jhb171achill

"B" appeared on the DCDR as part of the deal to acquire GSWR No. 90, though the aim was always that she would be ideal for off-peak trains like, say, midweek, New Year's Day, or visiting small groups or school parties. I applied for funding for the then £160,000 stg required to fully restore her. Luckily, as fate would turn out, this was declined; had the funds been made available she was headed for Rail Restorations North East in England, the very firm which went bust when 171 was there! She could have ended up being siezed for scrap over there! Thankfully she survived. Further attempts to find funding for her after that have not yet been fruitful. It may be assumed that today £200k woukd be what's required. I hope it happens some day. 6111 as a push pull vehicle with C231, plus SLNCR "B", would make a nice duo there. Subject to suitable funding all is feasible - but for the pair you're looking at half a million sterling, and with the north brexiting out of EU funding, it might take a while! Incidentally, over the last thirty years, the sums of money which have flowed into Whitehead and Downpatrick from Brussels have been such that the survival of the former was greatly enhanced if not saved; of the latter I can state with certainty it would not have survived.... But that's another story!

Building a new operational loco would be ideal, but would cost upwards of €500k, and then a whole business of health & safety & operational tests and standards. Carriages would then be needed..... Certainly do-able, but the station itself would be a better focus.

No probs. I'll take it to the DCDR. Replacing the track there will be cheaper.

EGG-ZACTLY! (I'll throw half a million into that 800 project once I've won the lotto. Who'll cough up the rest?)

Alan O'Rourke's Irish Railway Modelling magazine has had many inserts of loco drawings. I lent mine to someone so I can't be sure if these classes were among them - can anyone else comment?

It's nothing to do with the WLWR or W & L crests as far as I'm aware and it certainly doesn't look that old. I wonder is it a "Tidy Station 1981" or "Cleanest Loo 1972" (maybe not!) or some other such modern award?

In my 25+ years involved in the financial side of both the RPSI and DCDR, there was a perpetual chorus of "why don't you restore X" and "it's a scandal that Y has been left to rot in a siding at Downwhiteheadpatrick". Worse still, "the DCDRPSITG says they're into preservation, so they have a duty to rescue the last Hunsletcraven". It got to the stage where I could barely contain my thoughts at AGMs, while sitting at the top table fielding questions. The answers - the printable ones anyway - which I might have given would include.... Are YOU going to pay for it? Where will the money come from, given that it isn't currently eligible for grant aid? Will YOU spend every weekend, a fair portion of your days off and annual leave, plus you own petrol money, on working on this in all weathers? Don't you think that a hard-pressed, necessarily under-resourced volunteer workforce have enough to do? .....and so on. The reality is, people across this island have very little interest in industrial heritage compared to other places.

Tynan, Co Armagh, and nearby Glaslough remain untouched since 30.9.57, though the latter is currently being restored. Tynan still has original paintwork.

That's got to be the single most realistic weathering effort that I've ever seen. And - as we know here - there is SERIOUS and plentiful competition for that title!

The still-complete, original and unaltered subway must be unique in Ireland's disused station network now. Any others, apart from (filled-in??) Ballymartle, Co Cork?

Bangladesh, Nepal, Ghana and Burkina Faso all rejected the 2600s... although they are used as dustbin trucks in Congo.

A "rattle can"; great name for a 201! 29000 railcars.......hmmm.

That's a truly fascinating line, with its double track and associated signalling. Had a great day on it last year.

I wonder is it DCC fitted?

And it's the wrong shade of blue, with the wrong lettering style. And if the loco name is "Chuckles", does that mean it is one of Paisley & McGuinness' "chuckle brothers"? And if so, is that loco one'o'them, or one of us?

I thought ye meant Garfield & Co! :-) I think the sun, and vintage port, are affecting me.....

Great to see "pairs" out'n'about on main line passenger trains.....

Re-gauge it.

I want this!!!!! Can someone lend me €1m?

I presume he has the injectors on in that picture?

Eoin.... I had thought you just "plucked that one out of the air", so to speak. It's silver. Old films can often get bluish tints, or (less often) reddish. Personal memories of the 10% of the population with excellent colour recall is usually better. Even in films which haven't deteriorated, different developing emulsions and fixing solutions, and different qualities of film, will render colour differently. Also, a weathered paint finish photographed on a dull day will look different to the exact same colour when clean in bright light - even taken with the same film. Clearly, nothing on CIE was ever light blue. Modeller's detail: numerals and lettering and snails on silver locomotives were light green (not black, as in "preserved" G601), but on new laminate carriages were RED! I suspect some carriages had light green lettering too, but I can't find any exact confirmation. Silver carriages and "tin vans" never carried snails of any sort, by the way; only numerals.

I agree it looks well, as does 461 in lined green, despite neither being "real"! To me, the historical nerd, the issue can be that in future, an assumption might be made that the thing concerned looked like that in use.... All good though! 'Tis just me, perhaps.

Roxy - yes. Firstly, this class were never green. Secondly, had they been - or, going by the green livery on G601-3, the following would need amending: 1. Green frames, not black. 2. Green roof. 3. No "flying snail". No "G" ever had a snail in any livery. Instead, a large-size cabside number. While obviously it's up to every modeller what way they want to paint their model, I have to confess to having an interest in recording what is accurate (and what isn't!) for my own interest and that of those who seek accuracy. Unfortunately, unlike the U.K., the majority of preserved items on this island are incorrectly painted, often entirely so, sometimes just in detail. In a private message I was asked once if I had a list of all of these. In some respects the info is worth sharing for the reasons above, but in another sense the publication of such would look or seem at best nit-picking, at worst downright churlish - especially from a former preservation activist who myself painted a GSWR coach red at Whitehead; the RPSI had no other paint available that day!

One (G611) was rented to them for several years, but they never repainted it. It returned in the black livery (as currently on G617). It's worth noting that the G601-3 series were the only ones ever to wear green - having initially been silver. They had green frames and roof, not black frames as on the DCDR. Preservationists' interest in black paint knows no bounds; ask "Ivan"! The G611-7 series were delivered in green undercoat but were all repainted black before turning a wheel in traffic. Windows front and rear on cabs were different between the two series, so apart from livery, more importantly we need to look at cab design before deciding what our model loco number is to be.

I found the same in rural Indonesia in 1980.... had to pay a policeman and an airport official to find my missing luggage, and had to bribe a ticket clerk to sell me a ticket for the overnight Surabaya - Jakarta train...... ....and a shed foreman to let me into a steam shed which I had already a full pass for, signed by HIM and others! (It was worth the 17p bribe to see a 1879-built wood burning 2.4.0 tender engine shunting....)