jhb171achill

Garfield, can you PM me the spies' contact details? And the factory boss?

The anticipation mounts; who'll be the first to post a picture of them!

And rightly so, GSR; I think I'll write to the papers.

Saw that on the Emerald Isle Express! I have occasionally seen that in the past - I don't think it's unique.

Makes perfect sense, DiveController. Some colours - blue probably being the best example - can look very different in different light. CIE green has its moments, but those of us of a certain vintage who remember it will have seen the real thing in many variations of daylight, and daylight is the final arbiter of any colour. Thus, it's probably easier for me (and a certain Mr O'Rourke!) to judge accuracy. But with so much information about nowadays and many good colour photos coming out of the woodwork, putting a white line on a green coach is just lazy, careless. What would people's reaction be if the white line on the Black and Tan one was light green!

Ah for heavens sake. That's plain elementary! The white is wrong and the green looks a bit too bright. Surely to goodness we should be past simple errors like this, but they got the GNR railcar livery quite wrong too. Pity, as the model looks so good otherwise. The font for the carriage numerals on both liveries isn't right either.

Looks fantastic, but is the line on the green ones white or light green?

Replacement of signs with GSR standard enamel was simply a mater of money. They would allocate a budget for a line and all stations would get it, while there were none on another line, just originals. Then, another small budget would allow replacements on a piecemeal basis for a while; on yet another line, therefore, they'd only replace those they had to - e.g. ones which got damaged or rotted. The Clifden, Achill and Killala lines never got a single one between them, and while the Foynes line mostly did, I don't think there were any between Ballingrane and Tralee. Sligo - Limerick was a mixed bag, mostly pre-GSR! Narrow gauge lines were also a mixed bag.

I'll have a look tomorrow, Broithe. I'll be in Killarney tomorrow and the next night. Funny, the majority of all the unicorns I've ever seen are after leaving the Killarney Grand in the wee hours. The scariest thing I've ever encountered in Killarney is "The Wanderer"......

Wow! Excellent work - VERY realistic!

hahahaha excellent! Our good moderators and ballast wagon vendors will be raising eyes to heaven. Just as well there are no unicorns there.

How many shekels to the euro?

There's a wee man in the carriage with a handset....

That must be it, Mayner; interesting and worth researching. On of the BCR directors was in communication with the then-new Isle of Man Railway. Possibly they were swopping ideas. there was never any formal communication, as such, as far as is known. A layout showing either Cork's Albert Street CBPR terminus with 3ft gauge city commuter trains on a double track line, or a potential 3ft gauge terminus adjacent (probably) to Belfast GVS would be interesting. A narrow gauge line up through Ardoyne would have had some savage gradients, and given the long distance to Burtonport, a large fleet of LLSR tender-like locos would have been necessary for goods. What of passenger trains? A sort of narrow-gauge "Jeep" or NCC 3ft gauge compound? NCC-style bogie carriages like those on the B & L line would be needed..... Probably bogie goods stock at an early stage. And the UTA would have shut the entire lot in pretty short order...

I'll order 119 of those, Bosk! But only with DCC, and full air conditioning.

An obscure set of papers in the Isle of Man archive outlines very brief details suggesting that one time the short and short-lived Belfast Central Railway toyed with setting down dual gauge track, with an eye to the extension of a possibly proposed Ulster-based 3ft gauge system of possibly up to 200 miles in length. This is distinct from the once-proposed (and nearly started!) Ulster & Connaught Railway. Anyone know where this was meant to go, presumably from Belfast? I've never heard of it, but the mention of it goes back to the 1890s.

Some were indeed, Richrua! Others were en route from Timoleague Unicorn Farm in West Cork to Spa Halt, on the Ballynahinch branch of the BCDR..... Maybe I should get out more?

That is an amazing operation!

Probably the most famous is the man on the white horse in the Wellington Cutting between Bessbrook and Dundalk. My father remember a PW gang all running away scared from the, while on night time PW work, in 1947/8. Locomen had report sightings right back to the earliest days of the railway.

And, on the Achill line - between two of the MGWR's only two "proper" tunnels (as opposed to "cut'n'covers"),, which were outside Newport on the Westport side, and only a few hundred metres apart - there was a ghost. When you got the train to Westport from Newport, you crossed the viaduct (still there) and entered tunnel no. 1. After exiting this, only seconds passed until you were in the other. IF IT WAS DARK, and no lights in the carriage, once you got out of one, there was a man in old-fashioned undertaker's clothes sitting opposite you. After you came out of the second, he had gone.

On the Killybegs - Donegal section of the CDR, shortly after closure, a couple who were recently retired gatekeepers and still lived in their CDR house, heard a locomotive whistling for the gates one very dark and stormy night. Services had ended and the track was in the process of being lifted; some track was still laid, but the bit past them had been taken up over recent days and weeks. But the old crossing gates were still there, and closed across the former railway for good, as you'd expect. They BOTH went out to investigate. As they opened their door, they heard a frantic whistling and a ghostly train rushed past, the lights in the several carriages visible, as well as the glow of the firebox. They could smell the steam and coal smoke. This was in 1960. Obviously, there was no train out that night. WooooooooooHHHHHHH

I want a truck for carrying live unicorns.

That one at Sallins is interesting, Maitland. While it's the standard post-1925 GSR style, as the overwhelming majority (but not all) were converted to, believe it or not the font style on THIS one is not typical! Normally, letters were not as spaced out... The concrete surround and posts are typical.

Excellent collection. It shows just how much of the ordinary railway is not only gone, but even among railway enthusiasts little or not known about at all. I'm a great believer that even for modern, or post-steam era modellers, it's essential to know the details of the past, to know where the railway scene each of us follows came from.

I was remiss in mentioning firstly, absolutely brilliant pictures. It is indeed an awkward place to photograph anything, but your methods have produced superb results. David; I think that museums SHOULD be able to be trusted on such matters. Occasionally, where original colour is not certain (such as the C & V B Tramway coach), a notice to that effect should be provided. But look at the trouble the NRM in York takes to get such things right. It is absolutely elementary, and the fact that in the railway collections at Cultra, virtually nothing they have painted is anywhere near right, is just disgraceful. The RPSI ensured the right grey for 186, the right blue for the GNR locos, and at one time the right livery for the wooden coaches. Downpatrick has adopted in recent years an accuracy policy; anything incorrect there dates from early days (such as a CIE goods van with a brown body and black chassis). The latter two bodies are run by volunteers with scarce time and resources. An outfit like Cultra ought to get it right.