jhb171achill

No tank engines carried snails, and all cie narrow gauge engines were tank engines. Until about 1949 onwards, locos continued the GSR practice of cast numberplates painted over grey like the rest of the loco. Sometimes the numerals were picked out in cream or pale yellow, sometimes not at all. All narrow gauge locos under the GSR and CIE were all over grey, chimney, smokebox, cab, motion and wheels included. None got the black which a few 5ft 3 locos got very late in the day. So, it's plain grey for everything! After 1949, many locos had their numberplates removed and large painted pale yellow numerals placed on tank sides instead. Buffer beams were technically red, but many were in practice so weathered, faded and dirty that they were indistinguishable from the grey livery!

It's not a million miles away, burnthebox, but maybe a Porsche would require even a bigger budget than a model railway!

Surely to goodness the lining isn't red and WHITE? Are we looking at a Hornby British Railways engine? Ye gads. This is absolutely elementary stuff. Or does my befuddled mind play tricks on me? Has the gargle dimmed me brain?

Well done indeed - a rare relic. Livery wise, it bears no relation to anything that ever ran... In brown, the roof and chassis should also be brown. The CIE thing should be on the upper half, not the bottom corner. No wagon ever had lettering "CIE", let alone that size, and the numeral and mysterious "N" are not of this world either! But an interesting collectors item at a bargain price!

Unlike laminates and Park Royals, Bredins (and their early CIE copies) were old enough to have initially worn the darker green with broader light green stripes. Do, two green livery variations are possible for them, pre- and post-1955. Needless to say, they were never unpainted silver.

Wow! That's a strange one - hadn't seen that model before. What's it based on?

Interesting, junctionmad.... I only ever travelled the line once, and only as far as Kilmacthomas. It was the IRRS special with 190. I could have got a cab ride and it's a matter of great regret that I didn't take the opportunity.

That looks absolutely fantastic! There were a few GNR coaches, built about 1954, which looked not unlike that and which survived into UTA and CIE days. Obviously they were only three years old when the GNR was dissolved, and thus could have been expected to last until the mid or late 70s. They didn't - the timber used was very poor and no match for the rock solid GSWR wooden stock forty years older. But a few did last into black'n'tan days (and a few in UTA livery too). It also looks like one Bredin first class vehicle (I think it was no. 1900?). That's an exceptionally neat paint job.

I remember Senior171 telling me about that. It happened right in the station. I'm not sure what the train was, but you'd think that whoever told the men to go down onto the track would have been aware of the timetable! There's bound to be more to the story - I'd be interested to see the report.

We'll need a time machine for that.......

I'm curious as to why NIR still use the old NIR logo on them, as the "translink" brand has been on the go now for twenty years! I would have thought that they might have tried to incorporate them into their "corporate image" by painting them the current shade of darker blue, as on railcars for many years now, with the oval "Translink" thing!

Exactly! Loose-coupled, of course, needs a brake at the end.

There will come a day when people hark back to the old days when ICRs were still running, and Mayo and Galway still had railways, before the Limerick Junction - Rosslare - Gorey cycleway was opened, and before the Healy-Raes turned the Kerry line into a conveyor belt to get people to their pub in Kilgeee-arvan....

They're all connected...... look, for example, at Mk 2 or Craven formations. At the end of the journey there didn't swop the brake to the other end. This can also be seen today at Downpatrick.

Fully fitted trains can have the brake anywhere.

Aaaargh! I was five in 1962!

Excellent work.

A great looking little layout. Just shows big isn't needed to look well. Loads of action, well done!

With such a hotch potch of carriages in a typical CIE train in the 60s and 70s, a carriage like this will look very well sandwiched in among laminates, Cravens, Park Royals and Bredins - and the odd wooden coach.

With the model layout at the CDRRS, might there be some way of linking up? Just a random thought.....

Organic wagons?

Excellent - well done, Leslie!

Errors notwithstanding, a real credit to the manufacturer who doubtless took a real leap in the dark, and a great addition to any layout. A good layer of filth will make the UTA one look fine! (And it's easy to put a bit of red paint on the connecting rod!)

As an old-school type, dating from when models were made out of quill pens, cornflakes packets and sealing wax, I never cease to be amazed and impressed at what modern technology can do in the modelling world. I wish I had the time to get to know it!

Brilliant! Looks like one of those Disney liveries you get in England, where no two items of rolling stock are the same. First Great Eastern Connex Aviva Train Company and their 324.5567 class identikit railcar....and all that.... where "customers" are reminded not to take photographs in the train station........