jhb171achill

I think just 2 or 3 got the red buffer beam. I have a note somewhere but goodness knows where......... The black'n'tan repaints were never going to be far away. A grey one is suitable for 1962-8. I think the last one was repainted in 1968.

Well done IrishswissErnie again. Absolutely superb stuff, and great to have it widely viewable by all.

All it needs is a more youthful jhb171Senior peering at the track, clad in long brown trench coat, pondering what on earth to tell Manorhamilton about the maintenance regime... whole idea is to get SOME money out of Stormont and Leinster House. And is that Bill Haley or Elvis on the wireless receiver?

Looks very well indeed. Those fuel tanks tended to be finished "galvanised" (i.e. "silver"). Obviously, they'd look grey in a black'n'white photo. The tipping body of this thing looks as iof its green too, though it's hard to tell. Lorry bodies in "green snail days" were as far as I remember painted wagon grey. I'm nearly sure - but could be wrong - that wheel centres were green.

Aaaaaarrrghhghghg such a superb model! Don't worry, a spell in Manorholman Works will fix it. Cue a diorama showing a loco rolled down an embankment on the SLNCR (as happened in the 1920s!)

NOW I know where my hen went, back in July 1957...... it's beside the turntable. As always, this layout is absolutely the epitome of excellence. So is the lighting and photography.

Some Mk 2's got a black roof in this livery. Mk 3 as above, of course.

That track looks SO much better.

They must have gone to the same training school as MED, MPD or "Castle" class railcars! Though the latter had two other passenger comfort delights: (1) seats designed for midgets, (2) just two speeds on local working - stop and go. It's a wonder nobody got whiplash travelling in one. I know they have their fans, but I'm not one of 'em! No sir, no sir. It's all right seeing one preserved, but sure yiz never went railing in one, from Antrim as far as Coleraine!

Silver heating vans, coaches, and locomotives - all. The "silver" (in reality, unpainted) livery weathered spectacularly badly. Locomotives especially, just looked absolutely filthy and very uncared for. Even more utterly ghastly than many of the "trans-euro-connex-western-first great pennines train company" fairground garishness to be found threading the rails on our neighbouring island..... Incidentally, as I think Mayner pointed out at one stage - numerals on silver coaching stock was RED, while on locos it was "eau-de-nil". Bogies, roofs, ends, chassis, gangways, all unpainted - plain silver-grey bare metal. (Arguably, with the absence of any paint, it wasn't a "livery" at all!). Coaching stock turned out thus never had any "snails" on them.

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Any new pics of silver locos or stock looks very spectacular new. But eyewitnesses said "one single journey" and they're already looking dull; two and they're filthy. It would have been quite impossible to keep clean - photos bear that out.

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.