearing!

Six-wheelers were the majority of passenger stock well into the 20th century. In Ireland, four-wheelers in passenger service had as good as disappeared by 1890, bar the extremely few examples I mentioned above. Bogies became more commonplace by the 1920s, but six-wheelers were still extensively in use until the late 1950s, by which time they were increasingly confined to branch and secondary lines, West Cork, and the Cork and Dublin suburban services. The last ones in traffic were an excursion rake in Cork, withdrawn in 1963. Several ex-GSWR 6w passenger brake vans were in use until about 1966/7, and these were the only six-wheelers ever painted black’n’tan. No passenger-carrying ones ever were. One was used on the Galway line on the mail train as late as 1967. By that stage, it’s companions were laminates, Park Royals, Bredins, and the odd Craven. As Mayner states, some found departmental use. The last in such use appear to have been withdrawn about 1971. The last ones in use in passenger traffic were a mix of GSWR and MGWR origin. DSER examples were largely scrapped in early CIE days; I’m not sure why. Vehicles surviving in departmental use were all (as far as I know) of MGWR types. The last few passenger brakes in use (1963-7) were all GSWR types. I bought one for £60 and donated it to the RPSI......

A gentleman I knew, an Inchicore fitter who was called to fix breakdowns the odd time, had nothing good to say about Crossley “A”s or “C”s..... I don’t recall if he commented on B101s, though. He said that cracked fuel pipes and oil leaks were a major cause of failures, because they had put what was basically a marine diesel engine into a jolting, jarring railway locomotive. When I get my silver one, I’ll have to weather it with oil stains and general grime. Please don't tell IRM, though, or that Pat fella will cancel my order!

Actually, serious point: sieved turf ash might be a good colour and consistency for certain types of crushed sandy gravel?

I meant new-builds - What I think Murray meant was that in the 1890s such beasts were still running, as opposed to new builds at that time. The last four-wheeler in actual service that I’m aware of was a Midland third of very ancient ancestry, which was gutted and rebuilt as first class saloon, lasting until perhaps 1910-15 or so. The Hatton coaches are of more-or-less 1880s-1910s design. In. Ritalin they were still building new four wheelers WELL within that period, Anything four wheeled here was of much earlier design (1865-75 era), and as stated by Murray, likely to be in departmental use. A GSWR passenger brake of 1877 vintage, but an even earlier 1860s “flat-roofed” design, was put into departmental use by the GSR a long time ago, and still in such use with CIE in 1960 when it was scrapped, STILL in GSWR dark lake livery.

Curved ends would have limited them to a few W & L types. Good that they’re flat-ended. Important thing: Irish railways didn’t use 4-wheelers at all during the era (approx 1880-1915) when body designs of this type were in vogue. Thus, the only useful ones for Irish lines are the six-wheeled ones, though they’d need footboards for all lines. A pair of the bodies of the 4-wheeled ones would make a nice “generic” bogie coach.

Has anyone tried something like modelling clay smeared over the sleepers, with very fine ballast (like N scale gravel) rubbed into it? Just leaving rails showing like in the photo of the industrial siding above?

If they’re going to be like the drawings show, they’re closest to 1880s GSWR in design. BCDR: wrong window profile MGWR: wrong roof, window and body sides profile GNR(I) & DSER: wrong everything profile BNCR: BNCR stock had flat sides, so unsuitable for NCC overall. Oddball stuff: The Waterford & Wexford Railway had a couple of carriages which would be similar in generic design to these. With most today having little or no knowledge of the eclectic mix of stock the West Cork system had, one might run one on a layout based on the CBSCR without attracting too much comment. The CBSCR had several short bogie coaches of a design not that unlike these. A further thought - do they have full length foot boards? All but a very few one-off exceptions of 6-wheelers in Ireland had these. In Britain many didn’t.

Excellent news. I’d probably go for a couple, though I’d prefer Irish prototypes.

Exactly! I’ll have six, if so.

Yes, mixed feelings indeed. I’d rather see a greenway on a railway line than a widened road or a housing estate called Buckingham Lawns (in rural Ireland), or some such other stupid, inane, pretentious and inappropriate name. But: once the sanctimonious Lycra cycling dictatorship get in there, it would be easier to defeat the taliban than get the railway reopened, should a necessity arise. In reality, this “necessity” is exceptionally unlikely to arise, but I might be inclined to suggest that Foynes might be one to keep railborne. I do think that when they reopened Midleton, they should have gone on to Youghal.....

MORE detail!!!! Wow!

You shouldn’t pay to go into dodgy places like that. They’ll shaft you.

What happens here? You can dress up as a thief and rob all the houses. That's a boring one, as the Gardaí don't arrive. Or you can rob cars and joyride, and they'll appear and say "Is this your vaaa-HIKKLE, sir?" Or you can dress up as a Garda, and have coffee in a replica Blarney Woollen Mills cafe! Since it's in Italy you have to wave your arms every time you speak. The veteran politician Dick Spring might have been a dangerous person to sit beside.

I know this is VERY pedantic..... but I can't help wondering why they offer a GSR loco with red con-rods! Looks absolutely ridiculous....like a fertiliser wagon with tartan ends and pink bogies. I had garden railways in my last house, battery powered. I'd be tempted to re-jig the current (small) garden just to accommodate one of those locos (with grey con-rods!). Equally, no C & L loco was ever black. Ex-T & D No. 6 had a late repaint and looks grey in some photos, black in others - but no other narrow gauge steam engine was black. I simply note this as a small bit of historical info. From Accucraft these will be amazing. I will seek Garfield's advice as to whether a dozen or more ferts might be a better investment(!).....

I know a fella near the border who’ll lend us a JCB, if we split it three ways..... that’ll be six locomotives each, or thereabouts..

I would make it a bit more mixed, Tony, , maybe some litter about, a few small weeds, etc. I think a little grey wouldn't go amiss too . You have a nice looking ground texture which blends in well. Maybe a few things like oil drums sitting about, or a pile of some sort of stuff awaiting loading....... Rome wasn't built in a day and as others have said , it's more than ready for showing.

Folks, anyone who hasn’t visited this place ought to. It’s a superb museum, all the more so because it was all privately funded. You’re guaranteed a super-friendly reception too.

Absolutely excellent stuff! Well done! Love the wagons lying about awaiting unloading, just like the real thing.

Possibly a Fry model? Must check the list, though I don't remember seeing one among the actual models.

Well done Ernie, and Leslie! If I had the money I'd have gone for them too, though a bidding war would have been to nobody's advantage. Richard was very helpful to me with several research projects in the past.

Hi Ken Yes - main paintwork (large surfaces like wooden-boarded buildings like signal cabins), corrugated PW huts - cream. Doors, frames, etc., a leaf green colour quite like what would become CIE green. Railings and ironwork in stations, fencing etc, the same green usually. I have an idea occasionally dark grey or black but I could be wrong. Bridges were painted in red lead primer, and over that were painted a dark silvery grey.

Pure art! Excellent!

Same colour, normal orange. See photos above with carriages and an A class for comparison. All orange, all weathered! A point for the purist; the bogies painted black with blue and green bits is a modern variation. When operating with the CIE containers, B & I or Bells, the bogies were all brown. Presumably variations of both are included?

They were always orange, never yellow. As they aged, they began to look yellowish, as per the photo above taken at Mallow. Some looked slightly brownish, like the derelict one at Whitehead. But always orange, same as on carriages and locomotives, rather than the post-1990 brighter shade. Answering the other post about colour, this is exactly what they looked like in traffic. Initially painted the same orange colour as the lower half of carriages, they received less attention than carriages did, so they faded to the above. Outside my era but I might need one or two!