jhb171achill

In that (excellent) pic above, a six car set to Bantry was probably unusual. Bank holiday or something, maybe, have we details?

Is that pic one of yours, Glenderg?

And standard CIE cattle trucks in the background; another essential for goods trains in the BnT era.

Yes, my earliest memories of them were of them sandwiched between H vans, cattle trucks, flat wagons and open wagons. Younger modellers might want to bear in mind that pre-mid-70s, "block" trains almost didn't exist; goods trains were almost all mixed, and with all being loose-coupled, a guards van always took up the rear.

From Senior's tales of his time in Enniskillen (1950-7), it's clear that few coaches saw a paintbrush at all during that time. No. 4, also a favourite of mine, did get a repaint and so did one, possibly two of the trio of bogies. However, they were kept outside. My own experience with repaint of wooden bodied coaches at Whitehead in the pre-carriage-shed days were that rapid deterioration took place in such circumstances, with paint beginning to peel after as little as two years. I could see the SLNCR being embarrassed, and blaming a wagon painter, but the real culprit was the company's dire financial straits. Senior recalls "ballast" trains consisting of a wagon of ashes and cinders from Enniskillen loco shed attached to the back of the goods, which stopped at the required spot to shovel it off.....

Now I can sleep in peacefulness tonight, Glenderg! :-)

Sigh.....

".......Add to that the fact that runs of BR four-wheel box vans wearing CIÉ flying snails or roundels are commissioned from time to time to fulfill the need for 'something older' that looks sort of like a H van, ....." ... despite looking nothing like them, having black chassis, white (!) or otherwise wrong colour roof, wrong size, colour and shape of logos and numerals, etc etc......

Just re-reading these posts again, David. I said the Alphagrafix thing looked red, but suggested they WERE red - I meant to say DARK red. Fading and weathering turned them a browny shade of red, but most of this was due to brake dust. The correct colour was always dark red (reddish maroon?) rather than actual red or actual brown. There's a photo - I think of No. 11 - kicking about which shows it looking almost dark brown, but this is due to either deterioration in the colour slide or poor light when the picture was taken. Jhb171 senior saw it just painted and likened the colour to "similar to newly painted GSR or NCC maroon - maybe marginally darker". Same with No. 4, or indeed all SLNCR coaches.

I still can't understand why the standard "H" van - the single most common CIE wagon of them all by far - has yet failed to appear even in kit form! A black'n'tan era layout without sidings full of them is simply non-authentic full stop!

In terms of fumes poisoning passengers, absolutely nothing could hold a candle to the ghastly, uncomfortable MED sets. Seats specially designed to wreck your back and crush your knees were perfectly counterbalanced by freezing draughts in winter, clammy stale lack of ventilation in summer (even worse than ICRs - well, close...) and diesel fumes 13 months of the year. Thank the Lord none were preserved! The only thing close in the discomfort stakes was a 450 class.

Interesting, Mayner - must look that up.

No clerestorey in those, Old Blarney.....? Centre cars appear all to be laminates, or possibly (in the West Cork one) Bredins? While I stand to be corrected, I did think that most of what few clerestorey roofed stuff there was on CIE would have gone by railcar days.....

That's not just modelling. That's superbly skilled artwork!

.....and.....five million bags of oul blind horses eyes, and six million barrels of porter!

Please, David, didn't see it.

I think weathering is best left to the individual, however an unweathered one of these, particularly post-1975, would look plainly unrealistic in most circumstances!

Can you just imagine the endless list of health and safety vetoes to so, so many aspects of the German "plandampf" if it was staged in Ireland!

It was indeed, Horsetan, see the likes of Jimmy O'Dea's photos in the fifties.... I often imagine what the likes of Monaghan, Clones or Enniskillen - or Albert Quay - would look like now had they survived. One look at present day Mallow, Athenry or worst of all Portadown can answer that!

Exactly, josefstadt! Pat - I'll try to unearth a pic of one when brand new (in standard all-over wagon grey as they were until about 1972-ish)

Unfortunately, Liam, there's no commercially available train set which looks within light years of the train (either locomotive or coaches) in "The Quiet Man"! SSM do a brass kit of some of the coaches but these would require a reasonable level of modelling skill to make up.

The "overhead live wires" warning is perfect for Platin and Limerick....... :-/

That's a very nice model indeed. Quite a few of these ended their days as railcar intermediates.

A few at the front - one anyway - but normally on the back.

So Holyfast is a terminus, a bit like Cookstown was. Could it be somewhere the NCC and the GNR both came into from different directions, or maybe the GNR and a northern extension of the MGWR.... The MGWR had some fine red brick stations like Ballynahinch (Co Galway), Ballyvary, or Mallaranny... Maybe it's an ex MGWR building in your scenario which end up in the north after partition in 1921.