jhb171achill

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.

Thanks, Mayner - I think I'll remain as is! Certainly, installing DCC would at best be fiddly!

It could well be, GSR800..... unfortunately, no record survives!

The bit on the RPSI website about 186s tender originates in a 1970s Whitehead (not Dublin!) rumour; one glance at 186's tender confirms that it would most certainly not be from a 400, or any other loco of that size! Having said that, we don't know exactly what it DID come from!

Livery - all over navy railcar blue with GNR; what looks like a thin single red and white line along the middle. Lettering and numerals shaded red and gold. From about 1959, CIE light green, unlined, no snail; renumbered from GNR's 800 to CIE's K801. After about 1962, it obtained all over black with white lines round the tops of the bonnets. K801 in standard CIE font and size on cab sides, with CIE roundels on longer bonnet sides. Never had tan bits.

Very true, Warbonnet!

We've come a long way. In the mid 1970s, I had paper overlays on BR Mk 1's - and VERY crude they were. A BR "Hymek" class 35 was passed off as an NIR Hunslet! Yes, I had a GOOD imagination...