jhb171achill

Very very hard to deduce identity of the coaching stock, but it could be Midland - though why a MGW train would be there doesn't make sense as far as I know. The windows look more "Midland" than "Southern" and if they were GSWR they'd look very much darker. Looking closer though, the brake coach is certainly not MGWR as it would have a birdcage at that stage. Now that'll bother MY version of OCD.....!

Yes, it is indeed the GSWR one. The MGWR one was a very different design indeed, with curved end corner panoramic windows but no open balcony. It was twelve wheeled and was probably the single most luxurious railway carriage ever to run in Ireland. Incidentally, any MGWR coach or wagon which survived into the GSR or CIE era had an "M" after its number, thus an ex-MGWR coach no. 139 would now be 139M.

Yes, all the above point to the reality - anything even distantly like Irish stuff is still do very far off the mark that it just won't look remotely right. Our carriages and locos were as different from British or mainland European stuff as they were from American. I suspect that you might be able to get something vaguely like a 121 class diesel (1962-2006) out of a model - if one exists - of an American SW1500 switcher, to which they were distantly related. Even then, considerable surgery on the front would be needed. All of the above has to apply, really, even for a "non-river-counter". One can only hope that improvements in 3D printing will eventually bring availability in N to Irish railway modelling. (Pat - N gauge J15, RTR, plus sixwheelers?)

The Shapeways stuff appears to be 3D printed, or some such similar procedure. With N, errors are magnified times two, as are features which are coarse. Thus, even finishing the body requires some dexterity, and painting is probably worse! I looked into this myself recently and regrettably decided against - but I'd be interested to see the results of such work elsewhere. Those carriages are no longer in service. There were just over 40 of them, entering traffic 1963/4 and the last withdrawn within the last ten years. They were known as "Cravens".

Best view I've seen of Rock Street Yard. I wish I had known about it to include in "Rails Through North Kerry"!

The proper broad gauge makes such a difference, though I suppose not financially accessible to all! Out of curiosity, I presume it would be simple enough to convert SSM, Leslie's, or Murphy stuff to 5ft 3 scale? What about Murphy Models locos?

This time last year I was actually planning to get a 171 D 800 but it's €1000 to book a special new number...... ...so a 151D had to do..... cheaper anyway!

Fifty.... There WERE sixteen. Garfield hid one to confuse us.

Those sleepers aren't the right livery........

Finally, locos. Given the total cosmetic neglect of many ex-GNR locos, you won't have many livery worries! Just weather a black model so much you wouldn't know what colour it had been painted! There's really little choice unless you scratchbuild. With poor light and the wrong glasses, the approximations will have to do. Of bought models: LMS 0.6.0 tender loco with altered cab - GNR "UG" for passenger and goods. LMS 4.4.0 tender loco with alterations - "S" class for passenger. Paint a dullish blue and weather until practically none of it can be seen! LMS Fairburn or Stanier 2.6.4T - for those of us who "need to go to specsavers", it would to as a "jeep". An all-steam layout? You will need a 4-car (not 2-car) railcar set. In 00, Silverfox have re-liveried a BR type in various Irish liveries. If that particular type is available in N, give it the dark green treatment and it'll do, with maybe a LMS Stanier third as an intermediate, plus a similar brake second. Tow a couple of brown-liveried (brown = fitted, to the UTA) goods vans behind it, and away ye go.

Now, here we are. I must emphasise first that N gauge modelling is where OO was in 1970. If you want Irish, and anything approaching accuracy, scratch building I should the ONLY show in town. If RTR stuff ever appears, it'll be 201s (the modern super-long type, not the "C" class - and Mk 3s! This means that for Omagh, the only alternative is repainted and/or altered British stuff, which is what I list below as probably the best options, and not suitable at all for a gauge larger than N. Coaching stock 1. Graham Farish LN03 57ft type. In green, vaguely like some GNR stock still in use then. Mid grey roof, UTA green sides, black ends and chassis. 2. There is a Southern Railway brake 2nd which isn't unlike some GNR brake seconds. 3. An LMS open standard, which is early in 00 convertible to a Bredin, is vaguely similar to some GNR main line stock of the 1947-54 period. There is a bogie BR wooden bodied parcel van which might be altered to an extent to make a decent approximation of the ubiquitous "P" vans which would be on most passenger trains. In terms of wagons, the occasional CIE "H" van can be arrived at by repainting a particular style of BR goods van, this also being useful in its wooden panelled style for some UTA vans. The UTA wagon grey was darker than CIE, but in your period quite simply never pristine. They knew they were running down goods traffic and wagons were rarely if ever painted, and frequently repaired with odd unpainted planks, planks in undercoat or some other random shade of grey or even brown. Therefore, like cement bubbles, for any attempt at realism, heavy weathering is essential (sorry, IRM!). CIE vans were neater, tidier and better looked after. For a goods brake, the best you can do is try to scratchbuild a GNR one, using Leslie's excellent 00 gauge model as a model - bear in mind, though, that the white roofs, cream vestibule interiors, and above all, the gaudy "Ivan"-esque zebra style vertical black ironwork strapping are all entirely inaccurate for any livery; all grey is yer only man. Such "livery" details are entirely Whitehead inventions. A CIE "tin van" might be an extremely rare visitor too.

The NCC generally copied much design-wise from the LMS. There are a number of standard LMS coaches which would be fine with just a repaint into UTA green. The trouble is, very very few ventured onto the Derry Road ever! None would have regularly been there at all, but maybe the odd one on a special. In N scale, being smaller, greater liberties can be taken by all but the absolute perfectionist. Worsley Works does N gauge sides for NCC "North Atlantic" stock, but these five vehicles never left the NCC. They also do CIE laminates, which made but two or three forays onto the line, I believe as far as Omagh only. And you'd need an N gauge 141 for that, which would be a Shapeways 3D print. This would be inaccurate for any other use on this layout whatsoever, and would be expensive and troublesome to make. So, GNR. A number of proprietary 0.6.0 locos could roughly approximate (in THIS scale, but not 00!) to common GNR types like the UG. I'll have a look at what coaches might do - there are several older LNER types which could be altered to look vaguely GNR wooden types - but can they be got in N scale? Some LMS types of post-1935 designs can look somewhat like post-1950 GNR stock. I'll post again after I've looked online at what N stuff is for sale. Ordinary N gauge open and flat wagons are fine with a repaint. For vans, again I'll have a look.

Regarding the CIE "broken wheel", the variations in its design were exceptionally few (2!) but extremely interesting. This logo, like its predecessor, the "flying snail", or its successors, the "set of points", the "three pin plug", and the "N-shaped flag", were always of the exact same dimensions and shape and size, even if there were rare colour variations. A single painted-on example of the "points" on a departmental wagon was the solitary variation I ever saw of ANY of the above bar the "wheel", which is the one we're talking about. The 071 class, when new, did NOT have the standard sized one now on 071 (nor the style of numeral it now carries), though it was (as on 071) untypically white. (Nor was it in the bright orange it now carries - it had a darker browny colour - this is another story...) On first and all subsequent repaints a standard broken wheel (or "roundel") was used. Its variant was Illinois-generated, with the wheel bit somewhat larger with thinner "bits" but greater gaps between them. The letters "CIE" were marginally thinner too. Look at a pic of an 071 when new and compare. Why am I wittering on about 071s in a post about bubbles? Because for some reason the roundel used when these things were CREAM was of the same sort of non standard dimensions, as exactly found on Mr Garfield's excellent* product. As introduced, these wagons were in the all over grey of all wagons back then, including PW stuff. When the actual bubble started appearing in orange, the chassis remained grey. In both of these liveries the broken wheel roundel was standard size and shape. Then in the cream (or ivory, as it's often called - but it was actually closer to cream), this oddball logo variant appeared, only to disappear again under "Irish Cement" branding. Pat & Co have captured it perfectly.l (* but there's ONE thing that none of the IRM ballasts have - a major omission, Pat. I haven't seen one with the empty mars bar wrapper I once threw into one.......).... Seriously, on an ongoing basis, I join the chorus who cannot praise IRM too much for developing these wagons - both the ballasts and the bubbles. Bring on the CIE cattle trucks and 30' six-wheelers! ;-)

Yes, I remember that too, heirflick..... Topped'n'tailed Enterprises and the Belfast / Dundalk goods with H vans and bubbles* going on forever, and a proper guards van instead of an oul tail light stuck on the back of a container truck..... not a bogie wagon in sight! And a black'n'tan 141 up front, no "pairs" then - a loco could do a day's work without help! (* ordinary wagon grey when I first saw them - orange with grey chassis later!)

Completion, I suppose, will depend on volunteer availability, so it's not easy to say when. It'll certainly be a few years, I would think. Yes, the plan is blue - same shade as the Cravens. Whether or not it will have cream upper areas will simply depend on the views of those who paint it! I suspect plain blue would be best.

That would be VERY nice! For RPSI, perfect! Worth remembering, though, from a historical perspective that she was never CIE green in real life - the Society did it like this as it's brighter than the correct all-grey, and to show what lined CIE green was like in traffic. The GSR used a lighter green with yellow and black lining, and applied it only to the trio of 800s. All other GSR locos without exception were grey.

You could have great fun with this idea! A practical use for Photoshop might be for a model-maker who was building something and wanted to see what it would look like in various liveries or detailing (e.g. different cabs on a steam engine) before committing it to permanence....

Aaaarrrrggghhhh! Me own book! Knew I'd seen it somewhere......and I wrote the caption for it! In the words of that great philosopher, "D'oh!"

ooooohhh!!

Matchsticks soaked in grey / brown cheap watercolour paint for wooden fence posts.

Wow! That'll bring to another level, not that that's easily achieved! Fantastic stuff - I'm sure i won't be the only one following this with great interest. Odd that they painted the "Unit" grey and the railcar brown - because the idea was that when the railcar power bogie was being serviced, they could remove the body from the "Unit" and stick it under the passenger car. I am unaware, despite the high mileage that the thing clocked up, as the absolute mainstay of almost ALL passenger services, of any eyewitness report of the "Unit" being coupled to the passenger saloon. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't. But to have both on the same layout is, as far as I am aware, a first. Now, the question is, can a modeller of even your great stature produce a working Fintona horse? I wouldn't be surprised! :-) Out of interest, is anyone else aware of the "Unit" being used with the railcar body?

Couldn't agree more. I read up on it today.

I may be interested, John. Equally in the D16. I suppose that come the day it would depend on the price, though I know it would be WELL worth it.

Thanks, Wrenn, very interesting. A disgraceful, disgusting way for the state to treat these men. I'm sure they wondered what sort of country they were wearing the uniforms of.

Usually the other way round - snails appearing on new navy or red liveries.