jhb171achill

Very true - most usually seen as a header on newspaper ads, and on road freight vehicles and early containers.

Following a couple of conversations I had, it was suggested to me that I delve into the Catacombs to list colours of "flying snails" here and there. So here goes. UNLINED WHITE Railway wagons, PW equipment. Note to modellers: weather instantly! One trip in use made them off white very rapidly - same with white anything on a railway. Pristine A4 paper white will always look unrealistic on a layout for that reason. Never any locos. YELLOW, LINED New 121 class locos and grey / yellow buses. Never steam locos. PALE GREEN, UNLINED Pre-1955-ish - some wagons, often horse boxes, cattle trucks and old vans. Not more modern goods stock - these were white. After 1955, while wagons are gaining white snails, once the lighter green carriage livery came in, unlined eau-de-nil (and even lighter green) appears on carriage sides. In addition, older lined ones are used - see next: PALE GREEN, OR "EAU-DE-NIL", LINED IN GOLD Carriages in 1945-55 darker ("bus / loco") green. After the lighter green appeared in 1955, some older stock like six-wheelers had the lighter green, but lined snails. All buses carried this lined light green version 1945* to 1962, as did any steam loco tenders which carried a snail at all, which was most of them. A right-handed version was available too, which was applied to the offside of buses (i.e. driver's side) and tenders, only. This lined version was also on road freight vehicles. They never carried the unlined ones, so beloved of model lorry and bus manufacturers - nor did buses! All steam locos, whether lined green, normal grey, or black. Tank engines never had logos - they were only applied to tenders, and even at that, quite a few tenders didn't have them. That's all I can think of for now - I hope it's of interest!

That is a truly superb story. While I know it's probably not the stuff of a model railway website, I was unaware of how (and now wonder why) these men were so treated on their return. Did the state ever apologise? If not it seems long overdue.

I replied to that one - a very rare oddity, and possibly - if not probably - a one-off. They started painting buses in the new livery about the end of 1961 / early 1962, at which time the snail was still in bogie. For maybe some weeks, snails were applied to both red and cream "country" buses and navy and cream city ones. Thus, snails on new livery buses, while not at all common, were indeed to be seen. And they were white, not gold-lined "eau-de-nil" light green. Therefore, the above represents a one-off attempt by somebody in a bus garage to apply the new badge to an old bus. Possibly it received a scratch along the side at some stage after the new logo had come in, and rather than give the bus it's overdue new livery repaint, they touched up the area in green and stuck the new logo on. It is therefore possible that the other side had a snail. Another likely reason is that it's maybe 1963 or 4, and they run out of right-hand facing snails, which adorned buses on this side, steam loco tenders, and nothing else. If so, it's understandable they've none left as (a) steam is finished, and (b) bus repaints have the new logo anyway! This type of thing is not unusual at a time of livery change. Immediately after the GNR was taken over by CIE in September 1958, locos about to be outshopped from Dundalk emerged in full lined blue (passenger) or unlined black (everything else) but without the GNR crest or lettering "G N" or "G N R". Around 1987-90, a few diesels appeared with old CIE "Supertrain" livery, as yet un-repainted with "tippex" white stripes - but with the new IE "set of points" logo. One engine at least had then on the sides, but CIE "roundels" still on the ends. Today, we can see an occasional ICR with no less than three variations from the normal IE coloured "flag" logo. A very small number of ICR vehicles have the wording but no flag, all-white logo and wording, or all-black wording and logo. In steam days, the RPSIs No. 4 carried a UTA crest on one side, and a new NIR logo on the other for a while. On CIE, while some tenders had eau-de-nil snails on their tenders, others had plain tenders. (None had yellow, cream or white snails!). Locos which still retained numberplates usually had the raised edges and numerals picked out in light yellow, but in some cases this applied only to the numbers. In GSR days, plates were very occasionally just painted over. At the very end of steam on CIE, one J15 based in Cork, one Bandon Tank, and one ex-MGWR G2, had black smokeboxes but the rest grey, instead of a grey smokebox as usual. Currently, several Isle of Man coaches have neither crests nor even numbers due to being needed in traffic before they were ready! There are always interesting variations. On David Holman's truly excellent Arigna Road, we have a superb model of the dark red locomotive that the CVR had - the others were green! And look at NIR's three 071s. I reckon that no two repaints of any of the trio have a yellow patch the same size and shape! In latter days, IE started using a different font for loco numerals. Those on 146 at Downpatrick (which are IE originals) are of this later non standard font, not applied to all that many locos.

Interesting......

I'd love a sand coloured No. 10 to Belfield, as running in 1976 to 1984 period!

I can't answer this, unfortunately, though I saw them many times. I do think that at one stage a Park Royal was (as far as I know, uniquely) given centre doors as one. This can't have done its structural integrity any good! I never saw that particular vehicle but have seen photos of it. Must delve....

We'd probably be thinking well ahead anyway, Tony! In any event, a tour of your area would be of great interest anyway, with those lovely bridges to explore on the Omagh - Strabane section.....

Superb stuff! Now I'm going to have to look up livery details for Jeremy the Pink Engine.....

I think they were a Robinson design, and they were initially WLWR Nos. 13 and 14, taken over by the GSWR along with everything else from that system. The GSWR renumbered them 266 and 267. No. 266 was sold by the GSWR in 1914 to the Cork & Macroom railway, only to be re-absorbed into GSR stock following the amalgamation in 1925. Curiously, despite being the same as 267, it was given a new number and class - 491! It was scrapped in 1934. 267 survived into GSR times. I think, but I'm not sure, that it might have spent at least some time in West Cork, though I could be mixing that up with the other being on the Macroom line. In 1922/3, it was armoured for use by free State troops in the Civil War. THAT would make an interesting model. I think my grandfather was involved with the design for armouring it. It was scrapped in 1935. Thus, neither of this interesting pair made it to CIE days, but there's poetic licence.... Liveries: In WLWR days, lined maroon, wheels and all. The GSWR painted them glossy black with red lining. Numberplates had a black background and polished numbers. After the late 1910s, 267 was painted plain grey all over, as standard for late GSWR / entire GSR & CIE period. The other, now as 491, got all-over grey once it left the Macroom's ownership to go back to the new GSR in 1925. Plain grey would see both out. 267 retained GSWR flat double smokebox doors until the end, plus cast iron numberplates.

Worsley did a G scale version of this too. A relative has one and it's a fine looking beast. The West Clare actually makes a superb subject for G scale.

Absolutely brilliant work as always. This is an amazingly original layout. Another thing about the lettering. Any time a vehicle of any sort had white lettering or numerals applied on any railway, the white would weather to a more creamy shade almost immediately, exactky as shown above. This may be used as an example of the CIE "snails", numbers and / or roundels on wagons at any time. Clear, stark, pristine white never looks right - it needs to be treated to look like this in terms of weathered shade.

IRM tours? Now that's an idea, after the successful visit by some of us to the Downs of Patrick a few years ago. A visit to Tony, plus maybe Donegal Railway Museum? Or Headhunters in Enniskillen? Moderators - maybe something worth considering?

And as a member of some forty years, I can attest that there's some very interesting stuff in that Flickr account. As Eiretrains says, it's available to signed up members.

Yes, that's right. Something to look forward to! The maroon genny would be needed next, but even the least dexterous of us can paint a BR van maroon! We have seen some excellent conversions of BR full vans into gennies here. The other RPSI genny van will be restored eventually and painted blue. Also, there is a possibility of one of Whitehead's "Dutch" vans going south - it was being discussed seriously anyway. Between Dublin and Whitehead the society has two Dutch and two BR. One Dutch van is in use on the northern set. Even in IE guise, we don't see that many Dutch vans in model form - with flat sides and ends, one might have assumed they're easier to build? Although, of course, various proprietary BR vans can be amended, as some have so expertly done here. What I'd love to see is a set of the Whitehead-based (but all Ireland travelled) wooden heritage set..... What happened, I wonder, to proposals for a RTR model of 461...is that proposal still live, does anyone know?

I think it's due to several things, Noel. 1 The Cravens are much more widely travelled, and are now associated with Railtours Ireland's "Emerald Isle Express" - with many modellers now having at least one 071, whether grey or "heritage" orange and black. 2 The largest market in Ireland is Dublin, which has four times the population of Belfast, or something like 75% of the population of the North. 3 The Cravens were sold by the RPSI to raise funds for the restoration of 134 - a project dear to the hearts of many, modellers included. I know several people who bought them to support the cause who don't even have layouts! 4 What do you haul them with.... there is no RTR steam loco to simulate RPSI specials. This will put off some modellers who either haven't the skills or budget to make or acquire a suitable kit. If you're modelling / running any RPSI stock, be it Mk 2 or Cravens, you need a steam loco. A RTR 461* has been talked about - this would boost sales of all RPSI coach models. Also, on these pages a RTR J15* has been proposed, same again. For those with Cravens, an 071 can represent an RPSI Santa train, various RPSI charts, or the Emerald Isle Express. ( * please.... no yellow flying snails!)

I understand they're selling well, and it's a limited edition which is highly unlikely to be repeated, so for anybody planning to buy them, I wouldn't hang about! I saw them up close at Blackrock the other day - very impressive.

Superb work so far. I would agree with Mayner, however, regarding the full van. With your skills at adapting old plastic carriages as above, I'd say a new-build would be well within your skills and a much better outcome. On the subject of finish, and you'll get a clue from the photo above, bogie passenger vans such as this tended to almost inevitably be very, very weathered, compared to the generally very clean finish of passenger-carrying vehicles.

I remember seeing no more than 4 or 6 within the consist of an ordinary loose-coupled goods train around 1969-71.... of course, they were standard wagon grey then, with orange (with GREY chassis, not black!) just beginning to appear.

Superb job! Excellent fine work...

It's Rosslare Strand's beach. They're planning a RTR DSER 0.6.0 goods engine.

AMEN to that!!!

I spotted this error in a post of mine several YEARS ago; and I was wondering how can anyone edit a post they've done ages ago. recent posts can be edited, but not old ones. My "howler" above says that no tender engines ever had snails; abject nonsense! I mean that no TANK engines ever had snails. I am sure that the eagle-eyed will have spotted this, but I'd like to correct it on the original post if at all possible. It is correct, though, that yellow or white snails on tenders are totally wrong in all circumstances. Numerals were painted light yellow but tender snails were "eau-de-nil" light green, lined gold.

Yes - it's that one....

We need a dedicated IRM tartan pattern..... Hopefully ready for Sunday at Blackrock! Hoping to go....