jhb171achill

Ahhhhhhh I completely forgot the cat!!!!!!! Likewise, happy Christmas to one and all....

A very Happy Christmas and New Year to all here and their families.

1. Loco runs round, backs up against passenger stock and pushes them clear of points towards Dromod - 3 moves. 2. Loco runs through loop and backs against liner, pushing it back against carriages - 2 moves. 3. Pulls whole lot forward (Dublin direction) through yard loop, stops to uncouple carriages, and sets off for Dublin - 1 move. Is that what happened, at a guess?

They were indeed called "bags" and still are. True, it doesn't seem logical.....! I don't know the origin. Anyone?

Brilliant, folks, thanks for your suggestions, that's very useful. I'll mull over it and see what I can do. I'll prepare it standing on my head so that the illustrations are the right way up!

As an actual book, Kirley, I doubt if it would be commercially viable, but if it was, all the better. I would initially plan to just post it all in a section here. If someone could show me a side elevation of, say, various laminates, that might be a start. I would hope to find a way of "colouring it in" for display here.

I sympathise, Weshty. Every SINGLE post I ever put up here contains some predictive gobbledygook - even worse than the content of my posts.... There's barely one post I don't have to edit...

Imagine the Belmond train travelling to Valentia, Clifden, Clonakilty, Achill, or Bundoran!

Folks, as a result of a couple of expressions of interest, I cast the net wider; is anyone interested in some sort of definitive reference for all known CIE liveries? If so, I would be happy to put this all together, but I'd need the assistance of someone who can help with outline drawings of all sorts of locomotives, carriages and wagons. Any takers? Perhaps you might PM me?

The were UK equivalents too, junctionmad. With the all brown, and I suppose a nod to preservationists if and when preserved examples become due for repaint; correct versions have brown chassis and brown roofs as well, just as grey wagons had grey roof and chassis as well. Like CIE steam engines, it was "sheep dip" procedure!

Correct, flange, I should have clarified that. Few H vans had vacuum bags - I think is as one on a single occasion, though (a) I could be wrong, and (b) it might have been a one-off for some specific purpose. For a modeller, all grey is the rule prior to 1970, bubbles included. There were extremely few exceptions, though one which springs to mind was the short lived red on Ranks grain wagons, which were hardly commonplace! Post 1970, brown graduates from start to about 60% (maybe 70%?) of working stock by 1976. From then on, it's virtually all bulk containers, bogie fert etc. All brown.

Personally, as one of the majority of exhibition attenders - the viewers, rather than exhibitors - I like to see a "round'n'round", as the trains are in operation. But once I get my own thing up, running and built (I moved house last year), I'd be onto accurate operation. I think that even for those of us with an interest in absolute accuracy, it would be hard to concentrate on a layout operated thus at an exhibition, and it wouldn't be easy, if possible at all, for an exhibitor to concentrate hard on correct operation, while talking to and interacting with the public. To do it properly you'd need one person to operate and another to talk! Now - as I've said numerous times - I've the greatest expect for all aspects and opinions; that's just my tuppence worth. My point is - to answer the question, I think the exhibitor has to have final word, or at least a major say, as he's sitting there not getting paid! Most exhibitions seem to have a good mix, with everything from highly accurate models to "Thomas"! Glenderg raises the realistic scenario of a train sitting five minutes in a station. Here's one old-fashioned, original, and highly effective solution. The late jhb171 Senior had a huge old coarse scale O gauge layout in his youth. Now, we're going back to the mid to late 1920s here. His own father, who was a very skilled modeller indeed (unlike me), adapted an old clock to run at higher speed - 12 times normal speed. You could see the hands going round. While scenery was absent, the railway was run to strict timetable. It had a double track main line with a single track branch, and another single track loop of some sort. There were slow and fast up and down passenger trains, light engines, shunting procedures, two large goods yards, and slow and semi-fast goods services. Even shunting engines had duty rosters, like in real life. He would wind the clockwork locomotives, and wind the (clockwork!) clock, and set it all going. The clock ticked away, completing a 24 hour day cycle in two hours. By the time I was old enough to appreciate it, the clock had become worn out, and his LMS 4.4.0 tinplate locomotive was reckoned to have run over 1000 actual miles.... It's all gone to Tinplate Heaven now.. But a "faster clock" idea might be of interest to a modern modeller determined to have absolute operational accuracy, and surely must be possible to replicate using all the modern gadgetology that exists.... (....there must be an "app".....)!

Your initial point, David, is perfectly right and very well put. As you also suggest, though, while (in my opinion) wide access to absolutely, meticulously correct and detailed information on all aspects of the past railway is of great importance, there is room for absolutely all and every other aspect of modelling too. Meanwhile, I'll email you with some "detailed" observations regarding Arigna Road! (And I'm hoping that for the first time, the RPSI May tour will visit there....)

Looking at kits of a 121, whatever they use as a casting for the cab roof always seems to look a bit out of scale. I would be inclined to add a plasticard roof instead, thinner and not sticking out so much. While the roofs were obviously painted orange, unless straight out of the paint shop a bit of weathering would always be appropriate. The cabs of 121s were taller than the 141/181 type, thus when operating as part of a 121 / 141 "pair", the cab roof of a 121 seemed to get dirty quite quickly.

Couldn't agree more!!!! "......From seeing this sort of difference of opinion or difference of interpretation on other forums over the years, folks that had met face to face seemed to get on better and were able to discuss opposing opinions without upsetting each other. It is a fact that normal decent folk behind keyboards on the internet can end up in a spat because there are no facial expressions, no eye contact, and no tone of voice, just text which without the other queues can lead to unnecessary heat. Two chaps I knew years ago were on the steps of a court house 8 years ago after an alleged liable during an internet spat, they met face to face, talked it out, realised they had both misunderstood the others intentions, over reacted and escalated what had started as a minor issue. Had they met 'face2face' in a pub it would never have happened. Ironically they ended up the best of mates. Strange but true. Sorry for going off piste (topic), but wish all could calm down. Nobody has died, it a model railway forum, not how to solve the worlds serious problems, and most definitely not the UN......"

I'm the same. I didn't travel as much as a few travellers here, or modern photographers like Chris P or the Wanderer, or Finnyus. However I did manage to get to some interesting places by train. However, it also has to be said that all forms of travel are proportionally cheaper now, services on almost all lines are more frequent than before, and what obscure railway locations there were in the past are gone. So, today, it's easier to chronicle what's left. That said, like you I know I could have photographed so, so much more. The familiar often remains untouched by photographers, past and present alike...

I think I know (though it's not me!).....

All was grey, junctionmad, until about 1969/70, when increasing number of wagons were being "fitted". Had goods wagons been frequently repainted, the grey would have vanished quickly, as all-brown became the standard for all goods wagons, fitted or not. But compared with carriages they rarely saw a paint brush. I photographed a standard H van in Ballina in grey - but not only that, still with a (obviously pre-1962) "flying snail" on it, as late as 1977. So it hadn't been painted for 15 years. By the time loose coupled trains ended, and thus all the old 4 wheel goods vans were set aside, at least a third of everyday goods stock was still grey. While most had CIE "roundels", even the the occasional one still had a "snail" to the end. Needless to say, nothing brown ever had a snail, as the brown appeared long after the roundel had dos placed the snail.

I think the ample space for both. Personally I like to see something modelled accurately and operated accurately,ur I remember my own teenage layouts. Accurate they weren't, in any sense. I had a Hornby class 35 "Hymek" in BR blue hauling BR Mk 1s painted black'n'tan; this was supposed to be CIE. Most of it had more signals at all as pocket money was sparse. The track layout alone precluded anything remotely approaching accurate operation. But I got immense enjoyment out of it, running inaccurate trains round and round and round and round. Some prefer end to end "fiddle yards"; some of round and round, some prefer off-the-shelf models (as I did in the past, due to my lack of modelling skills). Horses for courses. But to go back to OP's point, I think that it is vital that the operational procedures now long gone on the real railways, the understanding of the WTTs, mechanical signalling, and of course my own interest in accurate liveries is properly recorded so that anyone who DOES aspire to absolutely accuracy in recreating a window into the past, almost like a three dimensional history of a prototypical location, can do so. In politicsor religion we often hear that the mistakes of the past must not be hidden under the carpet, or - worse - rewritten, the consequence being that dangerous theories will be less likely to gain momentum in the future if truth about the past is transparent. We can hardly equate railway modelling with that type of scenario, but the principle is similarly that if a modeller really does gain enjoyment of their hobby by recreating absolute accuracy, there will be plenty of information available for them to do this. Meanwhile, others, probably the massive majority, will gain their own enjoyment by their own interpretations and methods. Most of us of a certain age have heard of the late Drew Donaldson, whose O gauge models are now in Cultra. And yet, his layout was utterly devoid of scenery, and the vast majority of his models are painted CIE green, a livery which none of their class (in the majority of cases) ever carried. Yet, despite having seen it operate only once, it was fascinating. Happy Christmas to all.

Would it be about right lengthwise for a 121 or a (possibly scratch built) 141 - for anyone who wasn't able to get a Murphy one, for example?

I remember seeing years ago, long before Worsley Works, Bachmann or Murphy Models came on the scene, seeing a model of a beast like that painted in CIE livery to resemble a 121. You'd be surprised how realistic it looked!

A number of Irish cabins did have fairly substantial balconies, including the BCDR's Downpatrick Loop Platform North and South Junction cabins. Lisburn's Knockmore Junction, and a few GNR boxes also had them, but they were not that common overall, and many companies had none that I know of. The windows and roof / gutter profile of that one is probably the least Irish feature of it.

I trot the blackberry ray out when I'm dealing with American tourists, DiveC. Whole they haven't heard it before, it must be close to driving some of my regular coach drivers to suicide, murder or both!

Or black, if it's to be an Irish prototype.... The ex-GNR Adelaide one was painted red by the UTA, and the former NCC one was painted maroon by NIR. The former is at Whitehead, and the latter at Downpatrick. Apart from the two British Rail ones which CIE imported quite late on, and which saw little use, and were the only ones ever to run in yellow in Ireland, all CIEs were grey or black.

Now, joe123, as a new member you can see how helpful everyone here is! There's a wealth of experience, skill, knowledge, and even artistic talent (by the bucketload) among our diverse community. Hoping your new venture pans out just the way you want it.