jhb171achill

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!

A very interesting selection, Deadkennedy. The one of A42 at Rosslare* shows something that personally, I have not seen before - the dark green one WITHOUT lining. So, we now have proof that light (majority) and dark green alike had variations with and without lining. ( * I just KNEW, as I hinted in another post, that there was SOMETHING unique about A42!)

From the Working Time Table, some years saw this table included. My purpose in sharing it is for owners or modellers of Bullied opens, H and Palvans, fertiliser, container and other wagons to see what actual number series they had.

A11...... yes, indeed, this was certainly normally black! ONE “A” class, while in black livery, managed to get a yellow buffer beam for a very short while....

Naturally, exceptions arose. Here’s one with no line, but WITH an attached snail.

Superb pic! So, above, we’ve pics of the light green with and without lining. Another thing I forgot to mention was that flying snails tended to be added WITH the lining, but as seen above, not when there was no lining. Also, when all-black, sometimes the lettering style was as above, with a large central number on the side. Otherwise, smaller numbers low down at each cab end, with a CIE “roundel” (white letters, tan “broken wheel”) in mid position on the sides.

Yes - I'd forgotten! I was about to start going through old Irish Railway News journals to see what exact details were to be had; memory suggests a lot. However - broadly speaking.... the experimental "original" black'n'tan on A6, about 1961, was just that - experimental. The style of lettering font is much thicker than what had been on green and silver locos before, and all the variations afterwards. The white line was different too. In normal day to day traffic, it's like this. LIVERY 1 All over silver, bogies and roof included. No black. Lettering, numerals etc. in light "eau-de-nil" green (not black, as sometimes seen on models). The As and Cs were all delivered like this. By 1959 or so, repaints in green were starting as the silver weathered spectacularly badly, as one might expect; an A photographed beside an 1879-era shabby J15 in 1960 would have looked way more tatty than its older cousin. LIVERY 2 Light green (post-'55 shade). In some cases they had a waist-level eau de nil line, in other cases not. Snails and lettering eau de nil (not white or yellow, as occasionally seen on models). Some received the dark green. I am unaware of a single dark green example which did NOT have the waist line, though if anyone can produce evidence of this, I'd be interested to know. All over plain green would have looked exceptionally dull and would have been made worse by dirt and oil stains. As on the light green, eau-de-nil waist line and numerals etc. LIVERY 3 In the initial stages of black'n'tan, full waist high tan was applied. This is not to be confused with the LATER high tan, applied to some locos but not all, after re-engining. It is probable that not all locos received this, as the all-black (with white flashes on the ends) was started soon after. So, by 1963-6, most are all black, many having come to this straight from green. A few are high-tan sides. LIVERY 4 All-black with yellow patches on the ends. This seems to have appeared about 1964 or so (would need to check date) and not all locos were treated. Thus, by the late 60s when the re-engining programme started, almost all were black, with or without the yellow patch. Numerals on the yellow patch were always black. LIVERY 5 / 6 Once fitted with GM engines, and re-designated AR class, a FEW got the high sided tan; but most got the low band of tan. As mentioned above somewhere, this seemed to match the other locos. The dirt and oil stains were nothing like as bad as in Crossley engined days. LIVERY 7 Supertrain. Orange and black, no white lines, CIE "roundels" on ends ONLY. Initially, numerals on the ends were white shaded orange, but the shading disappeared quickly, replaced by plain white. LIVERY 8 Post 1987, the "Tippex" livery came in. Same orange, same black, same paint style, but with white lines above and below the black added. Given budgetary constraints at the time, the advent of IE didn't herald a total new livery - they just amended what they had with the white lines, hence the name "tippex", invented by someone at Inchicore. This was to imply that the new IE couldn't afford anything to paint locos except a bottle of Tippex, a correcting fluid in common use in those times. During this time, occasional livery variations occurred. It was by no means uncommon to see a loco still in the old CIE "Supertrain" livery, no white lines - but a new IE logo on the sides and / or ends. I have a pic in "Rails Through the West" of a loco somewhere between Ennis and Athenry with a CIE logo on the front and an IE "set-of-points" on the sides! They never survived to get the large "Three-Pin-Plug" IE logo. With considerable overlaps, to determine which engine switched from one livery to another at what time, there appears no complete database which shows this. I've seen photos of (FILTHY!!) silver ones in 1961/2, which would have gone straight to black. In the mid 60s, there's still one in green, and the others are variously in all-black, black with yellow end, and probably one or two with the high tan sides. IRM will presumably study photos of the various numbers they want to model, with whatever information is available on when the subject of the model went from one colour to another. Exact precise dates won't be available for all sixty of them, I'm sure. And in all reality, it's probably serious nit-picking to expect that! I wouldn't, even as a "livery freak"....! (Will Glenderg do one in Donegal red, I wonder?)

I love the light weathering on the locos. It absolutely transforms the realism of anything on rails. Very realistic!