jhb171achill

I want one with a working kettle inside the cab...

can you model miniature nappies in a weathered state?

Probably the road surface. jhb171 senior reported that on his first forays into rural western places, roads were just stone surfaced. The Achill line closure was actually delayed over two years, and a withdrawn passenger service re-introduced, as the local council complained to the GSR about the damage buses were doing to the road. Thus, a stay of execution had to be granted in order to allow the road to be upgraded. this wasn't only in the 1930s - the CDR had to retain the Donegal - Ballyshannon service until the end for the same reason. They had earlier applied to discontinue it.

I suspect that the ex-Pullmans did not have "snails", actually, as one picture I have showing one in the distance doesn't seem to show one. That said, the coach is withdrawn in the photo and the paint is old and peeling so I can't be certain. With matchboard, I doubt it.

I heard that one about the Bandon line too, way back. But CIE, for their part, certainly didn't take it seriously. Re the "troubles" in the 1910/20s, I don't think it would have prolonged the life of any line. Some years ago I went through the GSR and MGWR archives in detail and all the early closures followed a period of accountants super-analysing all the traffic receipts, coal and staff costs. In fact, I've a pile of this stuff right in front of me now, as I attempt to continue writing "Rails Through Connemara"... musty smelling oul shtuff.... The reality was that the lines concerned were hopelessly uneconomic and the Government not only had not money to prop them up, but no political will. The savings made by not having to compensate, say, the DSER, would have been a drop in the ocean. The stuff I have here now involve detailed investigations into the Passage line and the Muskerry system, the Kinsale and Macroom lines, and the Clifden, Achill and Killala branches. Even had the tooth fairy relaid their track (most needed it), the GSR knew full well that losses would continue to mount. Many of these lines, arguably, should never have been built in the first place. Many were constructed with "Balfour money" - this in itself an indication of poor potential for remuneration, as the major companies would already have built them of their own volition if they foresaw any potential profit there. The reality was that there was never a chance of the worst examples anyway ever turning a penny, and after construction it proved indeed to be the case.

Hahaha excellent! Probably right... and u boats as well as UG's....

Congratulations, Glenderg and new family!

But if you make a print of a model from the past, it won't work........ !?!?!? :-)

At least they could probably re-do the LUAS Green Line as a proper railway... but loads more trams and tram lines are the only solution. To go back to thread; "what if" the D & B Tramway had become part of the GSR and survived - Blessington would probably be on the LUAS now....

Which means people need to get about = rails!

Can you 3D print a time machine? Kill 2 birds an' all that....

That'll be interesting. Especially with the prediction that up to 40% of all the new jobs will be in the Dublin area!!!!

In reality, that's exactly right. Thus, it's impossible to see how the population COULD have stayed high, or become high in the first place. I suppose that's the nature of "what might have been"; some such scenarios could well have easily happened, or even almost did; but it never came to pass. Others, like the scenario painted above, belong in the realms of what might have been, of course, but also in the realms of "what might have been - if gigantic coal and diamond reserves had been discovered"!

Is "Líne" the correct Irish word for "line"? Wouldn't be the first time that CIE (and its predecessor) made a mess of Irish spellings.... Send 'em back to primary school.....

Garfield, you need to be be taken away to be "re-educated"....!

Actually, that's worth pursuing as a "might have been". Had, for example, the mass emigration never happened, the railway would have been WAY busier, but there still wouldn't have been more coal, ores or steel. Passenger traffic would have been the big thing. Commuter services would be evident in Waterford, lots more in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Derry. Those out of Belfast and Dublin would be very much greater. We could expect a great deal more double track with locomotives maybe not generally that much bigger, as distances wouldn't be greater, but faster. Would there, for example, have been many classes of "Jeep"-like fast tank engines, suitable for intensive suburban work? Electrification, in the absence of huge Irish coal reserves, would very definitely have played a part. If we compare places like southern England, where passenger traffic was huge, and see the extensive electrification of the railways there from the 1920s on, we probably have a more accurate picture of what Ireland would have looked like. Southern electrics on the Achill line or County Donegal? Yeugh. Yeugh.

Down with this sort of thing. If yizzer all not careful, I'll put up an avatar with a LUAS ICR on it!

Very true indeed - and that actually would have in itself changed the railways. Doubled tracked Cavan & Leitrim, and double headed 2.10.0's on half-mile-long goods trains on the Banagher branch, anyone?

Exactly, Horsetan. Had the country been awash with money, the entire Irish railway scene would have been hugely different probably from the early 1920s onwards. But it wasn't - Bertie and Peter Robinson had it. In cash only, in brown envelopes, of course, to match GNR brown. And they weren't even there when they didn't get it, and they never put it in bank accounts, which didn't exist anyway, even after they weren't discovered.... Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. May contain nuts. Do not try this at home.

In the CIE livery, yes, they would have had a light green stope above and below window level. The stroke above window level was thicker than the one below - the reverse of those RTR (is it Hornby or Bachmann?) repainted LMS coaches that you can buy. Nothing in CIE green, of either light or dark shade, ever had white (or yellow) stripes, numerals or snails - they were all a light green colour. With matchboarded sides, I don't know if the Pullmans had snails. They certainly had no Pullman markings, as Pullman travel, as a distinct entity, was ancient history by 1945 when CIE was formed. The word "Pullman" disappeared after a comparatively short time in GSR days. Jhb171 senior recalled that when brand new, in maroon, they had "GREAT SOUTHERN PULLMAN" above window level in standard GSR coach lettering (gold shaded red and black). Later, possibly when repainted brown and cream they had just "PULLMAN". Once painted green, just plain standard CIE coach livery.

There's a pic of a line of derelict carriages at Naas, amongst which there's one - in one of those hard-backed colour albums produced a few years ago. I've seen pics in the IRRS - never, it has to be said, a good detailed one. In these days of uniform rakes of carriages, it's important for modellers to be aware that prior to the "supertrains", hardly any two carriages we're alike in a typical train. Pullman cars (of which there were only three) ran singly in different trains. I've never even seen a pic of even two together, and there weren't enough in existence to make a whole main line rake anyway. So in the pre-mass-produced-laminate days in the late 40s to mid 50s, you'd have a train made up of a mix of Bredins, early steel-sided CIE stock, wooden coaches of both bogie and six-wheel type, from GSWR, MGWR and DSER, and a single Pullman stuck in the middle.

Spot on,Mayner. I'm unaware of the later plans for the Woolwiches too, as jhb171snr.snr had retired by then, and jhb171snr. had by that stage defected (via a stint on the NCC) to the Great Northern! However, such pans would have made absolutely perfect sense. BR struggled post-1948 with a multiplicity of different designs and locos too. Had steam survived to today, we'd almost inevitably find a steam equivalent of today's locomotive stock - just two classes. There would be a main line type and an 0.6.0 or light 2.6.0. Nothing GSR would be left; the current stuff would probably have been designed and built in the sixties, and now reaching life's end, to be replaced by locos designed in the last few years! Steam survives still - just - in China, where in a country the size of seventeen universes, just two classes handle all steam hauled traffic. The QJ are big, SY small (and thus very prone to slipping....)

The various types of four wheelers mostly started out in all-silver. Mayner (I think) has pics of a model like that which looks excellent. The silver "livery" was actually an absence of any livery at all - the things weren't painted at all! Roofs, ends, chassis, drawgear, the lot - all unpainted. Many were painted the lighter green between about 1958 and 1963. Black'n'tan after that. Some aught from by now filthy silver to black'n'tan. As Garfield mentions, the six wheelers and all bogies were only black'n'tan.

The Irish Pullmans had vertical matchboard panelling below window level. If you get a British one with smooth sides, these might be scored on. The Irish ones, too, were built to the Irish loading gauge. Initially, they were in GSR maroon, but at least one - likely all three - also carried the short lived brown and cream with black lining for a time. They ended up in the darker CIE green (as on buses and green steam engines). They never had the light green.

The idea back then was prestige!