jhb171achill

At last, a new year and a new layout, after a gap of many years with a garden railway dismantled some 6 years ago, and the Austrian 009 in boxes for longer. I'm really starting from scratch here, and plan to show bits and pieces as this develops. It truly is at start stage now, as all i have are two coach kits, a signal cabin kit, a 141 and a J15. The layout will be based on an imaginary GSWR outer terminus, something like Valentia Harbour, inspired by Westport Quay, Baltimore, and the like. The idea is that there's a long branch from somewhere civilised, where the Dublin trains arrive, and this outer outpost was probably built in 1890 with thoroughly unrealistic expectations as to how busy it would become! Result - it's become a backwater off a backwater, surviving only because of beet and maybe (like Westport Quay) to bring an oil tank full of diesel for CIE buses down every so often. It's the mid 60s, and the line hasn't long left - it will eventually succumb to the 1967 round of closures which killed the Mallow-Waterford and Thurles-Clonmel lines. That's the setting. I had agonised for quite some time as to whether to resurrect my 009 stuff, as German and Austrian narrow gauge has always been a big interest of mine. Using 9mm gauge would have allowed a significantly sized terminus for long distance trains - a Corris-type thing with a few tiny slate wagons was never of much interest to me personally. On the other hand, as Leslie, Murphys, SSM and others here brought out more and more "proper" Irish stuff, I became tempted. Trouble was, like so many others here, space was at a premium, and the only way to do a "round-and-round" 00 gauge was to go into the garage. This place is used by daughter's car, so it would be necessary to have it on some sort of electric hoist when the car was in. After some consultation with one of our experts here, it became clear that this is only going to happen when i win the Euromillions. Since I don't buy tickets, I have to concede that this is unlikely to happen any time soon. So it was back into the house. A chance conversation with someone in the 009 Society (of which I am a member) suggested selling the lot of Austrian stuff - in fact, I advertised them here too. I am also a member of the Austrian Railway Group, and I advertised them there too. So it was back to the area once reserved for an 009 layout. It became clear that a shunting / fiddle yard layout is all that's possible here, so there it is; the genesis for the idea. What it will lack in operational possibilities (in terms of a continuous run and terminus shunting), it will hopefully make up for in other ways. Small outer termini like those referred to above tended not to change much through their lives. We see Arigna Road, Bantry and so on - you could put stock dating from typical scenes in the 1930s there, and 1960s, and neither would look out of place. Thus, to provide interest, I intend to eventually have a set of stock around 1945 (GSR maroon gives way to CIE dark green era), another set to deal with mid to late fifties; this allows laminates, early diesels and Park Royals to appear, and by degrees, we're out of the grey'n'green era into the black'n'tan. So what it lacks in operational variety, it will hopefully make up for in rolling stock interest. Things like J15s and six-wheeled coaches will span all of these periods, as will many wagons. I'm currently in discussions with Baseboard Dave and others - updates will be posted as things develop during the year. I post this initially as I'm aware that there are others here with issues about space, and thoughts on how to deal with it. I did consider N gauge, but until and unless there are a good range of high quality kits, or better still, RTR stuff, this isn't going to happen for either myself or many others. Maybe, in ten years time, there will be enough N stuff - for example, one might expect 3D printing to improve drastically in quality, but we'll see. I intend to have this finished to a high exhibition standard and displayed. But that won't happen overnight, and will involve me perusing in great detail the scenic works of a number of maestros, like the Holmans of Arigna, for example.

Tis a mountain railway, Broithe.......!

I'm no expert on buses, so I seek guidance. Current layout in preparation involves a rural location mid fifties to mid sixties. So a double decker with "Drimnagh" or "46A" on the destination blind won't cut the mustard! The old half-cab single deckers in rural areas - were they P class? - where would I get two 00 scale models of these, one in CIE green and one in red and cream; also an E class as seen in late 1960s in rural locations?

Got it! But it won't download..... keeps going on about loading it into Dropbox, then nothing happens.....

Draught Bushmills!! It's your round, Leslie, and everyone's invited!

Now that I've mastered the dark arts of uploading pictures on something that isn't steam-powered, the attached is ACTUAL GSWR / GSR / CIE loco grey. The model was made by HJA, i.e. Jhb171Snr.Snr., about 1915, not exactly sure when. It's "0" gauge coarse scale, and unpowered. He graduated from making this model to doing the draughtsman-work for the 800 class! 186, as presently seen at Whitehead, is in this livery, and apart from the fact that they've deliberately let the smokebox get "blacker", in a thoroughly misguided attempt to make it look "more normal", the shade is absolutely correct. Lets hope they never repaint it black, as the RPSI had it some years ago - completely unauthentically. For those interested in correct grey as seen under all three administrations 1915/8 - 1963, the attached should be of interest. I have deliberately shown the model both in full light and shadow. As you can see, the grey is in between wagon grey and extremely dark grey. I might add to the above that Seniorx2 took a small jamjar into work with him one day, went to the paint shop and filled it. Several locos were in for painting. Senior recalled seeing, on a single occasion, a J15 sitting outside the paint shop at Inchicore with the paint hardly dry. Unusually, it was in noticeably lighter wagon grey all over. Probably a bit like an 071 today. Once in use, it wouldn't have looked too pristine for very long!

I was told this in the mid 1970s while on a CIE "Runabout" ticket in Tralee. I had arrived behind an "A", three laminates and a tin heating van, probably one of the last in service. The yard was busy with another "A" shunting in preparation for the up goods. All loose-coupled, mostly "H" vans. i went walkabout to explore the still very much intact T & D station, Basin Halt and Blennerville station - all intact, though Blennerville was roofless. Basin was by now a well cared for house, but the platform (full height if I remember correctly; highly unusual for Irish narrow gauge and unique on this system) was still there. I met a man who walked with me much of the way. He had been s track worker on the T & D, later in the "broad gauge" station. He recounted a summer evening about 1940, just after he started on the railway, obviously by this stage under GSR auspices. Sadly, though I'm glad to say practically uniquely, he had a poor opinion of Americans. (How VERY wrong he was!). When he started on the railway, passenger services had ceased only about nine months earlier, and the railway still LOOKED as if it catered for them - especially with a rake of maroon passenger stock parked in the station just opposite the platform. Our friend and his colleagues were carrying out routine maintenance work on the platform road and run round loop. By now, there was but one goods train per day to Dingle; the two daily passenger trains were history. A well dressed American enters the station and approaches our track-fixing friend. "Say, buddy, I was told this is the railroad station. I'm looking to travel to Dingle. Do you work here?" (The answers to all of the above were quite obvious). "Yes". .....Pause.... "Say, how long does it take by train?" "Lasht time I was on it, a couple hours". "Oh, ok, I didn't realise it took that long...." "Ah but sure the express is quicker". "There's an express? How long does that take?" "Jusht twenty five minutes", said the heavy Kerry accent. "But it's away now. Ye'd be better coming back tomorrow".... The American gentleman thanked him and left.... He never saw him again.

I was told this in the mid 1970s while on a CIE "Runabout" ticket in Tralee. I had arrived behind an "A", three laminates and a tin heating van, probably one of the last in service. The yard was busy with another "A" shunting in preparation for the up goods. All loose-coupled, mostly "H" vans. I went walkabout to explore the still very much intact T & D station, Basin Halt and Blennerville station - all intact, though Blennerville was roofless. Basin was by now a well cared for house, but the platform (full height if I remember correctly; highly unusual for Irish narrow gauge and unique on this system) was still there. I met a man who walked with me much of the way. He had been s track worker on the T & D, later in the "broad gauge" station. He recounted a summer evening about 1940, just after he started on the railway, obviously by this stage under GSR auspices. Sadly, though I'm glad to say practically uniquely, he had a poor opinion of Americans. (How VERY wrong he was!). When he started on the railway, passenger services had ceased only about nine months earlier, and the railway still LOOKED as if it catered for them - especially with a rake of maroon passenger stock parked in the station just opposite the platform. Our friend and his colleagues were carrying out routine maintenance work on the platform road and run round loop. By now, there was but one goods train per day to Dingle; the two daily passenger trains were history. A well dressed American enters the station and approaches our track-fixing friend. "Say, buddy, I was told this is the railroad station. I'm looking to travel to Dingle. Do you work here?" (The answers to all of the above were quite obvious). "Yes". .....Pause.... "Say, how long does it take by train?" "Lasht time I was on it, a couple hours". "Oh, ok, I didn't realise it took that long...." "Ah but sure the express is quicker". "There's an express? How long does that take?" "Jusht twenty five minutes", said the heavy Kerry accent. "But it's away now. Ye'd be better coming back tomorrow".... The American gentleman thanked him and left.... He never saw him again.

You too, sir!

Does it do railway stuff?

Where did you get the Gaelic script font for the nameboard on the signal cabin? It's spot on - most modern Irish fonts are nothing like what the GSR used on those enamel signs.

Leslie, it's NY Day. So - the bubbles you speak of - are they in a champers bottle, or do they run on rails? A very happy and successful New Year to you, by the way!

Tis actually a true story..... the man who told me this was a reliable oul shtick. Passed away in the 1970s.

Me on the Falling-Down Lotion now... I found the pic below and decided to see to see if I could attach it the right way up on this new version of the website - in preparation to looking for the GSWR grey one.... Tis a scandal that not ONE main line loco has been preserved in working order today in Spain. Unless, hopefully, someone can correct me? There was one in the recent sat, but it's grounded now. Imagine this broad gauge yoke in full cry! Magnificent!

Lisburn, about 1943. The second world war is in full party mode, and the American forces are based near Aldergrove Airport. The GNR and the N. I. Government and US officials are liasing at very top level with London with regard to construction of their air base there - always extremely conscious of German or German-sympathetic spies out'n'about. A train load of sand is organised from Belfast docks to Aldergrove late in the evening. Such is the secrecy, the crew are not told until the last minute that they are needed for a "special", and there is no mention in any circular or notice. Dunmurry and Lisburn cabins are notified by telephone, not long before the train leaves Adelaide, where the loco has been serviced. The instructions from the high command are that this train is to be given absolute priority over everything else, with the last down "Enterprise" held for a short while at Goraghwood or Portadown or somewhere on its way north, and local trains swept aside. It is to go non-stop; a loose coupled train of some 30 wagons of sand with a brake van at the end. (I'm not sure what the loco was, but it certainly wasn't one of the faceless blue tin cans of today!). The train enters the back platform at Lisburn, and finds a red signal against it. Within a few moments, the arm has dropped and the train has the road, but not before it's stopped momentarily. The driver is a little heavy handed, having been on the soup in Belfast before being told hurriedly that he had to take the train. He yanks the couplings, and off one of them comes off - on the loco tender! The loco coupling is also damaged. Shock, horror and panic. Up to the signal cabin goes the fireman, and a hurried phone call is made to Adelaide for another locomotive. As the fireman returns to the loco, he sees the driver walking, somewhat unsteadily, along the platform, with the guard, who is his drinking buddy. "We're going for one over the road in the Robin's Nest" they say. "Look after the engine!". The fireman returns to the footplate. Meanwhile, in the station, all hell breaks loose. The Traffic Department are already through their third change of undergarments in Belfast as the US Military authorities are shouting blue murder about where the train is. They try to calm the situation. The signalman tells them that the crew are attending to a "small matter" on the locomotive. "WHAT SMALL MATTER!!!!!!" the Americans, and Traffic Department want to know. After what seems like an eternity, the relief loco appears, and the arriving crew switch to the cripple to take it back to Adelaide. The leading coupling of the leading wagon is also damaged, so the decision is taken to shunt the train and take one wagon off. The fireman is sent to get the driver and guard. The guard is well oiled in the bar, while the driver is way off course, frolicking in the meadows with the Sweetie Mice and barely able to stand. He's put away about six pints on top of what he already had before getting onto the engine in Belfast! They assist him across the road, and get him onto his engine. The crew of the other loco assist. He sits down on the coal in the tender and wants to sleep. They manage to rouse him and persuade him to sit, somehow, perched, on the driver's seat. A quick conference discusses whether the fireman is happy to try to take the train up the branch on his own. No signal checks, he's told, and just keep the speed slow. The plan is made. The cold night air summons some sort of coherence into the driver, who decides he can drive after all. The rest of them suggest he has a cup of tea in the van, or something like that, but the fireman doesn't want to be alone at the front. They prop the driver up and he just sits there, a stupified look on his face. Meanwhile, the phones are on fire, and Captain Mainwaring is going purple and having Advanced Fits of the Multiple Conniptions, Collywobbles, Advanced Hysterical Murmurings and Screaming Fits. So is Col. Uncle Sam Chuck Elmer Sanders III Jnr. from Minnesota, at his desk in Aldergrove. The driver of the other locomotive, who has done most of the shunting, prepares to take the cripple back to Belfast. As he passes the fireman of the sand train, now on his own footplate, he yells across to him, "Say Nathin'!"

You took, Heirflick! Have a good one!

HNY to everyone here!

Absolutely no idea, minister! Good point....

I will look for a pic if my grandfather's model (from about 1915).... it has genuine paint in it. I posted it here somewhere years ago. The above isn't actually too bad, considering it's weathered; very very slightly lighter, maybe, but not much. Happy new year to all here!

Now I won't be able to sleep, and I might even spill me crisps!

What if it drifts to almost 4cm at the side of kerbs? We're all doomed, I tell ye!

That man had quite a few! It recalls many others I was told years ago by various old railwaymen, including jhbSenior and others...... priceless stuff..... Senior recalled a cattle special being shunted in Enniskillen about 1953. Several Sligo Leitrim wagons were at the very front of a heavy train (which would mostly have been GNR or CIE stock). The leading one was somewhat tatty looking - clearly, it had seen better days. They backed up the loco to take it to Belfast, and awaited the road. The signal dropped, the loco whistled, and started to move. The loco moved all right, but the train stayed where it was. The drawgear on the front wagon was pulled clean off!

A third tale from my late friend, Billy, who joined the GSWR about 1917 and retired in the mid 1960s. He lived to be 103, dying just a few years ago. This concerns overnight turns at Limerick Junction, where there was a locomen's dorm - the remains of which are bricked up and still visible as a lean-to at the back of the loco shed there. "I had empty wagons for a fair down towards Tipperary or Cahir, and I had to take them to the junction. We didn't get there till late, and I had a goods the following morning, so we (note: he plus driver; Billy was still a fireman then, so it's 1920s) stayed over in the dorm. Now it was haunted. There was a man in Cork, his name was Harry, like Harry Potter! He was a very nervous man. If he was running late he would never try to make up time - just plodded along and held up every other train on the railway. He was due in too. Well, myself and Ned (note; his driver) were in this room, and there were three beds. Ned knew the ropes, so he says to me "just do what I do and we'll have a bit of fun". He told me there was a ghost but not to worry. I wasn't worried because when I joined in Tuam in 1918 they tried to scare me with ghost stories, moving my bucket of oily rags about and all that, but I had found out! Well, we bedded down. There were hard wooden planks as a floor. We left the middle bed alone and took the ones next the walls. After a while yer man Harry comes tiptoeing in, thinking we're asleep. He had a candle. We heard him sit down on the bed as quietly as he could. He thought we were asleep. Ned starts snoring. I knew Ned was awake, so I made a snoring noise too. Next thing yer man blows out his candle and we hear the bed springs going as he gets into bed. Next thing I hear footsteps in the pitch black. I know it's Ned, leaning over his bed and moving his boots on the floor. Yer man Harry, well he sits up like a bolt and he says "Lads!! Did yez hear that!" "What?" says Ned, "hear what?" "NOISES!" sez yer man. "Noises, like feet marching!" "There's no noises, ye eejit" said Ned, "you woke me up! Go back to sleep!" Five minutes later I did the same thing. I reached under my bed. It's pitch dark, so nobody could see anything. I made my boot make noises like its walking. This time, Harry's up again "Lads! Lads! Ye must have heard that! There's FOOTSTEPS! I heard it! Ned says to him "Will you ever shut up and go to sleep! There's no noises! You're IMAGINING IT!! I didn't hear anything!" Harry gets up, drags the blanket with him, and goes off, running across the track, and there was a hard frost that night, and across the tracks to the Ladies Waiting Room, where there's still the embers of a fire. He slept on the floor. I heard that when he got back to Cork, he went to his foreman, pins him to the wall and says "if you EVER send me to the Junction overnight again, I'm resigning there and then!!!" In those days, there wasn't much work, so nobody said that lightly. But I don't remember meeting him again..........."

Another true story from the west. It's the mid 1940s, and Sligo has reported a loco with several faults. Authority deems it necessary to take it to Limerick for repairs. Our man Billy, the driver, a staunch Southern man (i.e. GSWR / Burma Road origin, not MGWR!) is tasked with taking the engine from either Tuam or Athenry - I don't remember exactly. It had travelled under its own steam light from Sligo, and the driver getting off warns Billy that the brakes aren't great - this, in fact is one of several faults reported. To his disdain, Billy finds that the loco is an ex-MGWR type. He has driven them before, but rarely, and isn't impressed. It was actually a J18, the Midland's answer to the GSWR's J15s, and by most accounts, just as good. Billy doesn't like driving from the other side, a feature of Midland engines. "Well, I got up onto it and we got the road. I had been told to take it handy because the brakes weren't the best order. I crawled past gate crossings because sometimes when it was a light engine the woman in the cottage mightn't be expecting you, and several gates were closed as I approached them, but I slowed right down and whistled like mad and they opened them. Near Gort, there was this crossing and the gates were across the track. I whistled like mad, long and hard, and no sign of yer woman. I knew her well. She kept pigs and a few hens in a patch on the lineside. I slowed, but now the brakes wouldn't hold the engine and we drifted up towards the gate. We were only walking pace. I sez to the fireman, "I can't hold her", and just then yer wan comes chargin' out of the house in her bare feet and apron, straight in front of the engine, shouting all over the place "Me pigs! Me pigs! Me pigs!". There were two of them on the track. She got the pigs shoved off to one side and I went through the gates. I tell ye, I'd give her pigs all right..... I gave her a right piece of my mind. Those oul Midland engines, they were no good. Broadstone hadn't a clue how to look after them. Limerick was ok - there were still a few old Waterford men about. But if you wanted a job done properly, you had to send it to Inchicore. I never liked Midland engines, yet when I drove the up day mail from Galway for years, it was always a Woolwich... they were good engines...... That engine, that day, I heard, was taken to Inchicore about six months later and scrapped." Will tales like that emerge in sixty years time about ICRs and CAFs? I doubt it...!

This was recounted to me by a now-deceased former driver, the only living flesh and blood I ever spoke with, who was able to tell me he started his railway career under the GSWR, not GSR or CIE! I met Billy at my first ever book launch in 2002, and at that time he was (I think) 98. He would live, in full command of his mental and most physical faculties, to see 103. Now, he resides in that Great Locomotive Shed in the sky, where all is, of course, GSWR - none of that NCC or GNR or MGWR nonsense. "I was in Tuam. The allocation was six 101 class*, and I was told to polish this one till it shone on my first night. I made sure you could see the lining everywhere it was**. Years later, I was driver and once a month, the time of Ennis fair, a light engine and van had to go to Sligo to collect empty cattle wagons. We'd bring about 40 of them down to Ennis and run on through to the Junction***. We stayed in the dorm and went back next day to collect the full ones from the fair. I didn't always get this job, but one time when I did, we arrived in Sligo and the cattle guard who came onto the van was a big, big tall fella, I forget his name. We picked up a few wagons there and a few more at places like Swinford and Tubbercurry, and we had to wait in Tubbercurry while the up and down trains crossed us. I think a goods crossed us too. So we were looped there for a good while. We got the fry going on the footplate. I had a loaf and the fireman had a pound of rashers. Anyway, we're getting the tea going and the guard comes along the track, and he sez to us "Lads, I'm starving, would you ever have a few rashers?" I invited him up - certainly, we have, I said, take a few. Well, he scoffed almost the lot. I thought he's a big lad, and must have been really hungry, so we let it go and arrived in Ennis later that day absolutely starved. A couple of months later, I was on that run again and didn't the same man do the same thing. Ate us out of house and home. I then discovered he had a reputation. He would take anything anyone gave him, and make himself scarce when it was his turn. He counted his money. He would borrow money and not pay it back. He would try to avoid paying for things he was supposed to pay for. I decided to teach him a lesson. Next month, I put myself forward for that run. The foreman was surprised, because nobody liked doing that cattle run. We pulled into Tubbercurry to cross the up and down, and we got the fry and the tea on as usual. Along came the guard. I sez to him, "sure, c'mon up, we've loads and I've eaten already". We had two packs of rashers. One was really nice stuff from the local butcher, but the other pack was old. There was a green sheen on the rashers - they were going off, maybe beginning to rot. Myself and the fireman, we had had the good ones. We did the whole pack of the others - a pound of them, I'm sure - and didn't yer man eat the whole lot. Well, he went back to his van. Later that day, we pulled into Athenry, and the wagons were hunting **** and the brake was slow coming on. I thought there's something up with the brake, so I went down to the van. Well, yer man was leaning over the balcony of the brake van, white as a sheet. There was vomit all over the floor of the van. He could hardly stand. He'd got severe food poisoning. He never came near us again". - A worthy cautionary tale for those who take a drink, but vanish when it's their round! * J15s. It seems that any ex-WLWR locos had been taken elsewhere by this time - about 1935 / 40. ** I thought initially "locos didn't have lining".... then I realised - he was talking about 1918/20; they were only starting to paint them all grey - he obviously had one still in pre-1915 GSWR lined black! *** Limerick Junction. **** "Hunting" meant jerking back and forth; these were loose-coupled wagons, of course. The guard's job was to manually manage the brake impeding wagons as they ran down hill with the brake wheel - skills entirely lost nowadays with boring air-braked unit trains!