jhb171achill

There are some kits of GNR vans and cattle trucks, and a brake van (but don't paint it like a zebra, like the restored one at Whitehead! They never ran anything like that....!

I was thinking of the brown, Old Blarney! Of course you're right about the navy and cream, though at least some of those had black ends.

I'm sure many are aware - though some may not be - of the superb range of loco numb and nameplates offered by Narrow Planet. They do GSR / Inchicore / CIE plates too, and very accurate they look. Though - for some reason they offer them with red or black backgrounds - both are entirely inaccurate as grey only is correct. By the time CIE painted a very few locos black after 1955/6, plates had been replaced on all example by painted pale yellow numbers and light green gold-lined "snails" (not yellow!!) on tenders. Locos in green never had plates - always painted numbers, except the 800 class. While 461 never ran in anything but grey afte 1925, had she done so she wouldn't have had a red numberplate. She and 462 lost theirs years at and got painted numbers. GSR numberplates had letters and numbers and rims picked out in either pale yellow, or just polished bare metal. Since this was whitemetal rather than brass, polished metal gave a silvery colour. Thus, leaving a model one without paint gives a yellow touch, so better to do what both GSR and CIE did with many locos - just paint over the lot and leave it at that!

I often thought would the SLNCR railcar have ended up doing a shuttle service between Fintona and the junction! Or even Fintona and Omagh!

Wow! That looks fantastic - keep it coming!

I like the colouring on station and carriage; shows what the place would have looked like run by CIE! I have details somewhere of exact GNR station colours for both the Eastern and Western districts - must delve some time! Lovely signal cabin model.

w o w !!!

Fascinating stuff....Old Blarney - Tynan!!! Not too many about now who can claim to have actually got off a train there. The beautiful Gothic station still exists on private land, untouched in sixty years.

Excellent, Glover, very many thanks. I had wondered why they painted two of their buffer beams red, especially as at the same time one or two A or C's got YELLOW buffer beams as a (very short lived) experiment. If so many photos show up the lining as white or light, one may assume that whatever dark colour was used, started to wear off!

The two zebras seem to turn up all over the place! I had one on the 0700 Cork a few weeks ago.....

Of all the closed lines, the ones I wish most that I had done would be the Derry Road, CDR and West Cork...

He probably knew Senior, who was civil engineer of PW based in Enniskillen 1953-7! Then the UTA shifted him to Belfast after a short spell with the GNR in Amiens St....

Its actually a telling indictment of Irish public interest in railway heritage, that of the seven "preserved" lines I've been on, three are no longer possible! Possible: DCDR and Waterford & Suir Valley; not possible - Dromod (temporarily), Tralee, and Derry (Victoria Road). If Finntown reopens, it will again be possible. And I know of at least three potentially excellent preservation schemes which never got off the ground, despite (in two cases anyway), even funding being possible! Lack of interest, lack of anyone prepared to lead the project, let alone an army of committed volunteers. C'est la vie...

It does, Hurricane, in my book anyway! I did a few turf lines too as a child but I don't remember which. Coolnamona was one. Also the 2ft gauge Ardara system - beautiful line.

There are also a couple of standard NCC style mileposts, Richrua. I'm not sure what's happening the old station now - I think it's in a precarious state. I've done Achill - Newport on the Achill branch - but by bicycle! And I've driven on rough ground over parts of the Clifden line.... I almost, nearly, quite - managed to get to Murrough, but also the Burma Road and the North Kerry, but it was not to be. Had I made suitable arrangements, it is galling to know that I never got a passenger train out of Queen's Quay (only empty RPSI ECS), nor did I get to Fenit or Castleisland - I could so easily have. I could also have footplated UTA steam. Oh yes - I actually DID get to Ardee as well! Lesson for all: if you CAN do it now, GO! Not all things will always be possible.

Pointless I know; but I remember at age 10 being fascinated by the tales of the late Mac Arnold about his travels on the GNR many years earlier. The fact that at that time, the GNR lines in Fermanagh etc had been closed over ten years seemed an eternity to me.... But looking through stuff for a forthcoming project today, it occurred to me that I have myself been over many a line no longer in existence, and in some cases almost vanished without trace... now, I may well be suffering increasingly from an incurable malaise called "Too Many Birthday Syndrome"; but I know I'm not (quite) the worst sufferer here.... So these are the places I've been by rail, no longer possible. CDRJC's Victoria Road Derry station - short trip in CDR railcar 12, courtesy of NWIRS about forty years ago. The derelict Blennerville fragment of the T & D Midleton - Youghal Port Laoise - Coolnamona Dromin Jct - Ardee Waterford - Kilmacthomas - Ballinacourty Waterford - New Ross Rosslare Harbour (Pier) line Harcourt Street - Bray when it was AEC railcars (actually, two days before it shut, exactly fifty eight years ago this very day 29.12.58). Not the same today in a tram! Curragh Siding (with 186 on an RPSI special) Loughrea - Attymon Jct (2 days before closure; re-engined "C" in charge, to my dismay - I wanted a "G" but it was away shunting beet at Tuam! Sure ye get a "C" any time to Howth...) Athenry - Claremorris (I travelled on the Limerick - Ballina train with a 141, two laminates and a tin van; also several IRRS & RPSI specials) Athlone - Mullingar Drogheda - Navan - Kingscourt Lisburn - Antrim Belfast Yord Road station to various places Belfast Central Services Depot (ex-BCDR Queen's Quay) I almost got to Wicklow (Murrough) station. At the very end, only one train a day served it. About a week or two before it closed, I got a train from Amiens St to Wicklow and back. The train was scheduled to go to Murrough but it went to Wicklow (mainline) instead. I got into Albert Quay in Cork while shunting was in progress but via walking the tramway, not in a loco! I may have been taken to Castlecomer. Senior thought he brought me, but I've zero recollection of it. And on those travels I saw steam still in use on the UTA & NIR (GNR locos shunting at Lisburn, "Jeeps" on the Larne line and York Road); I travelled behind GNR 207 "Boyne" (not 207 the tin diesel thing) in a still-brown GNR 1st class carriage to Dublin, MEDs, MPDs (opening day Lisburn to Antrim), AECs of GNR / UTA / NIR and also CIE parentage, 70, 80 and Castle class railcars, B121, B141, B101, "A", "C", and Hunslets; and I sat in ex GNR, ex NCC Park Royal, laminate, Bredin, Mk 2 and Craven stock..... I narrowly missed the famous journey of preserved GNR Railbus en route to the UFTM about 20 years ago! I was RPSI treasurer, and had planned to go on it, but was too busy with paperwork! (Not what one joins a heritage organisation to do, but it has to be done).... I well remember the old steam era Portadown station, before that absolute eyesore of a concrete block which today masquerades as a station. It is more like a Soviet nuclear bunker, and on occasion some of the staff are about as friendly. I also explored post-closure GNR Foyle Road station in Derry - a sad sight. All complete, track only just lifted. So; to my older colleagues here; who'll be first (I think I can guess) to say they did the Derry Road, or Enniskillen or the Donegal or SLNCR? (I do remember seeing immediate post closure Strabane, Stranorlar, Dungannon and Killybegs stations.... the entire lot now swept away. CDR rolling stock was still at Strabane (Cox's stuff) and Stranorlar...) Footplated - A, C, B101, B121, B141, 071, (new) 201, 80 class. I've given myself indigestion recalling all that. It's the too-many-birthday thing again.

I've a vague notion that I know who it is. I will "ping" him and see what the story is.

Correct, divecontroller, and thank you for your endorsements. Yes, everything CIE was black-ended in dark green, light green and BnT liveries. The short lived unpainted coaches in the mid 50s had unpainted ends (and roofs and chassis) too. As you say, "Supertrain" era carriages and beyond had "wraparound" liveries, like BR blue did. The GNR had black ends too. The SLNCR, with no corridor connections, had maroon ends as well as sides.

Latterly the BCDR used standard outside ones, but I dunno about originally. Again, Senior's thoughts would be useful here!

It's do-able, Tony, though it only allows for three or four wagons at most being shunted together. Having said that, in some places this was certainly prototypical. It doesn't leave much room for all but a small goods shed.

I was looking at the wagons in the above shot. From what I can see, the ones to the right are (typically dilapidated) ex-GNR stock; the UTA was running down its goods traffic at the time. On the left of the loco tender and loading gauge, two more vans (low roofed; probably GNR) but beyond them a higher wagon roof - which looks like a CIE "H" van. Leslie's model van is therefore at home on any layout based in the 1955ish -1965 period on the Derry Road (or indeed, up to 1957 anywhere on the GNR), and on the NCC Derry line for some years afterwards.

From an old coach body I knew of, this shows GSR maroon in its weathered state, and earlier (1945-55 + bus + loco) dark green. The other lighter shades of green are undercoat. This represents the later (post-1933) GSR maroon; prior to that it was either brown and cream (not unlike the latest colour scheme on the DCVDR's No. 836) or a much deeper maroon. By CIE days, the "LMS" shade was the norm and it is this, albeit very faded, that is shown. Since the NCC used the same shade of maroon, a weathered NCC coach would have ended up the same. Brake dust on six wheel coach ends would have made it browner. Corridor coaches had black ends and gangways, non-corridor stock had body colour maroon. Brown & cream coaches were all brown or black on the ends depending on whether they had corridors or not. CIE painted ALL coach ends black. The SLNCR carriages, while initially painted a darker shade of maroon than either the GSR or NCC used, saw a paintbrush so infrequently that their coaching stock not only faded to a shade like that above, but liberally peeled off too!

Is there much of it - or even anything - left to see? Shame the main station didn't survive. Now and again we hear suggestions that the "Derry Road" ought to be reopened. In current circumstances it won't, of course, but if the population continues to rise, maybe in 50 years they'd be looking at it. If so, an entirely new route will be necessary on the outskirts of Portadown, Dungannon AND Omagh, and probably Strabane as well, on account of the wilful and short sighted wholesale clearing away of the railway and redevelopment of sites.

Railtec are indeed very helpful in this regard. Many crests, logos and above all numerals are reproduced in entirely the wrong size on models, usually too big. If you're sending them something new to them, probably no bad thing to research actual diameter / size, font and colours of shading first, if you can, and advise them accordingly. It may be, of course, that they already have this info - worth checking. I can't recall whether the GNR Director's Saloon is still in GNR navy & cream at Whitehead, but if it is, the relevant details are exactly correct, as they are original transfers - or were, last time I saw it. The derelict brake 3rd, no. 114, may still carry them.

The UTA had a habit of re-panelling older coaches, particularly of NCC origin, with flat sheets of plywood, later aluminium sheeting. This resulted in many carriages losing their distinctive style of beading once "UTA-ised" and repainted green. In the 1960s, this included round-cornered windows with rubber sealed surrounds, like several the RPSI got.