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jhb171achill

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Everything posted by jhb171achill

  1. 3 x 2 is also possible, yes.... Very few were larger than that, very few smaller than the earlier dimensions, from observation of old photos. Cobbles would indeed have been large tonws; not only that, but the busier thoroughfares in them.
  2. Correct. Big cities - rectangular cobblestones on streets, gravel surfaces on lesser roads. Country towns - gravel roads in streets, tarred from mid 30s. Tarmac may have been invented, as such, around 1900, but it was several decades before it came to almost all places in Ireland. Pavements - paving stones typically about 1ft X 2ft, or 1'6" x 2'6".
  3. Yes. Tarmacced roads came to most rural Irish towns in the late 1930s, but paving stones for pavements with kerbstones were a good bit earlier. Gutters tended to be along by the edges of the kerbs and basically dipped troughs lined with cobble stones about the size of large potatoes
  4. I'm not sure about a passenger brake as such, Andy. I do know there was at least one old GSWR passenger brake kicking about on the system, and a couple ex-MGWR, but it was a six wheeler and wouldn't have gone over that line. Colm Creedon's work has thrown up a few errors over the years. According to Ray Good, probably the greatest authority on the West Cork system, they used an old T & C goods brake van and this is seen on mixed trains. The details of the bogie stock would seem very much as you observe. As you know, a few of those short bogie vehicles had brake compartments in them, so it is probable that one or other of these was the normal brake power on passenger trains.
  5. Hahaha excellent! I still, say, both when under and over the humbfluence of influol, that these "anti-social" morons should be just kicked out at the next station "get out and walk". If they've no money, they're 67 miles from home, and no jacket, and it's minus seven, and they don't know the way, all the better.
  6. Aha, Glenderg! You obviously know the Grand Secret of Marks!!! I've never breathed weathering powders meself, yer onner, and I wasn't even there when I didn't breathe 'em, and it wasn't Glenderg who didn't sell 'em to me. I don't do hardcore stuff, I just sniff Humbrol matt CIE orange. And maybe a bit of UTA green.
  7. I think I know who you mean, Neil - if it's who I think it is, I took it upon myself a few years ago to tell him not to come into the carriage I was in with a tour group. He demanded my name, which I gave him, and told me he was going to report me. Then he told me he ran the railway. I said to him, "so who are you going to report me to? Yourself?"...and I stood in his way and told him in no uncertain terms to get out of the carriage I was in, which he did. The IE train host thanked me, as he had been giving trouble elsewhere in the train. But that approach can be rarely used, of course. NO LEGAL WAY to enforce a BAN! What sort of stupid, crass, idiotic legal system is that! Is it any wonder that pond life get away with murder in public? It is - it has to be - the old Irish thing of an utter hatred of all sorts of authority. A rule enforced will always be seen as a jumped up "jobsworth" taking out petty grudges on a poor oul decent oul fella of the public. That's rubbish, abject utter rubbish. IE's management should be lobbying politicians, senior legal people and whoever to gain the authority to simply throw people out at the next station. So it's raining, and December, and you're off your skull on funny powders and cigarettes and you can't get home? Tough. If IE can't get that authority, they need to flood certain services (many DARTs) with large Polish ex-army security men. Incidentally, the LUAS needs more of these folks as well.
  8. Out of interest, Wanderer, without all the gory details, what type of behaviour was typical? Given that a railway is a public place, do IE have it within their legal remit to ban anyone from travelling on trains outright? If so, is there any way at all of enforcing it? If not, why not? There should be a "one strike" approach to this. If you're thrown off a train or bus once, that's it. You can't go back on them. And - anyone on drugs is automatically banned.
  9. I'd say in 20 years time, the sale of drawings, not models, will be the big thing; we will be able to get decent 3D printers of way higher quality for the price of a night out....
  10. Scumbags. We often hear that this country has a problem with drink. That's as maybe. I believe it's worse - it's a lax toleration by the authorities, and the seeming aversion in our society to anything that is seen as punishment or discipline. Discipline is a dirty word. Look at countries with safe clean public transport (and streets); the sight of a policeman hauling someone up for minor things (e.g..dropping litter) is expected (rather than tolerated). In the highly unlikely event of a Garda or PSNI man nailing someone for that, or graffiti, or shouting obscenities on a railway platform, the usual hand-wringing idiots would be out in force berating the cops and saying "sure leave 'im alone" etc etc.... I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but unless law enforcement agencies, courts, judges and even railway officials with power to apply bye laws, start taking seriously a zero tolerance approach to this type of thing, it'll just go on and get worse.
  11. Got my copy the other day. Excellent as usual. I love the Donegal layout featured.
  12. Drooling has now reached tsunami levels. Maybe the gold wheels have to go, but that wagon is PURE gold. A worthy addition.
  13. I became greatly gruntled last night. First, I finally completed the main text of "Rails Through Connemara", the story of the Clifden line. Then I went to the IRRS Christmas evening, to find that "Rails Through North Kerry" is selling well, so wot with the season that's in it, I had to go on the lash and see my trad musician friends. Into me leaba at 5...... Yours faithfully Gruntled Lisnaskea
  14. Don't worry, Broithe, I've gone off the boil on that. Yours faithfully Disgruntled Abbeyfeale
  15. I referred to them as 2600s as the original question described them in those terms. The GNR's AECs and CIE's were the same design bar a few details, and mechanically (though not at all cosmetically) were similar to the GWR's streamlined ones. In traffic, in railway days, they were collectively always called AECs. Indeed, describing them as 2600s could cause confusion with the modern plastic 2600s, built by Mitsaokorea-SiemensCAF in Cobh.........! Gardners were early railcar experimenters. With the co-operation of the GNR in Dundalk, they turned out those early articulated units - both the double ended ones and the articulated pairs like the ones Mayner referred to in Australia (of which one at least, I believe, is preserved in operation order; I'd love to see it. I could post pictures of it and they be the right way up.) The type of technology, the type of design, ised by AEC in Southall and Gardners / Walkers in Wigan were entirely separate and thus "B" was a one-off production and design. It is to the credit of the DCDR that it has been saved, though it's lucky that CIE's "preservation" of it didn't involve its earlier destruction by the weather, and by certain citizens of our community who took an interest in its aluminium window frames while it was stored in either Limerick Junction or Mallow. Senior was in Enniskillen when "B"" was running and knew the traffic manager well; his verdict was that the thing was a great success and very reliable. it fulfilled the SLNCR's needs more than adequately. they were only interested in a single vehicle, not any sort of railcar set, as passenger traffic levels almost never warranted more than one passenger vehicle. My late mother's recollections of travelling in it were to the effect that it wasn't exactly full of people. My guess, from what she said, was that typical loads might be 20-40 people. naturally, when there special trains for pilgrimages or GAA specials, more accommodation was needed. This - in latter days at least - tended to involve the company pressing all three of their (by then) seriously neglected bogie vehicles, along with their equally dilapidated 6-wheel brake 3rd no. 4, and borrowed stock from its neighbours. This was often ex-MGWR six wheelers from CIE (bringing green and flying snails into Enniskillen or further), or a couple of elderly bogies from the GNR. I have it on anecdote that the traffic manager in Enniskillen was mortally embarrassed on such occasions by the state of his own three bogies compared with neighbouring CIE or GNR stock, as the maroon paint had badly faded to a nondescript uneven pink or browny red. The paint was peeling off, to an extent I've never seen on any operational vehicle. The interiors were, I am told, tired, old and musty! On an aside, I wonder about the green livery of the SLNCR locos in pre-1915 days as shown on Arigna Road. There were several variations of green, and possibly at different times two very different shades used. I'd be interested to know exact details...... certainly, by at least the late 30s (when Senior first went there), all was black on the SLNCR. It looked very stark - but smart - compared with the unrelenting grey of the GSR.
  16. Just to clarify, Mayner & Rich are of course quite right; in saying the thing was a one-off I was referring to the original question as to whether it was related to the 2600 (AEC) cars or not. As Mayner said, it was a development of the older GNR artic cars, but they were obviously Gardner too, and themselves no relation to the 2600s either. Personally I think that the old AEC cars and their BUT compatriots were the most comfortable railcars ever to run.
  17. That's about right, possibly even a year or two earlier at absolute most. All orange before that.
  18. Not at all - a one off manufactured by Walker Bros. of Wigan.
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