jhb171achill

I wasn't selling it Garfield - don't want to - apologies if I misled anyone! My point with that one was if anyone was interested in seeing details on it..... (must look for it!)

Off topic, but I've found an old photo of DSER No. 20 as well. If anyone's interested in details, PM me. It shows DSER livery well.

A very interesting perspective - lineside detailing is something that many of us (me included) don't research much. I can probably speak for a good few of us in feeling suitably educated!

It is a complete and utter no-brainer, Irishrail201. They know perfectly well, but (a) they see no votes in it, especially if they are from outside the area; and (b) sure, we have to see if any of our property developing friends want the land first. Oh, it' reserved for public transport? Ahhh, well, c'mere and we'll talk about that, ok? Say nothing. Certainly don't post it on IRM or I won't get re-elected..... Think I've blown that one, haven't I? The underground system is by far the best, but the Clongriffin spur would do. The underground needs to be revived - fifteen years is a long time, though it took them FORTY long years to reopen the Harcourt Street line! The LUAS is still needed, however, northside, possibly out to Santry / Swords. But that's not all - the south west side of the city is growing very rapidly as we speak - I look out of my window right now and see two large housing estates of 4 bed family homes being built across the road and beyond that. The population in this area is probably growing more rapidly than anywhere else. Places like Terenure / Rathfarmham / Ballyboden / Kiltipper need a tram line, and if the authorities were any use, they'd be looking at building it all the way up to Stocking Wood for the (currently underway) massive expansion up there. It's going to have to happen some day. Meantime, the underground? (Oh.... this is the first time I've ever seen the Dáil bar empty....)

I did hear that rumour, Mayner, indeed - but I don't know if there was any substance in it. Tenders were certainly swopped between not only membersof the same class, but among classes, particularly when GSR standard designs were introduced. In Indonesia in the early 1980s, I noticed members of loco classes surviving in traffic with FEW examples carrying their own tenders - it was easy to tell, as the livery details had the loco number on both engine and tender. In steam days on all railways, tender swopping was the norm, as was the switching of parts. During restoration of 171, 85 184, 186 and NCC No. 4 at Whitehead over the years, things like connecting rods were often found with the number of another member of the class stamped on them.

dare one suggest, PARTICULARLY some of the "local" needs...... If they put a LUAS on the airport link, stand back and watch as the unpoliced, fare-dodger-friendly system that they operate attracts a lot of people who, themselves, are "attracted" to tourists, their wallets, cameras and handbags. It'll resemble Temple Bar but without any garda presence. Oh, wait.... Time and time again, on red and green lines, we see people hopping on and off without a care in the world, not wanting to concern ticket machines with issuing them a ticket. Maybe they are just being eco-friendly in not wanting tickets using up paper, but maybe they are tight, or scumbags. You don't get that on buses. The LUAS system of having nobody anywhere to regularly check tickets is an open invitation to the stingy, to druggies and other low life, to travel the rails for free, annoying or frightening other passengers en route. This is before we address the timing issue. How long will it really take from, say Stephen's Green to the airport? Will they at least give the thing priority at traffic lights so it actually never has to stop at them? Will they have special trams with extra luggage space, as the current ones are quite unsuitable for a large group of tourists with luggage? Northside city certainly needs a tram line out to say, Phibsborough, Glasnevin, Finglas. But the airport needs heavy rail, no doubt about it. Governmental pottering about, and wittering on about budgets, won't solve that one, especially with Dublin's population racing ahead of its current 1.25 million, and tipped to exceed that of all of Northern Ireland withing twenty years, by which time over a quarter of all the people on this island will live in greater Dublin. (It's heading that way already; and what have we got in recent years - two tram lines, more buses to choke the roads, and a few miles of reopened Dublin & Meath line!)...

This was one of the last two surviving D & K coaches; the other was an even older "Green Third" dating from the mid 1830s. This fell to bits as late as the early 1950s at Inchicore (at which time 48 went north). They survived only because they were used to transfer horse people the mile or so from Lansdowne Road station to the Ballsbridge siding when the Horse Show was on. Since the D & K painted third class coaches dark blue with scarlet chassis and black wheels, it intrigues me that this coach entered the Belfast Transport Museum (in 1955) in maroon. Was this a DWWR / DSER livery? If so, it's the only likely accurate example in existence of DSER maroon. When was it repainted from blue? The D & K painted first class coaches deep maroon; this coach was clearly never a first!

Official Inchicore photo of 404, handed down... €5 anywhere including postage.

Here's an official Inchicore photo of 404 - which, incidentally, I'm offering to a good home in items for sale.

Two "books" of rare SLNCR bus tickets. Their bus services were quite remote! €5 including postage for one of each. €20 including postage for the lot. For those who don't suffer, like I do, from "Too Many Birthday Syndrome", the prices are in pre-decimal pounds, shillings and pence. 7/11, for example, is not what the Dubs will beat Kerry by, it means seven shillings and elevenpence. That is, a penny short of eight shillings, which after February 1971 magically became 40p, and would now be 50.8 cents. 2d means two pennies, or roughly 1.5c today.

I remember photographing it (hauled by 153 I think) about 1976 near Duncormick. It had five laminates - FIVE! - and about a dozen passengers.... not sure what van was on. It could quite often be that length in those days Rosslare to Limerick, but with sure a desperately poor service, the public had long been put off and there seemed little need for that many carriages, especially when Connolly - Dundalk locals were jammed solid!

1944 (now at Downpatrick) was one of them. I don't know the other but I'm sure someone else here does! And yes, 141s were the regular power. I've seen a pic of a single 121 with one PR and a 4 wheel tin van on the Limerick - Ballina in the seventies...

:-)

I'm not even sure what I had in mind when I started this thread, Wrenn! Whatever it was, I have inadvertently deleted the text, then posted it. Yes, I should have gone to specsavers....

With white stripes (which I forgot to mention!) below the windows, and two passenger coaches rather than one, it could well be Ballina indeed. I'd be inclined to think that it could also be that last (Limerick based) PR set which worked the Limerick - Rosslare link. The Nenagh branch is a third possibility. Incidentally, PR stock, like BR vans, acquired white lines below window level in the 90s, but none ever had the orange lines above, which Cravens acquired at the same time.

mid 90s; one two-car set remained on Limerick to Waterford. Livery: IE's Park Royal livery - black'n'tan.

STUNNING!!!! This is what, I am sure, 99% of us aspire to!

"Might-have-beens" in preservation are very numerous! Given willing manpower and money (neither existing in sufficient quantities in 99% of Irish society), anything's possible. I am aware, however, of several which were comprehensively researched, but nothing ever came of them. A section of the Tullow branch, a stretch of the Athboy branch, and a stretch of the erstwhile SLNCR near Belcoo, were all looked at in the 1990s / 2000s by several groups, and dirty tears ago the RPSI considered the ex-GNR Banbridge to Scarva line. The Fenit and Loughrea branches were in the preservation sights for a short while, and short sections of the Achill and Clifden lines were examined for possible preservation many years ago. Imagine a comprehensive Festiniog-style section of the CDR; maybe Donegal to Stranorlar, and a good stretch of 5ft 3 as well. Banbridge would be quite ok! Or a scenic part of Mallow to Waterford..... Achill would be excellent.... Too many possibilities..... Several narrow

No way of telling. I suspect, for several reasons, that steam into the sixties would have gradually become black, prob with white number and CIE roundel...

I'll give you full marks for imagination, gsr800! Fascinating scenario.....

Compromise on 275?

See what you mean, GSR. The 800 class "mid green with bluish tint", complete with its yellow and black lining, would probably have spread instead of the all-over unlined grey. It would also have adorned a fleet of newer-built standard classes of steam engines. Possibly, main line diesels might have been experimented with, as the LMS in England did. The narrow gauge lines then deemed worth saving (T & D, WCR, and C & L) would have been comprehensively modernised, and in the case of the WCR and T & D, we know that at least vague consideration had been given to conversion to 5ft 3.

The GSR actually did have very good publicity machinery, especially in relation to their considerable chain of railway hotels..... They had tourist buses of their own, too, in the west, and in Kerry.

When 400 / 500 classes might, in theory, have been fitted with newer or larger tenders, there was no £££ in the coffers!

Tenders were indeed swopped! Messrs Friel wouldn't have been party to it and Peter told me 30 years ago he didn't know!! Visual evidence says not 400; that's fair enough (and obvious); but visual evidence, and swopping, conceals whatever the real story is. One thing is certain: that tender, like its compatriots, would have been a "loco-swopper"! Gsr800; sneaking suspicion a Midland engine; hope so (as nothing else Midland exists - though GSR rather than MGWR tender....) but I could be totally wrong.