jhb171achill

Why not!

If it's straw, it's too light...... That said, I do salute the maker for producing this model. As always my criticism, where it exists, is with liveries, not production - and certainly not of the hard work that both manufacturers and scratch builders put in. It can always be repainted! However, easier to get it right first time.

Proper chimney, remove cowcatcher and add proper buffer beam, round-topped dome and super-sized headlamps, and dip it in a tin of grey paint and you've a Westish Clareish looking thing indeed.....

Proper chimney, remove cowcatcher and add proper buffer beam, round-topped dome and super-sized headlamps, and dip it in a tin of grey paint and you've a Westish Clareish looking thing indeed.....

Hard to tell, Patrick, without making a mess of an expensive model! At the very least, you could absolutely weather it within an inch of its life, but the white lining is going to hard to make into anything remotely believable. So; UTA LOCOMOTIVE LIVERIES The UTA lining style was a pale yellow / straw colour and red. Tender and tank sides, and cab steps, had a thin red line inside a slightly wider straw line. Running plates had the red above the straw. Connecting rods were red inside only. Boiler bands and outside cylinders had the thin red stripe, flanked on both sides by the wider straw band. On the BCDR section, numberplates were usually red with raised yellow-painted numerals. I have seen a pic of one (208) which appears to have ploished numerals but it could be the picture. UTA locos of GNR parentage had straw painted numerals on cabsides edged in red. The motley collection of diesel shunters inherited by the UTA had the same style, although latterly ex-BCDR No. 28 was plain black, unlined. Numerals depended on ancestry: ex-NCC shunters had red plates as steam locos, while ex-BCDR stuff had painted numbers a la GNR. On the NCC section, the numberplate backgrounds were also red, but the raised rims and numerals polished bare metal. This included the narrow gauge section, the rump of the B & L. One "Jeep", I think it was No. 5, carried an experimental green livery, by all accounts like Isle of Man locos had in the late 60s, for a matter of months when new, before the then-new UTA decided it wouldn't wear well. Given how they looked after their steam locos cosmetically, it's probably just as well that such a light livery was given its marching orders. Maybe Weshty might do a purpose-made set of transfers to cover over this awful error on the production model?

Correct, Patrick. A straw colour plus red, not white and red. The lining on the UG model is British Rail!!!! Which was a white-lined very light grey with red. And yes, red con-rod. As others have commented, a very attractive livery when clean. Of course, many of us will remember it in a very heavily weathered and worn dirty state, but few will remember it clean! Personally, I can only remember two or three occasions when I saw a reasonably clean UTA loco. The current lining on No. 4 is correct.

That's the one! Some years later, I added details to it and repainted in it lined BR black with proper numerals and crests, just to see what it would look like. It turned out surprisingly well. I sold it about 25 years ago.....wish I'd kept it.....

Perfect! Now I'm educated....... though live frog wiring will forever fry my head.

Ah! Makes sense..... at the risk of appearing utterly imbecilic, what's the origin of the two foot rule?

I'm intrigued....what's the "duck test"?

Ah! Yes, that's a great shame. Hopefully he'll bounce back with a new version.

I know! It was hauled by super-high-speed 0.4.0 "Polly". Anyone remember that? Never mind your oul Mallard. The "Polly" could run so fast that it derailed on curves and threw itself off the layout on one occasion!

A superb layout - wonder what he's doing with it!

I ended up gluing the doors shut on mine because they kept opening while the thing was hurtling round my layout at a scale 159 mph!

Blue & cream Cravens for the Emerald Isle Express and persons in yellow jackets.....?

I had one of those!!! And the little green luggage trolley..... Yes, it must have been 47 years ago. This van was in my first ever Triang Hornby train set. An oval of setrack with a red 0.4.0, this van, a green open wagon, and a brake van!

Exactly!!!

Indeed. Many people on here display stunningly excellent work on their hand made models and layouts. At my most dexterous, I would not have been able to achieve a fraction of what is routinely seen on this website. However, I have tried over the years to record and share what I know to be accurate in terms of colour schemes, as I have more by accident than design accumulated a lot of information on this over the years. At the same time I will try to point out inaccuracies in modern reproduction of long-gone liveries especially where there seems to be a wide assumption of something which was not the case. If a model is assembled wrongly, it won't work, and may have cost the maker a lot of now-wasted money and time. If it's painted in a wrong livery, nobody has ever died; so many may consider the concept to be very peripheral. On the other hand, the colour of every object every one of us sees every day is the first thing our brain registers about it. It would be my own aim to contribute what I can in this arena.

Stroke of genius, TTC!

That will look absolutely amazing, Tony. The GNR vans and open wagons would be by far the majority of what would have appeared there.

Exactly. This is where accurate memories, paint samples and the like come in useful. Many of the railway coats of arms in Selwyn Johnston's Headhunters Railway Museum in Enniskillen are mounted on boards painted in actual railway paint. Police forces worldwide will tell us of the numerous times they have stood in court and watched tiresome arguments over what colour the car was which overtook the other one and caused the crash. Some people have extremely accurate memories for colour, down to the most subtle variations in shade, and can be relied on to say whether a modern interpretation is accurate or not. Other people have anything but! I am aware that the current grey on 186 was passed as absolutely right by at least two ex-Inchicore people with exceptional recall. Things like this need to be noted down for future generations. My own actual sample of it on my grandfather's O gauge model agrees. There's a lovely 00 gauge J15 model in a display case in the IRRS, in a very realistically weathered form. But it's black, and thus doesn't look right at all, which is a pity.

I suppose that in terms of looking for suitably accurate stock for a layout, a perusal of suppliers on here would serve well; Leslie's stuff and others represent the 1950-70 period well. Any of the colour album books published in the last 15 years will show prototypes, train make ups and liveries, so a look after that at, say, the Bachmann website, will show models of British stuff which is close enough to look right when repainted in CIE style. When looking at BR items, a repaint can fit in well with Irish stuff even if not 100% accurate. Even the basics of repainting black strapping and ironwork, and chassis in the body colour, will make things look instantly "Irish".

Yes, with oily rags, the right light, and soot, the grey could at times look (especially in black and white photos) as black or blackish. I saw two pics one time of a J15 on a train - possibly an enthusiast's special of some sort if memory serves me right - both taken of the same train in the same station on the same day; and by the same photographer. One, with the light right, is clearly grey, albeit dirty. The other side of the loco with the light a different way looks distinctly black! GNR blue was another colour which could look lighter at times, giving rise to the quite incorrect myth that Dundalk "just went down to the nearest paint shop". I actually knew the former Dundalk Works Manager very well, and he found that enthusiast-fuelled myth quite offensive, pointing out that they had their own paint laboratory in the works..... CIE green - particularly the later, lighter shade is notorious for appearing in numerous apparent varieties in olour photos. I am currently going through a collection of these for a future book, and in one photo I have, three green vehicles look, respectively, accurate green, navy blue and brown! ALL are CIE green!

The line of black chassis look so odd, though.....!

I did, Leslie, only getting round to commenting now! I agree entirely with you - it's tragic that such an utterly elementary error has shown up. Absolutely ridiculous.