jhb171achill

Surely a 25-35 bogie goods train should be plain elementary. Extend a few loops and get on with it.

I'm dribbling too.....

That, then, was one of two things. (1) Filthy; thus the white bit entirely covered by grime thanks to the filth-spewing Crossley engines. I saw a "C" like that. (2) An absolute one-off - sent into traffic before complete repaint. I'd be more inclined to go for the first - can you put up a photo which might invite comment as to how clean or dirty it was otherwise, thus veering the verdict towards (1) or (2)? An interesting one. If it was Fermoy, it has to be pre-1967, as that's when that line closed. And that was also long pre-re-engining, so Crossley it was.

Very many thanks, Leslie! Looking forward to tomorrow. Next one's now under way!

It's green. Where's the flying snail?

Gone are the days when no two goods trains anywhere had the same consist! Everything's so standard nowadays, it's major news when a passenger train has three coaches instead of four.......!

They would have first appeared in 1963/4. The history of the black'n'tan was broadly as follows. First repaints from green had tan up to waist level. Then all black in one of the variations above, in some cases by degrees with yellow front patches added, others not. Once the 141s arrived, in black'n'tan, a lower tan band, not full height, was gradually added to rebuilt A and c classes, some D, G, and E classes having tan too. By the time the "supertrain" orange and black appeared in 1972, all the "all-blacks" were gone except for the E421 class, none of which carried any form of "supertrain" ever. The Es remained all black until withdrawal of the last in 1986. Between, say, 1964 and 1972, most of the above variations could be seen running concurrently, depending on painting dates.

That's a very nice layout!

Yes, Hurricane, there were two distinctive "all-black" liveries for "A"'s.# First - the livery which the ITG had A39 in from initial preservation until its reincarnation in BnT last year. This was all black, with the number in large numerals on the ends and the centre of the sides. No "roundel". After just a short time, they amended the sides - instead of a plain numeral in the centre, small numerals were put on lower body sides at each end, beside the driver's doors. In place of the large central numeral, a "roundel" (white letters, tan surround) was positioned. In each case, the usual white "flash" above the end cab windows was used, but the white lines didn't continue round the bodysides. It might be nice to see one of the ITG's two "C"'s done like that. It might be added that the "all-black" livery, in several variations, was used as standard between 1963 and about 1967 on all existing pre-GM classes; A, B101, B113, C, D, E and G classes.

It has to be admitted that the number of rails they run on, and the number of wheels and axles, the number of sides, ends and roofs, are 100% accurate!

They are not Cravens. They look nothing like them! They are inaccurately repainted British Railways Mk 1 coaches. The shade of green, lining and "flying snail" CIE logo are the wrong shape, wrong way round, and wrong size. The locomotive is not Irish either, nor like anything which ran here. The livery is farcical. Numerals are the wrong font, size and colour - which should be pale yellow. The logo is the wrong shape, size, and wrong way round. It, too, is the wrong colour. It should be pale green, lined in gold. (Not yellow either, as mistakes often show). Above all the locomotive should not be black! CIE painted their locomotives a dark grey all over. As a toy, it's fine. As a model it's a disaster. Incidentally, there's a salutary story behind the frequently-seen yellow snails on model loco tenders. Never, ever take livery details from preserved vehicles. Errors in accurate liveries are common. In Ireland they are endemic, with every single heritage group having wrongly painted at least some of what they've so carefully and painstakingly restored. When the RPSI first restored two of its locomotives, (461 and 184) it gave them a black livery with a yellow snail. But the black and the yellow were inaccurate. Unfortunately, these have been propagated in many models, a bit like the zebra stripes of black ironwork on the otherwise beautifully restored GNR brake van at Whitehead. On almost all Irish wagons, ironwork colour matched the body colour, as did chassis colour.

There may have been problems with the HEP on the Loughrea line as the carriage used to be plugged into a land line at night to charge the storage heaters. On the other hand, this may just gave been when it was working with a G. It must have got cold in it pretty rapidly during the working day! And on the rare occasion they had a second coach on the train, no heating in that one at all!

So many model railcars - the "real" 2600s (AECs), 80s, etc... models never seem quite right. This one is amazing!

Worsley Works do a "G" scale kit for a CIE (West Clare) "F" class diesel. It is very accurate.

All set for Foynes now..... final emails / phone calls tomorrow. See ye there!

Must have a look - it IS certainly possible. The lighter green spanned 1955-63 and was concurrent with unpainted silver.

I couldn't swear to it, but while green tin vans were definitely to be seen, I'm unaware of ever seeing a PO 4w van in green - either in real life or in any record.

That IS the problem! 1958 Harcourt Street closure, 1976 G V Street closure......!!

All very true, Broithe.....however...... difficult, expensive or not, Dublin will absolutely have to have more public transport. There's no room above ground. The soon they start the better and the longer they leave it the more difficult it will get. Time for the traditional Dublin whinging to be silenced; we need this nationally, as a plan, so the normal standards of "me, self and I" and "compensation compensation compensation" will eventually have to be overtaken by national necessity... And I agree that the tunnel is a start.

DAMN! Can't go after all. Last minute thing cropped up; away all day! Anyone going - photos might be interesting for this site...

After almost a week in Vienna recently, I saw a city some 25% larger than Dublin with seamless, and in some cases 24 hour, tram, bus and underground railway lines. We have two tram lines, the red one not being all that speedy ("luas"?!) and Vienna has 177km of trams. There are some 6 or 8 separate underground lines covering all areas; we have none. Buses almost seem superfluous, and nobody ever takes their car into town. There's absolutely no need. Our roads are choked with buses and cars. Dublin's population will exceed that of Northern Ireland, i.e. will be 20% larger, within 15 years. this will make it equal to Vienna's. We NEED a system like this, and for that matter it might be of interest to readers to know that drivers of trains, trams and buses in Vienna - where the cost of living is almost exactly the same as Dublin - earn some 65% of what they earn here. Just sayin'. Against this background, and doubtless many others like it, all this fuss about one tunnel is just pathetic. Oh yes; Austria has a similiar number of taxpayers to Ireland.

Not sure, John. In layout planning terms, for those interested, such a manoeuvre could provide interest. While I am not sure about beet trains, certainly in the past it was not at all unknown for trains to be split into sections to go over lines with lighter load limits or steep gradients. I have seen - somewhere - a photo of a battered looking J15 trundling along the Cork main line of all places, some time in the late 50s or early 1960s, with an overload of one "H" van and a 20T brake van. that's a bit extreme, but obviously it did happen; this was in pre-photoshop days! In the forthcoming book, there's a shot at Gortatlea of one of the last Tralee mail trains. it consists of a single 141 and a single mail van.

And a bit more. Check the Farish website and those of other "N" manufacturers. Open wagons and some LMS covered vans are close enough to 1950s GNR(I) stock which ended up with CIE and was in use well into the seventies. Just sheep-dip in grey or brown (post-'72). Mk 2AB coaches will be just a repaint of BR equivalents. I'm sure someone manufactures Mk 3's; same. There's an LMS 0.6.0 tender engine which could be mildly altered to resemble an NCC equivalent, and I am sure I've seen LMS / BR Stanier tanks changed to approximately resemble UTA / NIR "WT" class. Lining - especially by hand - will always look grotesquely overscale in "N" gauge, so a choice of livery where lining is either non-existent, or weathered to invisibility (think "Jeeps"!) might aid realism. As others have said, a credible 800 can be made out of a "Royal Scot". I am sure with a bit of botching, a credible likeness to a J15 - almost essential for CIE steam era - or a "Woolwich", or even a 400 class if modelling the Cork main line, could be achieved. Plain unlined grey for all but the 800 would be an advantage!

I got a price to post a 141 - in its original box - from Dublin to the north today; postage was €4.55 or so. I know postage is generally much cheaper in the south anyway, especially for boxes / parcels, but there's a fair difference between that and £20 sterling!

I wasn't even aware of that stuff. Worsley Works will also have kits for Cravens, Park Royals, laminates and various NCC bogie stock (suitable right up to early '70s NIR era, "Hunslet" hauled on Portrush Sunday School trains!) and GSWR six wheelers, suitable for CIE use up to about 1961. With so many of us now living in ever-smaller houses and apartments, maybe "N" gauge Irish is a potential growth area?