jhb171achill

I have to edit virtually every post I do, as the auto-thingy puts up different words, often changing most of a sentence. Maybe I type too fast..... but whoever invented predictive text needs to be sadistically tortured, then shot, then forced to travel from Whiteabbey to Larne on a 450 on a cold wet winter Tuesday morning.

Original contract to built the Galway to Clifden line, plus a notice for replacement bus services. Now that "Rails Through North Kerry" is done and dust, guess what I'm working on now.... And another thing I found.....

Same here....

I always thought a J15 would have looked quite well in green.....

VERY nice!

Correct, Boskonay.

I remember seeing the "tippex" for the first time on the "Enterprise"; the "A" class at the front plus all of the coaches were in the supertrain version - except for two carriages with the stripes. I thought it looked cheap; the expectation was that the newly formed Irish rail / IE would have a brand new livery of their own, but this was shot down as there was no money to repaint everything. However, getting used to it, I must say that when newly painted, a "tippex" locomotive looked great. What did look absolutely ghastly was the bright blue and red paintwork on station buildings at that time.....

An addition to what I said earlier: I'm nearly sure I saw a 121 cab first, led by a 141 or 181, on a goods train on a single occasion probably late 70s.

Excellent find. Jimmy O'Dea was a gentleman.

There are "yellow machines" at Downpatrick - vintage enough - but I'm pretty certain they are all of NIR origin. I'm unaware of any CIE ones anywhere. jhb171senior recalled that during his watch, the GNR's first ever tamping machine was tried out on the INW between Ballybay and Dundalk at several places, as were concrete sleepers. All concerned murmured approvingly into their soup, so the contraption was deployed on the main line. This would have been about 1955-ish. Incidentally, the trend of having all PW and maintenance equipment painted yellow is a comparatively modern phenomenon. Prior to 1980, while some was yellow, other stuff wasn't. Workers only started wearing day-glo in the late 80s. Prior to that, if anyone's portraying a maintenance scene on a layout, dungarees / overalls / donkey jackets are the only show in town. As are cigarettes in the workplace.... The old railway companies painted ballast wagons the same as their goods livery - i.e. inevitably grey. The GSWR used black. (Additional note: the DCDR's plough van would originally have been all over black, with GSWR markings. Later, wagon grey (yes, chassis included) with GSWR markings. The GSR followed suit, as did CIE. It was never brown, as it now is, nor did it have a black chassis except when painted all-black. Just for info.)

If it had a chimney it would match 186 and 461. Sorry....!

Really good. Was considering a thing like this myself based on 1960s CIE. Time will tell.

No, GSR, they were on passenger duty from the word go. One of their earliest main line forays was in fact on the (pre-DD!) "Enterprise". At the bottom of page 24 of "Rails through the West", 122 can be seen heading B124 - both cabs forward - about 1973. Both have handrails. 122 is in "supertrain", while B124 is black'n'tan. The train of just 2 laminates and a "hot water bottle" are on the Ennis - Limerick service. While double heading of ridiculously light loads was common in later days, as "pairs" tended to remain paired (!), in those days that never happened at all unless the load warranted it. In this case, B124 has failed and 122 is towing it dead.

We're all a broad church, aren't we! I bet there are EVEN people here who don't like GSWR 0.6.0s.....

Let's face it - the DD and Mk 4 sets themselves are no oil paintings..... you could paint them any colour.....

To go back to the thread topic, it was mom on practice in the past for steam engines to pre-heat coaches. UTA / NIR loco-hauled stock from the late sixties on tended to lie aside for long periods, and my memories of them included tired of vandalised upholstery in some, and another occasion a slashed seat cushion with the old horsehair coming out, but above all very musty. No amount of heating can remove mustiness for old, damp, cold cushions. But if near the engine they were toasty warm.

Incidentally, a livery point on 121s. With no multiple fittings before the grey livery disappeared, a grey and yellow one would never have been seen paired with anything, unless it broke down and was being rescued!

Indeed, josefstadt. I have a pic of jhb171 Seniors, showing a scene in Lisburn station about 1970. A three car (ex GNR) railcar is on an all-stops GVS to Portadown evening ommuter run. One car is UTA green, another the sectional UTA light blue and cream, and the third in brand new NIR maroon and grey, all gleaming and clean! I saw many a pair of 121 / 141 / 181 in the 70s, as I'm sure you did, with one loco in black'n'tan and the other in supertrain.

Latterly, nose-to-nose pairing, either with another 121 or a 141 / 181, was universal. While it was also very much the norm going back to the early 70s, exceptions did occur, though very rarely. On a single occasion about 1976 or so, I saw a pair on a passenger train with both cabs forward. It's a bit like their earlier nose-first single running. It happened, but very exceptionally rarely. The Dundalk Barrack St. branch was one location where it happened the odd time if a 121 was on the North Wall - Dundalk goods and went down there with a wagon or two. In a similar fashion, 80 class railcars were never mixed in traffic with Castle class 450s. They had different connections. However, on one occasion after a bomb scare somewhere, I saw an 80 in use as a passenger train just after the line reopened, hauling a Castle which was tagged onto the train but closed off with no passengers in it. Thus a 6-car NIR train: 3 X 80 car, and 3 X Castle class. No, Maedb never went tender first - even once!

Livery mixes were almost the norm 1955-65. I'm not sure any of the trio of Pullmans were still in traffic in the late 50s. If so, you'd never have got more than one in a train. They ended up being scrapped in Naas, I think.

So, in black'n'tan livery, most of that time was spent without handrails. Thus, a black'n'tan one with handrails is very specific 1971-3. If the production model has them, and the modeller wanted 1965-ish to 1971, just remove them.

Is this one narrow gauge?

Wow. To classify something as less attractive than a Mk 4 DVT makes it really ugly! ;-)

In those times, train sets of any type - goods, main line or suburban passenger - were never the (boring!) permanently fixe sets of an identical type of vehicle seen since the 1980s. Extra carriages could be tacked onto various trains for various reasons, or taken off them.