jhb171achill

G track? 15mm gauge?

Where be that?

Wow!! What gauge is it? Didnt realise it was that big....

The green on mine is the GSR variety, Leslie. Drew painted almost all of his models in the (darker) CIE green, as on the real 800 in Cultra. Drew had a great liking for CIE green and painted everything that way, bar a MGWR loco which he rid in MGWR green. With ten GNR coaches it would look like the 1950s Cork "Enterprise"!

Folks For someone who belongs to the age of steam, grey hair and the Rolling Stones, and whose IT knowledge is limited to the fact that Apple are in Cork, a blackberry is a "device", and if you eat too many blackberries you'll get Bluetooth..... What is the best idiot-proof (and free!) app to download with which to design layouts? It needs to be pitched at a level that a mentally-challenged woodlouse can understand. That's me.

Happy Christmas to me, Weshty! Yes, Dave certainly excelled himself. There's no way I could have begun to tackle a job like that myself. Well worth getting it done properly.

To provide contrast, and motive power for a possible future small shunting layout, it'll be followed up by a very weathered, work-stained looking J15.

Thanks for the comments, gents. It has pride of place for the moment. I'll get it running soon! It is indeed an absolute beauty. It was my retirement present to myself a few years ago! Thanks again to David for a phenomenal build job.

Good question, Glenderg. The green on the model is GSR green, as you'll see somewhat lighter than CIE's, and with a slight bluish tint. The lining is yellow and black, with G S lettering and crest, as it ought to be in Cultra. CIE painted the one in Cultra, and in their own green with their own black and white (not yellow) lining. Thus, the one in Cultra should instead have a flying snail. The inaccuracy in the real 800 is that it's in CIE livery with GSR markings.

A 4.6.0, DiveController! :-) (Running for cover.....!) Seriously though.... the whole thing came with the kit.

Very tidy indeed, Garfield. I can't take the credit though, much as I'd love to have that sort of modelling skill. David built it for me.

Took delivery of this beast tonight. Pricey but worth waiting for.

Clickety clacking can be had in real life, and if desired you can record it, on the DCDR. The track there is traditional!

Final post for the moment, finishing 1926 off down south in Caark, boyo! Narrow gauge heaven..... [ATTACH=CONFIG]20972[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]20973[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]20974[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]20975[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]20976[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]20977[/ATTACH]

Grand finale for the moment, though if anyone has any requests there's a great deal more where this came from. The truly golden, if impecunious age of Irish railways. This is the first of two GSR posts from 1926.

"......Really interesting collection of timetables. The Bundoran line is of particular interest to me as I used to be taken on it as a child to the seaside, including the 'tea and suger' Sunday evening trains! My recollection is that all the trains were steam hauled but is there any record of AEC/BUT railcars ever reaching Bundoran?....." I'm pretty certain they didn't, but the old 1934-era Gardner engined cars worked the line. Jhb171senior often used them to go there and back when he was District Engineer in Enniskillen. They had a special diesel fuel store there for them and the local GNR buses.

Great Northern, 1955. Blue locos, brown carriages, still a good few varnished. And brand new navy and cream railcars on Belfast - Dublin, Belfast - Banbridge - Newcastle, and Belfast - Enniskillen via Clones. The artic sets are on the Howth line, and the oddball collection of Gardner engined railcars of 1930s origin are to be found on the Bundoran line, Derry to Omagh locals, and Scarva - Banbridge. Elsewhere - steam, steam and steam.

A few more from the 1975 / 6 working timetable.

By November 1975, Loughrea was gone. But there was still lots of interest. See how much goods there is on the main line - I've enclosed a few page headings to show this.

Back to 1942. Grey steam engines and maroon coaching stock era.

More 1972, Loughrea included. G and C heaven!

Black'n'tan. 1972. Look at all the goods!

More from 1963..... including the B101 class, new grey 121s, and on beet a few old J15 steam engines on the Mallow - Waterford. What a mix, what a line. It's got to be a top seller - a 1963 based layout on that line. Scenery included.

24 to follow now, in two lots of 12; it's starting into the black'n'tan era. Much is green, some is BnT; steam clings on for a few months more, with a few dingy J15s, mostly in Waterford, the odd shunt in Dublin, and that's about it. Ballaghderreen, Ballinrobe and Waterford - Macmine will cling onto steam until closure. Grubby silver (actually dirty grey!) C class locos potter about, awaiting either green or black paint. At Amiens Street, the odd GNR 4.4.0 is still lurking. GAA, rugby or pilgrimage trains can still bring a surprising amount of steam out of the woodwork, but within a year it'll all be history. The swansong of steam on CIE. The Newmarket branch goods is designated for "D.E." haulage, i.e. a diesel electric, as is Fenit, but "G" class haulage was more usual, especially on the former.

It's 1969. Steam rules York Road, with quite a few Jeeps about still on the spoil trains. Elsewhere, the railcars are being repainted into maroon and grey, while elderly musty-smelling old steam-hauled stock, most still in old UTA green, choke the sidings in Antrim where they've been moved to facilitate the shrinkage of York Road in preparation for building the M2. Up the road, a group of youngsters have former a train society of some sort called the RPSI. I wonder how long that will last! They actually want to run real steam engines - that'll be all very well till they need a few new boiler tubes, I tell ye. Sure if they can keep steam alive 3 or 4 years into the 70s, well and good..... CIE bring the goods to Lisburn. NIR railcars take over to bring it up the otherwise disused Antrim branch to Derry.