jhb171achill

These models tend to be challenging. They require a great deal of maintenance and can be unpredictable. Running is often pretty smooth, but can also be off and on, rough and breakdowns are inevitable. It is always advisable to keep them well oiled.

There's always plastic surgery, Jason......! A new chassis and couplings could be fitted, and the whole thing clad in a new livery. Donald, for example, has accurate IE tan, though I'd be worried about where the Tippex stripes are.

Didn’t ye know that, Brassnut? He also presided over the closure of many, many other lines including the entire West Cork, the Tramore line, and the remaining narrow gauge.

Anyone got one they’d like to sell? Looking for original 1963 livery only. Weathered or unweathered. DCC ideal, but either will do.

Which livery?

I have just ordered three of these beasts, following a visit to IRM Towers (and their Esteemed Teapot), during this afternoon’s monsoon. The lengths we go to. So I braved my way home through monsoon, tsunamis, floods, plagues of locusts and typhoons in Rathfarnham.

CIE.

Probably the single most important missing link for the 1950-85 (35 years!!) period missing now is the AEC railcar. This is the only thing which spanned the steam era, the green’n’grey era, the black’n’tan era, and in the form of push-pulls the Supertrain era. By the mid 1950s they monopolised many CIE main line services, if not most in some areas. They even made it to West Cork, Tramore, Omagh, Enniskillen and Newcastle. They ran on the Dublin to Belfast, Dublin to Cork lines, the entire MGWR, and Sligo to Limerick to Tralee and Waterford. An AEC is as essential to a (main line) GNR setting as steam engines are. It is EVERY bit as essential to the CIE scene as green six-wheelers, “H” vans and J15s. It is as irreplaceable to this entire period as a DART is to a model railway of Connolly Station in 2018, or a 141 and 071 and Mk 2s to ANY 1980s layout. Any ex-GN area UTA or NIR based layout of 1958-74 period needs them too. For such s long period in railway history, comparatively few liveries are needed. 1. GNR dark blue & cream 2. CIE green - darker with simplified lining 3. CIE later green 4. CIE black’n’tan 5. UTA green with wasp stripes 6. GNR livery with UTA markings ** 7. UTA lighter blue & cream - narrow cream band ** 8. UTA lighter blue & cream - broader cream band 9. NIR maroon and light grey. 10. Black-ended black’n’tan for pushpull cars in CIE livery. (** Versions 6, 7, & 8 were both extremely short lived and in all three cases only applied to a few examples, not (and nothing like) the whole fleet.)

Probably IRM have offered to print “MasterCard FINAL DEMAND” on your package. With a choice of liveries, you also have a choice of messsges. Other variations are: CAUTION - Live Spiders Marks & Spencers Charge Card Bill Bank Statement (Bank Debt Recovery Unit) .......yer woman will NEVER open them!

If there was such a thing I’d be on it for a long term future project I have in mind.

IRM have offered to print “MasterCard FINAL DEMAND” on your package. With a choice of liveries, you also have a choice of messsges. Other variations are: CAUTION - Live Spiders Marks & Spencers Charge Card Bill Bank Statement (Bank Debt Recovery Unit) .......yer woman will NEVER open them!

Lonely farmer aged 71 looking for nice wife. Must be able to cook, clean, dig and stack turf, sow, dig and cook potatoes. Must be able to bear and raise ten children. Must be able to repair stone walls, re-thatch roofs, help with building and funding the layout, and help with calving and the lamb season. Must be able to sow and harvest crops. Must be able to drive the tractor. Please enclose photograph (of tractor)..... Kadees or other couplings?

It would be interesting to know the last six, which presumably included 3, 15 and 39. I think - but can't be certain without delving into IRRS journals (and I've no time this morning!) that the final six went more or less togetherness? Great to see 3 & 39 preserved in working, or near-to-working order, thanks to the tremendous efforts of the ITG.

That is indeed the reason that about six A class were retained longer than they otherwise would face been - Tara.

Suitable rolling stock could vary from GNR K15s in green or black’n’tan, to (new!) Cravens, a few surviving wooden GSWR corridor bogies, various varieties of laminates and Park Royals, and surviving Bredins and CIE 1951-3 stock (broadly modelled on Bredins).

I remember watching a train with a tin van at each end, and eleven bogies in between on the main line once, headed by a pair of 141s, I think. Within the consist were two or three Cravens, not all together, at least two varieties of Laminates, Park Royals and one other - I can't recall, but it was either an ex-GNR coach or a Bredin..... that was common, indeed, the norm.

@jhb171achill might know if this was an early freight livery or it was just pre Black'n'Tan after Green. An A class would look well too, especially as its pre-rebuild without the head light box. Yes, it was silver, then green, then black from about 1963 onwards for these beasts. Some at the very start got Black and Tan. Some, but not all of them acquired yellow patches during the all-black era, as above. You're looking at about 1964 (I'll check when I get a minute; might be 1965) until new engines 1969 onwards, after which they all reappeared with black'n'tan livery with low tan band. No loco of A, C, B101 or any class at all, ever had yellow patches on any livery other than all-black. So no Black and Tan with yellow patch. From memory, and photographs, my guess would be that maybe a third of the A and C class fleet would have had yellow patches in the late sixties. Maybe a quarter. I have no recollection of ever seeing a B101 treated this way, and be reasonably sure that none did carry yellow. Certainly, no 121, 141 or 181; no D, E or G, ever had yellow patches. It seemed to be an "A & C class thing".

Correct, flange. Never turned a wheel! The livery was indeed oddly attractive. I think it may have only been painted on one side.

The logo on the front is vaguely reminiscent of one used by PJKA, the Indonesian railway authority, in the 1960-80s period. But neither the loco, the livery, or the markings are any more Indonesian than they are Cavan & Leitrim. I would guess it’s a “makey-uppy” thing, like some of those early “CIE” models of crude British outline locos and coaches in even cruder “Irish” livery.

Excellent job!

I’ve been to one layout which is regularly featured here. I’m certain that it’s at least as big, if not bigger. The late jhb171Senior had an O gauge layout some 70ft X 20ft, I reckon; double track throughout with a return loop at one end and a branchline up the middle. Sadly long gone now!

That's some job! I knew Kevin had an extensive layout, but I'd never seen it! Mostly BR and continental it seems.

Only seeing this now - I have a 1970 one in good condition if it's any use? Was going to advertise it anyway for €20.

Indeed. A sight that could indeed be seen; equally, green stock behind a black, or black & tan loco. The earliest BnT on anything was 1962, and the latest about 1967. So for five years there’s a mixture. Similarly, all wagons without exception were grey, PW included (no garish yellow) until the very late sixties. First exception was the repaint of the bubbles into orange - though they retained their grey chassis. By about 1970, brown starts to appear, but by the end of loose coupled goods in 1976, a good quarter of all wagons (though few vans) were still grey. I photographed a H van still with a flying snail at Ballina in 1975. There was SO much variety then, locos, carriages, wagons, liveries. Now it’s just the same old ICRs, CAFs, and container flats. What has the world come to when enthusiasts have to turn to maintenance machines to see anything out of the ordinary! Whinge over. I await a nice black “A” class! Worth looking at the lettering font here. Models always seem to have hugely out of scale numbers. Is there a transfer anywhere of the correct font, I wonder? ”Arial” from the keyboard just doesn’t cut it!

I have to say that I found it very disappointing too, and not even good tv for the non-modeller. Other members of my household thought it was “a load of rubbish” (a bit harsh!!) or “boring”. I think I’d go with the latter. The dog snored during it. This gave it a bit of a lift!