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Unloading hatch......well spotted Dhu Varren!

That smell will live with me forever. If you were awaiting a train on a platform on a hot sunny day, and the creosote and tar was leaking out of newly laid sleepers, the smell was very noticeable. Concrete sleepers nowadays and the stale stench inside entirely sealed up railcars is neither the same, nor remotely pleasant. Incidentally, that's an excellent photograph, Tony. Lots of interest in it.

Looks great! Going back to the carriage above, I'm just noticing it has curved in ends. If you wanted, you could look up numbers of former Waterford, Limerick & Western vehicles, as they were the only carriages in the entire GSR / CIE fleet which had curved in ends. Obviously, after 1901, ex-WLWR stock was absorbed into that of the GSWR, later GSR, but there were still a few nice survivors about in late CIE days. The family saloon, No. 900, is - I believe - still (in a very derelict state) in Belturbet. That is the only W & L vehicle left after the destruction by vandals of their former Director's Saloon at Mullingar in the 1990s.

Ah! It's page 64. You're right about the sign - but how do you know it's red and white in a b/w photo? :-)j

Very interesting.....any way of scanning the pic here? Page 66 in my copy has a pic of a horse box, a carriage truck and the Fintona tram.....

Kildare rings a bell, all right. I have an idea that Sallins was used at one time on the stump of the old Tullow branch. Don't know what the method was though.

Tony Looking good! In terms of raised running bed, yes that is a good idea. For absolutely maximum accuracy, you might like to study photos to see where the high and low bits were. The GNR (and GSR) often had a central "drainage trench" between the rails.

Yes. An antelope steak. Someone at portadown assured me.

Superb!

Post will be an issue, yes, unless May can pull some serious rabbits out of hats. The rules re borders are crass and unnecessary. If a country wants to leave, they can do what they want with gauges. If they want to stay, they'll continue with the same gauge they have not only now, but a century before the EU existed!

Indeed, Sulzer! I suppose, to be fair, they can't get it right every time...!

Just before that train went out of service, I had the delicious steak in it, and it wasn't on the menu even! Also, they only had one left and they didn't charge me! Try that in the DD or a Mk 4......

I don't, Glenderg - time stopped for me after Cravens. BR Mk 1, 2 & 3 stuff to me is.... I'm afraid...... ....... (sorry, I dozed off there. Where were we?) :-) I have to say, though, in that form in England it looks amazing. None of the NIR liveries, nor even the BR blue and grey, made it look as well. As for the brief insipid light grey and light blue of NIR, probably the drabbest and dullest livery ever!

Eh? The windows are completely different....

Some of their cars look well. Cars and vans in station forecourts - if the right era, and if the wheels aren't super-shiny - can add a lot of realism. But a Toyota Corolla, for example, on a black'n'tan layout ....no.....

Little touches like this do big things to realism!

99% sure mid to dark brown and light cream.

Oh! Now I see...

The goods vans parked behind A20....(brown)

The first year I went on a runabout ticket was 1975 and I think it was just about still in use then - the mainline was certainly. I was into the siding with RPSI's 186 in 1972, so it was definitely in use then. Must look it up. Suffice to say, no supertrain ever went in there! Cravens would have been the most modern thing. At a pinch you might have got a loco in supertrain livery, but this siding belongs to the black'n'tan era - C's and A's probably were the main thing.

Just testing my eyesight - what are the greyish things on the ends of the goods vans? can't make it out......tis me age..... That goods brake van is a beauty.

My only jaunt on it was early 70s. I think it lasted until about 1977.

exactly!!

That's some telephoto! Must show about 20 miles of track compressed into a yard or two.....!

An interesting concept for a layout. Any variety of locomotives under the sun, whether in GSR, CIE steam or CIE diesel days. Myriad types of old six-wheelers and random selections of wooden and occasionally modern carriages; a carriage fan's paradise layout! And, of course, horseboxes galore, something rarely seen on layouts.