jhb171achill

Excellent programme - anyone see it?

Does anyone know of the existence of track plans or any sort of pictures of this place?

True, Dive, they did indeed simplify it after a Commission of Enquiry (bargain at just €23m to the taxpayer) and a few brown envelopes.

;-)

Yes. They're starting a tendering process to appoint an expert to choose a consultant to - first of all - draw up a document to define "bridge". After that, all personnel will be sent on a training course in advance of being granted a Certificate of Bridge Recognition. After that, a consultant will be appointed to research whether it is or is not necessary to close the entire rail system for three months either side of the work being done. The work itself is expected to require seven workmen, and involve the removal of over fifteen weeds growing in the stonework. This is expected to take between thirty minutes and an hour. Naturally, all staff, consultants and politicians concerned will first have to attend a Weed Recognition Course, and receive the necessary documentation to prove this; an international Weed Consultancy Firm is to be appointed to oversee this, with a €12.5m budget.

I think the new Enterprise livery is by far the best yet.

Another "might have been" with definite modelling potential. Most of us will be aware of the Glenariff 3ft gauge mineral line in Co Antrim, which ceased to function prior to the 20th century. It was Ireland's first 3ft gauge line. Where it ended, it was far too high up the mountain to be able to serve the port down below, one of the reasons for its demise. What if some sort of Devils Nose type thing, a series of reversals, or even a rack line, had been included? It might have even survived to become part of the NCC narrow gauge network. Question: what other opportunities might have existed for mountain reversals, rack lines or mining railways?

Crossmolina would be a great model for a fictitious MGWR terminus!

I'd see it closing with the Achill branch in 1937 and then converted into a Great Southern Hotel. Possibly a hilton today with the old platform area a high-end restaurant called "The Station" or something like that!

True, Dunluce..... pity.... but we did have decent cameras!

A few familiar faces in that! I can never understand why, but there seems to be loads of video and cine in existence of jeeps, and yet almost none of it is anything like decent quality!

Fascinating! The original terminus proposed about 1906 was a more conventional thing. Obviously, they went off and thought in grander terms!

Where did you get that, Broithe? Did it give any further information?

At one time a proposal was made for a railway to Belmullet to serve transatlantic traffic (which, like Clifden, never materialised). Depending on what set of plans would have been used, it would have either left the Achill branch between Mulrany and Tonragee, or run via Crossmolina from Ballina. The "West Mayo Railway", with 141s?

It could have happened a lot more easily than one might think. Let's take a few scenarios: first, either Ireland is a single entity with a pro-rail government, or Stormont and the Dublin government both are. Funding for GNR 4.6.0 and diesels is available. Within CIE, quite simply different management decisions are made, and let's say diesel fuel is a lot dearer, and coal a lot cheaper, than was the case in real life. Now - who's for building five 800 kits!

The greatest "might have been" of all time has got to be the proposed Ulster & Connaught Railway, from Warrenpoint to Clifden. Nothing but a bridge at Keady was ever built of it. It would have been 3ft gauge and along its tortuous and inevitably TOTALLY unremunerative meandering route it would linked the Clogher Valley and C & L. Doubtless Indian or Lough Swilly style large tender locomotives would have been needed, but what an eternity it would have taken to cover the whole route. Probably not in a single day? Would the necessary large engines have managed the street running in Aughnacloy? There, for sure, is a highly imaginative layout crying out to be built!

So the one on the right is a woman with a handbag. Or a man with a hole through him.

As long as it's under a fortnight journey time, it will beat the rush hour traffic.

With Scotsmen wearing kilts, how do you tell a Scottish "Gents" sign from a "Ladies" one? Maybe you have to lift the sign up to see what's underneath?

Mr Wanderer, can you roster the necessary ICRs? ;-)

Correct. Emigration did exist prior to the famine (economic migration) but nothing like the post-1847 levels. If there had been no famine, cue a double tracked Tralee & Dingle, with Beyer Garratts for the Glenagalt climb!

Not in Witham Street. She had no tender anyway; the UTA had scrapped it. The tender she has is the RPSI's, fitted only after she went to Whitehead, and never with her before. (I think it's off a V class loco)....

I had one of their die cast 2.6.4T locos years ago - a truly excellent and hard wearing model, intended on my first layout to represent a UTA "WT" class. Sorry I sold it years and years ago.

She was (is) owned by UFTM, but was not on display there as there was no room. Instead, she was stored in the old Lisburn goods shed.

Here's a what-if layout scenario, based on things which might have happened - or indeed, were actively planne at one stage. It's 1965-70, and steam as not been consigned to the bin. CIE has under it's ownership the following: A large fleet of D class, as they were considered perfectly adequate. A reasonable fleet of modernised J15s on secondary or shunting duties. A fleet of fast modern 2.4.4.T locos for suburban and branch traffic Five 800 class on the Cork line along with twin-engined Sulzer diesels and inherited ex-GNR diesels of American and German origins. Ex GNR 4.6.0 steam locomotives on the Enterprise A fleet of B113 types.... On the DSER and Waterford lines, ex-GSR 850 class 4.6.2T locomotives; these, along with the 2.4.4T types, and possibly a modern mixed traffic 2.6.0, being a standard "modern" GSR / CIE set of classes, the last of which would be destined to remain in traffic until about 1990....