jhb171achill

Those two were wooden-panelled, too. The one on the left was one of only three surviving coaches at the time from the Waterford, Limerick & Western - l think it was 934 or 935. Only one survives today - the unrestored 6-wheel family saloon No. 900 at Belturbet. On the right is GSWR 1110, also long gone.

Unfortunately very unlike anything that ran here…. The right livery, though, and it’s a convenient thing!

Anyone remember the old LMS boats that were still plying the Irish Sea in the mid 1960s?

Indeed. In days past, that's the way it was. But it's changed times now. Before the Mk 2 yokes were forcibly retired from use on the main line, this issue was being discussed anyway. It does seem likely that the RPSI would be hit with this sooner rather than later. Another nail in the coffin for any chance of northern trips becoming self-supporting, as the cost per coach is apparently high. I recall a figure being quoted - can't remember now what it was, but these vehicles would have to be putting up a high mileage to make it viable. And, seemingly, there isn't the market for that.

Long gone, I understand. Never proceeded with.

No grain trains, as such. Instead, the normal goods train, containing H vans, palvans, Bullied opens, etc, stopped off and collected / delivered grain vans at stations. Thats why they’re so suitable for layouts. You can run them mixed in with all the other stuff.

It used to be the case that steam was needed, though isn’t now. Just as well! But as you say, it’s the “normals” who pay the fares mostly, not “enthusiasts”.

A very good point indeed. As well as dealing with the money in, and the bills, for the May Tour in its heyday, I also looked after the seating plan for many years. Not as simple as it looks, as among the regulars some requested milepost seats, others wanted to sit with certain people, and at least one asked NOT to be in the same carriage as several others! When we had our older stock, some wanted a compartment coach, some an open like GNR No. 9. But overall - the ENTIRE contingent from the 32 counties of Ireland would have rarely exceeded one full coach, and occasionally as little just over half of one. The rest, bar a very small number, were all English. Not even British, but specifically English. IT IS TO THOSE PEOPLE THAT THE RPSI OWES ITS EXISTENCE TODAY. The May Tour in pre-Santa train days, provided the society with almost 50% of ALL of its income and profit from ALL sources. At that time there were some 45 operations annually. The other 44 together made less money than the May tour. Broken down further, the northern trips usually just about broke even. The big money was - and is - Dublin’s day trips. When one considers that in the greater Dublin catchment area there are almost as many people as the whole of Northern Ireland, that’s hardly surprising, of course. On a side note, many of us older persons always referred to the May Tour as the “two day tour”, despite it being a five day tour! This had its origins in the first few in the late 1960s, when it WAS just two days. Over the years, it became three, then four, then five; but I’ll warrant that there will still be at least someone about Whitehead who calls it the “two day”! Less said about the crass and contemptible “International Railtour” name, the better! Waylaid myself there; my point was to say that while Irish enthusiasts whinged about it being too expensive, it WAS exceptionally good value indeed. Yet, not a whisper of complaint from our valuable English visitors, who not only came regularly, but threw twenty pound notes into donation tins, and told dining car, bar, raffle book sales volunteers to “keep the change for society funds” with many transactions; and also spent hundreds on ferries, planes and hotels…

I might add that my predecessor in minding the RPSI’s finances, Galteemore senior, was of the same mind as I was, and so was my successor. Between the three of us we dealt with the society’s funds for some forty years.

So, in general, CIE wagon liveries were: 1945: mid grey, same as GSR or LMS in Britain, with take green painted snail and number. Mid-50s: Grey, but snail and number become white. Late 50s: Same again but snail becomes a stencil. Circa 1960/1: lighter grey starts being used, white stencilled snail. 1963: very gradually, snails replaced by “roundel” in white in existing stock but with white letters and a tan surround on new vans (H & Palvan) 1970: After seven years of the roundel, brown livery. By 1976/7 when the last loose-coupled goods ran, only some 60%~ish of vans were brown - many were still grey. With bogie stock (eg ferts), brown with white roundels and numbers continues 1987: After CIE is broken up, roundels discontinued. No logo at all on operating wagons, but some tankers and departmental stock, and a handful of oddballs, got the “set-of-points” logo. Indeed - rare indeed. With Inchicore turning out “H” vans as quickly as they could at the time, few GNR vans beyond the “H-like” Drogheda cement vans saw CIE markings at all before their demise, though a tiny handful survived to get post-1970 brown….

Nothing brown ever had a snail, as the logo changed in 1963, but the brown livery didn’t start until 1970.

I believe there will be, yes. Getting the Mk 2s back to main line standard will be a cost factor in itself. THOSE costs have to be recouped from operating profit. Therefore, the society needs to be sure that trips operated with them will actually be profitable enough to recoup these costs, so “break-even” isn’t enough.

The big issue here is going to be financial viability, and timetable paths in the new Belfast station (though using Central instead would solve the latter). From time immemorial, certainly for the last thirty years, the money has been made on the Dublin-based trips, as (a) they serve a much larger market, and (b) the northern market has never supported the typical prices for a day our that would be realistically achieved in Britain or Dublin. Even in my time as Treasurer (1988-2000, with some wsubsequent years on the finance committee), most northern-based trips barely broke even. There was a pattern, for example, in years with three "Portrush Flyers" when the forst one typically ran at a significant loss; the second broke even, and the third made a surplus which cancelled out the loss on the first. Latterly, Santas were as good money spinner in the Belfast area as well as Dublin, but nothing else was. I never remember a Derry trip that did anything more than just about cover costs. Several made substantial losses. I remember attending a committee meeting one night. I delivered the previous months' financial results and the conversation went like this. Me: "The Derry trip ran at a loss of £1400" (a lot of money to the RPSI thirty years ago). "We can't operate trips like that unless either the numbers and the fares go well up, or something can be done to slash the costs". Operations Officer of the day: "That would mean we'd never operate a train to Derry ever again, if you take that view!" Me: "Exactly". .....Silence. Ops Off: "Yes, but you can't just write off Derry for steam trains" Me: "ANY trip which consistently shows an inability to be commercially viable MUST stop - and, if necessary, we never go near that place again. Doesn't matter if it's the Portrush Flyer* or the May Tour**" Ops Off: "Yeah, but that's ridiculous" At this meeting, the Society's locomotive officer was sitting to my right, and the carriage officer was sitting opposite me. I turned to each in turn and said, "OK - if we decide to operate loss-making steam train trips, do I chop the £1400 off the locomotive budget (the loco officer had just asked for a further £14k for a job on No. 4) or do I cut the carriage budget?" .....Silence. A planned second Derry trip that season did not run. Such, in preservation, are the realities. All too often, the preservation world is heavily populated by folks who, while (of course) very well-meaning and selflessly generous with their time, allow their hearts to rule their heads, preventing cold, hard practicality from gaining oxygen within their thoughts.... (* The Portrush Flyer was, at that time, considered an inviolable sacred cow by the Belfast Area Operations Committee. ** In pre-Santa days, the May Tour was the cash cow which literally was resonsible for the RPSI's survival, full stop). ............................ So what's this got to do with the thread? Simply this. There are three possibilities for future operations in NI on the main line. 1. Back to the way it was. Use NIR men at previous rates. While there's a complex background, suffice to say that this ship has almost certainly sailed, thus as far as I am aware may be reasonable to rule out. 2. Use IE men. 3. Use folks brought over from Britain. It is understood that there appear to be no NIR men interested in being available, certainly not on the availability levels of the late, great Noel. So scrub that. In (2) and (3), very considerable extra expense will be involved, especially in (3), in bringing non-NIR people on board. Thus, while technically possible, and probably more so than (1), the crew costs would certainly make any operation in the north a very heavy loss maker. Therefore, the Society would end up subsidising it - and with what? Money earned on other, more financially viable tours, which would otherwise have been spent on keeping steam locos operational. Clearly - IF this turned out to be the case, utterly irresponsible financially. There may be one fourth option. That would be recruiting several RPSI folks based in the NIR area, and training them up as professional steam drivers. I will not comment on this as I am unaware of whether it's been considered, and if it has, whether it has been found to be feasible. Maybe it is, maybe not - I've no idea; but it's there at least hypothetically. And if it DID happen, in order for the trip to break even, their volunteering generosity might be a necessary factor! Overall, a huge challenge, it would seem, for the RPSI in the future. As a separate but related issue, all over the railway it is getting busier, despite the virtual elimination of goods traffic across the system. This in itself will cause increasing overall pathing issues, especially into and out of Dublin and Belfast. We may but live in hope.

An excellent and practical way to approach this issue! And - I’m late to the party on this, but fer gawwwds sake, these yokes are NOT “queens”, nor are they “goddesses”! They are three separate things. For anyone interested, Mr Google provides chapter and verse…..!

Could have been.... the BCDR used the same sort of shade too for a while. So, English LMS-area folks would have visited here and found the entire NCC, BCDR & GSR carrying the same maroon; in the case of the NCC & GSR same lining style too! Yes - there are two. I suggest contacting him, as i also can't get into his website, yet i was in it the other day. Must be a temporary glitch. Just got into it. Only the van - he must have sold out of the others. But that van is as good as a must for a Cork mails train, right up to the 1970s!

Indeed. The post-1933 GSR livery, well established by the time the 800s saw the light of day, was actually pretty much exactly the same as the LMS. So, just rub off the LMS crest, and add a GSR one (Studio Scale models supply them), and slightly larger class numerals on doors, paint coach ends black instead of maroon, make the roofs a slightly darker grey, and away ye go! Put a Hattons Genesis six-wheel full brake in maroon (they sell LMS liveried ones - dunno if they still have them) at the back. SSM also do Bredin kits.

The thing about rolling stock for the 800 class is this. There was no single uniform train of nice sleek new Bredins to go with them. The Bredin stock was introduced before the 800s were, and examples of these were already running, mixed in with other older types, behind 400s, 500s and Woolwiches, and various 4.4.0s, and had been for a few years. Add to that the fact that no brand new dining cars or mail vans were built to "match", so the typical heavy mail trains that the 800s were set to work on, would from day one have had quite an eclectic - and necessity-driven - array of stuff behind it. 1. Dining cars were usually old 1900-1910 GSWR ones. 2. Mail vans ditto - but also older ones than that, and both bogie and six-wheeled. 3. Passenger brakes - there were some "Bredin" ones - full bogies. See the Studio Scale Models kit of a full bogie mail brake. The Hattons Genesis full six-wheel passenger brake is suitable too, but if you want it to be in GSR era, buy one in LMS maroon and alter the lettering. In CIE green, better the darker version - by the time the lighter green livery started, 800s were rarely used. 4. Thirds and compostites - NOW we're on to the Bredins; see the SSM kits again. 5. Thirds and composites - also there would have been older, mostly ex-GSWR side corridor types. 6. Firsts - there were Bredin ones - SSM again - but also many older wooden bodied ones like the RPSI's preserved no. 1142, but no suitable model exists to convert one of these from. Cheaper option - get LMS coaches in LMS livery, paint the silver or light grey roofs a slightly darker grey and doctor the lettering on them to be more GSR than LMS! In summary, there's little on the market RIGHT now that is suitable, but who can tell what the future holds!

I recall speaking with a (long defunct) small manufacturer almost forty years ago who was keen to do easy-to-make plastic kits of Irish narrow gauge to run on 12mm track. He was considering offering a Donegal class 5, which would have been amazing. Sadly, then as now, he did the sums and walked away…..!

Yes - for some reason, few MGWR bogies made it into the black'n'tan era - there were a very few, but most timber-bodied coaches still in use after about 1964/5 were ex-GSWR, and of both low and high roofs, and both corridor and non-corridor. The very last coaches still in green appear to have been up to 1967, judging by both personal memories and pictures I've seen. A solitary GNR coach was still in traffic in brown as late as 1967.

Silver, green and black’n’tan all present there!

Yes, you have. main line Cork trains at that time were an absolute mixture of just about anything. Look at just about any picture of an 800 - or, for that matter, a 400, a Woolwich or anything else - on the Cork line and you'll be hard put to find any image which shows a train with more than one vehicle of the exact same type. Certainly, a uniform rake of identical carriages, like nowadays as standard, on ANY line in Ireland much before 1970 was rare to never.

Strictly speaking, if it's in the no-snail or Cultra livery, it will only be (a) sittinmg in a siding in Thurles, or (b) sitting in a museum! While in traffic, all three had snails in CIE times. As to the "dark" green, all CIE steam locosmotives which were painted green always had the dark version. So did buses, so did lorries. The post-1955 lighter shade was ONLY applied to coaching stock, railcars and diesel locomotives. And a note on that - when the railcars were introduced, dark green was the livery, so any future AEC model would need to have a dark green option plus a light green option. G601, E401, B101, A & C class diesels, and many carriages and tin vans, were silver when new, but by 1957 were being repainted the lighter green. Since CIE only inherited the rump end of the GNR in late 1958, all CIE repaints of GNR carriages were the lighter green, never the darker. Many actually weren'ty repainted until after black'n'tan came in. Now; all good rules have good exceptions. While the above is the general rule, in the early 1950s - before the light green livery appeared at all - 802 was repainted in a lighter shade, evidently not unlike the light shade introduced after 1955. A new batch of coaches of the 1951-3 style (CIE's versions of "Bredins", basically) also appeared in this livery, and unlined. It was not deemed to be successful and repaints into standard gark green of the day followed pretty quickly. Thus, in terms of actual running, 800 had two variations (GSR green, CIE green). 801 had two at least, plus a possible third. While she carried the same two liveries, at some stage her number and nameplates received a red background instead of blue. I do not know whether the red appeared before or after, or at the same time as, the livery change. 802 had original GSR livery, then the experimental colour with red plates, then standard CIE green with red plates. Tender markings on all three always had either the GSR crest or the CIE symbol.

Possibly 3D is the way forward here. I had discussed a 3D body for a standard GSWR main line corridor composite a while back, with one of our 3D experts here - must re-visit that. A compo would work well, as older main line coaches of this type were widely used also on branchlines in the CIE period. Ballaghaderreen, Kenmare and Loughrea all had lengthy periods in the 1950s where the traditional short rake of 1890s six-wheelers was replaced by a "modern" 19209s ex-GSWR composite and a tin van or six-wheeled passenger brake. So, of all the older "southern" carriage types, a vehicle of this type would appear to have a wider range of applications. The 8-compartment type shown above by Mayner, either in corridor or non-corridor versions, was to be seen well into black'n'tan days on the two spare Dublin sets of wooden stock which just aboiut lasted into the 1970s, on Youghal excursions up to about that time, and occasiobally also on Cobh suburban traffic mixed in with Park Royals. The last time I personally saw anything like that in traffic was, I think, in 1970.

It does, but I’m sure it’ll be white….!

IMG_1224.mov A few random observations this evening, as everything was getting set up within the museum…. IMG_1223.mov IMG_1213.mov IMG_1211.mov