jhb171achill

Yes - get 'em in, send them to Blarney, Ring of Kerry and the Giant's Causeway, charge 'em plenty in Dromoland Castle, and away ye go. Next please! There's more to Ireland then little green leprechauns, Temple Bar and "Pattys Day"....... It's seen as old, irrelevant, stuff for nerds - by a lot of people. Education needed! 100% correct on all counts. Look even at a recent thread on this IRM board where the all-too-common myth that the British built all our railways - usually mentioned in a dismissive way - was referred to.

Often wondered about that. I'd say that the company would have become part of CIE in the split of 1958, but if it hadn't, and remained today, I suspect it most likely (on financial grounds) it would simply have increasingly leased CIE stuff - which would have meants a diet of 141s from the late 1960s to early 2000s - and perhaps bought a pair of new 2-car 2600s when IE were getting theirs - as EU and Peace Money grants were all over the place then. A "G" might lurk to this day at the back of a shed in Manorhamilton, still in faded CIE livery, used for shoving things about when necessary. Goods would have vanished about 1975/6.

What on earth is "Ulster broth"? Something that foams from the mouth of Paisleyite preachers on the Sobboth?

And it’ll have to be regauged to narra gauge! Ill tell yiz a wee secret. On the basis that it has little real history here, HAD it been reliable at Downpatrick, and HAD SLNCR “B” been fully restored, I had this notion of getting both painted together to save money (the treasurer’s job…) …….in matching SLNCR livery. Yup, jhb171 promoting a wrong livery…..

Answer: yes! To include black’n’tan B209 which hauled the last train out of Loughrea….

A thing of very great beauty!

Really? Didn’t know that. I thought DCDR owned it now…..

I presume the wagons are stored there on a Saturday to allow a clear run for several rugby specials on the main line, seein' as it's this time of year? Onwards to Barrack St. later in the day.......

There was a funding app prepared for "B" some 20 years ago, for which the cost was Stg.£160,000. The app passed its first stage, but during the convoluted correspondence the funding criteria changed, so that closer to the time it would be going anywhere, there was no longer funding. I had kept the firm to whom it was to be sent, fully up to date with developments, as I tried to sort out what instalments would need to be paid, and when. The company was based in Shildon in England. Those who are familiar with recent RPSI restoration projects will raise an eyebrow here. Yup - it was the very same firm to whom No. 171 was sent some time later. They went bust, and the RPSI (very luckily) managed to repatriate 171 before the scrapman could sieze it to pay their debts! SLNCR "B" would very probably have ended up in the same precarious position, so it is lucky that it never went there at all. Still, with a proven background in bus restoration, and a great familarity with Gardner engines (which "B" was going to get), I am sure a good job would have ensued. It would have been great to have it operational there now. As for RB3, yes, indeed, it was part of the UFTM collection. Under museum rules, a museum in possession of a listed artefact can't just chuck it if they get tired of it. They must first offer it to kindred bodies, properly registered with museum status, thus pre-fulfilling all normal standards for the care of the artefact. If nobody wants it, then they can sell it to a farmer to keep chickens in. Nobody wanted RB3. While I stand to be corrected on this, I think it is now DCDR property - and THEY don't want it, as it has never proved to be reliable, and in all reality is of very little indigenous Irish railway historical interest. Maybe it'll see chickens yet. It was in use one St Patrick's Day, as I recall, as an extra train. It did a single return trip. I was travelling as guard on it on the way back in, and the driver struggled with it to persuade it to exceed walking pace. That's the walking pace of a chicken, by the way. As far as I am aware it was never used for fare-paying passengers again., even though DCDR's experts did try to persuade it to behave. Useless oul thing.

Excellent stuff, folks, thanks!

Always thought the 50s were elegant looking beasts. I remember reading about them being built new; an earlier summer holiday in Brexitland having been before they were built, and memories of what I think were green 47s hauling maroon coaches. I wonder what a BR blue one might look like amongst 141s or J15 steam engines on a layout set in west Kerry, a decade before the 50s were built............. well, Rule 1. And all of this reminds me, courtesy of Senior;

Ladies & Gentlemen; a query. For many years, the Waterford & Tramore line had an elderly ex-MGWR four-wheeled luggage van, which they used to carry prams and larger luggage on the W & T, as from early GSR days the carriages where possible had extra seats crammed in, leaving little room for such things. When the railcars took over in the early 1950s, even they had bus seats. This van was retained until the end, being hauled by railcars and push-shunted at each end by the crew. Does anyone know of the whereabouts of any decent pictures of this thing? I have seen pics, but not really good ones to show it in detail.

Very very true. That bit on its own is soul-destroying. Obsolete parts, more often than not, have to be manufactured, carved or cast from scratch. Even that can involve very intyricate and time-consuming making up of templates, drawings, patterns, etc, beforehand.

Ever since the 1860s this area has been very flood-prone. From the day the railway opened into Downpatrick, the BCDR had bother with flooding in the area. Once a generation there's a really bad one, like recently. The DCDR, like the BCDR before it, has experienced pretty bad floods here before but the recent one was exceptionally serious. Given that the ITG has their operation base here too, it hit the ITG also.

That's because I stand on my head when I'm takin 'em.............

I seem to be better sticking with still images - a number of vids I’ve posted lately won’t work….

......................................... Naturally, the day would not be complete without steam, as 383 stretches its legs after a visit to Inchicore........... IMG_0245.MOV

Always enjoyed watching 141s shunting....... OOPS! A Dingle engine shunting too, in Castlegregory two weeks before the line closed 1939. ........................ As 146 shunts oil tankers, an 071 passes by with a Mk 2 set with "Dutch" EGV.

We just need a GNR pattern footbridge now, Leslie, as well as a GSWR one!

I'll be looking for one of these yokes myself - possibly two...........

Oooooooh boy! Looking forward to seeing THIS finished. (I understand that Galteemore is building a live steam 12" = 1ft scale "Lissadell" to run with it.......................)

And in addition to your good self, Derailed, another party quite separately looked at this site! But like so much in railway preservations, the "ideas man" must eventually play second fiddle to the "practicality / reality man"! Mulrany would have been amazing - especially to me - but was a non-runner for a whole range of reasons, even with considerable private funding behind it, had that been available.

Schemes like that can have a precarious long-term prospect. There are several existing (operational) examples of this species; a privately-owned operation funded by one individual with very deep pockets, but no preservation society as such to take it over when they age, like all of us. We see what’s happening at Moyasta; a well-meaning individual now getting on in years, close to being no longer able to run it. The other issue with places like Moyasta, Maam Cross, Finntown and the like is that they are in the absolute back end of nowhere. There is zero financially self-supporting market, and few or no local volunteers. Finntown exists due to being funded by a local co-operative. The others mentioned are the private property of one person, and thus dependent upon their personal funds and circumstances - and health! While I am open to correction on this, it is my understanding that the owners of several of the privately owned ones - two at least - are (perhaps unwisely) completely opposed to having a preservation society set up to administer and run the thing. In terms of my own earlier comments, I was sticking to those which got up and running, and do so; and also a few “might have beens”. Just thought of another; in the 1990s again, I was told of a plan (which, for numerous reasons was utterly impractical) to restore about a mile of the Achill line near Mulrany!

Very much so, and in the 60s they’re quite new, so clean and shiny too! Go for the ones with grey chassis - the brown chassis didn’t appear until well into the 1980s era. As Cathal says, in your chose era they’re mixed in with ordinary wooden opens, with perhaps a third of the open wagon fleet bring the new ones, the rest various types of wooden ones, mostly standard GSR but a handful of GSWR & MGWR examples too.

Yes. I have the files in my attic. I'm negotiating with the Irish Times, but they need to seriously up their offer. I can only reveal, at this stage, that the President was planning to have a bit of a party at the White House to celebrate the fact that a seventh cousin of his once met an African man in Missouri who had been to Fenit on a timber ship one time, and having set foot on the pier, was Irish. Thus, by association, the President was too. That's what he wanted new table cloths for. I remain tight-lipped about the President's daughter visiting Mr Weaver, and that locked-up chalet near the beach in Clogherhead. I do not believe that the signalman on duty at the time was..... Ah. I won't say any more.