jhb171achill

Yes, she would be in the experimenta lighter green there - probably newly done. Wasn't aware that it ha no number then! Maybe they applied it later!

A silver or green one could well have met a SLNCR steam loco in Sligo, as well as the last of CIE's ex-MGWR 2.4.0s......

Senior had Multiple Conniptions, attacks of the Screaming Fits, and Grade 3 Heeby-Jeebys at the state of their track, while resident GNR engineer in Enniskillen. So much so that on one occasion he inspected the line for them as a favour, in his own time, on a Sunday, as he was friendly with their traffic manager. The remedy was a trainload or two of GNR ballast from Goraghwood Quarry, and creative accounting to hide the cost of it in the GNR's Western Division PW budget!

Wow! I'm frothed out...... there has to be an AEC set in there somewhere!

Ah! YES! That bridge..... I knew I recognised it..... wonder what the service is, possibly a GVS - Warrenpoint?

The main line liveries are themselves quite a bunch. 1. All-over dark "lake" (an extremely dark brownish red) with GSWR markings 1902-25 2. For any used on main lines after 1906, same with white upper panls. This is the livery 836 is preserved in. It is unlikely all of this type got the white upper panels, and in fact is possible none did. 3. All-over dark lake but with SR markings, 1925-early 30s. 4. It is possible, but by no means certain, that some of these got the short-lived GSR "main line" livery of chocolate brown and cream (late 1920s to miod 30s) but again not certain. 5. Standard GSR all-over maroon, same as LMS maroon in Britain (and for that matter NCC & BCDR here). That's what's shown in that last IRRS photo mentioned above. 6. CIE dark green with lining 7. CIE light green with simplified lining (with or without snails) 8. Possibility of either green livery in "auxiliary" unlined livery of either green. 9. The few that lasted until 1964 are unlikely to have been repainted, but hypothetically at least one might have ended up in black'n'tan.... Yes, if you do a few etches, I would take one.

That bottom one with 198 - it's some way familiar! One of these I feel I should know straight away but don't! Leslie, Galteemore, thoughts???

I have indeed seen a picture somewhere of this type of stock in trains hauled by an 800 class.

Yes, it is indeed correct! Somewhere, probably late 60s, I saw a bocketty-looking old departmental vehicle somewhere with what looked like WHITE lettering. Upon investigation, which involved trespass on operating railway tracks in view of indifferent staff, without dayglo shoes, trousers, knickers, hat or jacket; without safety briefing, training or knowledge beyond "get off track if train appears", I inspected said line and lettering - it was just badly faded eau-de-nil paint. If you lifted a bit of ballast and scratched it, the pale green showed up. Today, for such a stunt, I'd be clapped in irons, taken away in a black maria and thrown into a cell...... and they'd close the railway for two months and hire a few consultats to determine how it happened..... and the online conspiracy theorists would dream up 147 fact-free explanations.

The compo you mentioned in your first post might be a more versatile model to do, as single composites were often used in later days on branch lines, often in between a tin van and a filthy C class! Either way, if you're doing an etch of ANY old GSWR bogie, would you be making a few extras?

Awful experiences..... yes, preliminary thoughts on concealment always essential... I had a tourist once on a private tour and he lost his passport the day before he was flying home. MAJOR hassle, especally for an American passport (and that was long before the current dysfunctional administration!).

Those are EXQUISITE!! Livery details - usually the older darker green, and usually without lining. But with deparmental vehicles, there were so many variations that in detail many were one-offs livery-wise. Ends and roofs black in the 1950s and early 60s, but red ends later on. This tended to dafe to look orange or salmony-pink, but initial paining was red. Anything repainted after the early 60s was plain wagon grey sides and ends, black chassis; dunno about roofs (always too tatty to be sure) but they were probably initially painted black as normal - if at all! Logos - same again. Both in green, or grey, some had logs and some didn't. In green & snail days, some had a normal sized painted snail, others had a miniature one..... Some had elaborate essays writted on them like "PERMANENT WAY DEPARTMENT - PLEASE RETURN TO BALLYGOBACKWARDS - MAX SPEED 30 MPH".... and some had nothing at all. Running numbers were in the A series, e.g. 465A, 366A, 298A, etc etc. Some retained full footboards, some had none any more, and some had partly retained footboards / footsteps.

I’ll try - I’m pretty occupied today but I’ll see if I can.

Yes - the place is full of yella machines! I think there’s a loco up in the quarry siding but too far away to see properly. Orange 071 has been living there most of the last 2 weeks.

It's 2508 1/2 ......

SO much to look at in that! Absolutely superb!

Not my thing as being on the wrong island, but those look absolutely amazing! For our younger readers, it's vital to be aware of this; since the 1970s goods trains tend to be trains of a whole rake of a single type of wagon, with nothing on the end but a lamp. But throughout the entire life of all railways, worldwide, since they were invented and until the advent of continuous brakes (air OR vac), a guard's brake van was as necessary at the end of a train as a locomotive at the front. It's as bad as this; imagine someone putting a motor in a cattle truck, and having it haul a mixed goods train going round the layout with only wagons (and a brake van!) but NO LOCOMOTIVE! Yes, I hear ya, Rule 1, you can run what you like - and of course that's true. But to even the strongest adherent of that rule it would look....odd. Very odd. On ANY layout, a string of loose-coupled goods wagons without a brake van at the end looks just as ridiculous; it would be unworkable in real life. Indeed, both on our Rainy Isle of Todd and our neighbouring Brexit Isle, you could occasionally see a more than one van. I saw one train somewhere on the Cork line years ago - might have been Thurles - and I was told that the second van at the end was simply being taken for repair. And, in situations where it might aid a rapid turnaround at a terminus, I have seen a brake van at both ends - I saw that on a Dundalk-Belfast goods once. So, at least one of these yokes is mandatory, but don't be afraid to put two on a train for the craic. On Dugort Harbour I currently have about six brake vans from JM Design, Provincial Leslie and CK Prints Enda. All are superb. Leslie's old GSWR type is perfect for remote rural locations up to about 1961, while JM & CK serve later periods. For British Rail, the above beauty is a must! I note, over the years, seeing the monthly "comics", as my learned friend call them, when new they were all much the same livery, but especially since privatisation it seems no two have the same livery! So - choices, choices.... This, for British modellers, is a MOST welcome design. For Accurascale I hope these things sell like hot cakes. Well done, folks. Next: an RTR AEC railcar, RTR MGWR six-wheelers, RTR UTA "Jeep", RTR GNR 4.4.0, and a MGWR "A" class 4.4.0.....

And Northport Quay is a masterpiece, packing more interest in than many a layout ten times its size. I have a small leftover baseboard, probably about four feet long, five at most, and wide enough for a platform and three tracks side by side, or a platform, two tracks spaced out a bit more to give an illusion of space. It could be operated lioke Fintona - the railbus going back and forth, and a steam loco BACKING two or three goods vans in or out. Just about anough room to shunt. Alternatively, something like the photos shown recently here of Ardnacrusha (but without a model power station the size of the No. 42 bus), the railbus bringing workers in and out each day; or Kilmokea in South Wexford and a makeshift platform for the same use, the excuse for goods being a beet siding. But I'd need an 0 gauge J15 or 141 for that! Fintona-type thing like this; Meant to add - the yellow siding shown is what COULD fit on the small baseboard I have if I didn't have the loading bank, but I think it would make the whole thing far too cluttered looking.

Interesting...... You've got me thinking....

With "0" gauge taking up more space than 00, something like this also often struck me as an ideal "entry-level" yoke for this scale. I don't suppose anyone makes "0" scale kits of it? Or for a scratchbuild, what chassis / motor would you recommend?

Aaaarrrrrgggghhhhh!!! Where's me smelling salts!! Yes- - it became CIE green about 1958 - CIE never ran it in SLNCR livery, I believe. So green from then until maybe 1963-ish. Five years or so, maybe six?

If it was before 1963 it would have been the 1955-style lighter green with black roof. If after ‘63, Black and Tan. I had toyed with the idea of buying a kit, long before this German man advertised this on eBay. Couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it! Had I bought a kit and done it myself I’d have painted it green for the simple reason it would have been easier…. I like it in BnT though. I still harbour notions about a UTA one with “wasp stripes” on a mini-shunting-terminus based on Fintona surviving into the 1960s….. I’ve a spare baseboard the right size….

I'll ask Barry Carse....

As we know, a bit like CIE building 34 "C" class and then closing most of the rural routes they were intended for, in the same way BR got a number of railbuses from different manufacturers for lightly used branch lines during a few years either side of 1960. In reality they didn't last long as these branches were sliced by Beeching's "axe". My "back story" here is that CIE got hold of one of these things from BR as an experiment and re-gauged it. They tried it in Loughrea and Ballina, where it was deemed unsuitable, so they sent it to west Kerry, to do the shuttle connection btween "town" (Castletown West) and "the harbour". It acquitted itself adequately on this duty between spring 1962 and mid-1966, when an unfortunate incident in Castletown loco shed saw it being walloped against a buffer stop by an "A" with misbehaving brakes and a trainee driver.... At present it's "display only" as it hasn't been trained to deal with DCC, but that will follow. I saw it on fleabay and bought it from a German gentleman, of all people! He had expertly painted it. A unique little thing - I did, actuallly, have plans myself going way back to get one and paint it thus, so great minds must think alike. As you say, a credible "might-have-been"!

It's one of Cyril Fry's (and his model of a Park Royal is silver); courtesy of the collection of his photos held by his daughter, Patricia Dillon, who I know. She said I could post all those images above. I hope to go to visit her again quite soon.