jhb171achill

You've reminded me, Mayner, yes, I remember that too. I'm nearly certain - but stand to be corrected - that it was industrial relations. The fact that the UTA had abolished all internal goods traffic within the north in 1965, and thus never had its own liner trains, could possibly have resulted in there being no provision in the UTA / NIR rule book for guard-less trains.

Galway traffic congestion is indeed chaotic. A Moycullen - city centre - Mervue area Luas-style thing was considered at one stage in the past. This would certainly be a good thing, with a branch out to Salthill a good addition.

Again, who knows.... Highly unlikely... But when we operate our own layouts, everything's possible!

Which is precisely why privatisation in any shape or form is absolute inane madness; no matter what way it's configured, you're adding a senior management wage bill and shareholder dividends to the overall railway bill for cost of operating. Blinkered stupidity; while political thoughts are not appropriate here, politics will play a role in whatever thinking forms the future of our railways. As junctionmad says, railways are simply not commercially viable in this country, certainly outside Luas-land.

Too big a loco by far for Ireland, but when we go into "what-ifs", I suppose anything's possible!

I think Deltics, or other British loco stock would have been unlikely, as re-gauging would have been too expensive, but re-gauged rolling stock a la NIR Enterprise would be a probability.

That's very true. Given that today, an all Ireland state would have about 7% of what would be the total "UK" population, living in an area some 28-30% of its total, two-island size, it's fair to surmise that nothing much would have been left. Certainly not the SLNCR, which would make "Arigna Road" all the more fascinating, with "Lissadell" carrying a BR lion-and-wheel crest! Incidentally, to remain on thread, am I right in thinking I saw a 7mm scale model of some 3ft narrow gauge stuff (possibly C & L?) at an exhibition many moons ago? I'm not talking about Fry, incidentally; anyone have any idea?

For quite a few years, goods guards travelled in the cabs of (van-less) fitted trains due to union rules rather than any practical necessity.

Yes,all of those vehicles had ended their days in departmental service. The grey livery was evidence of this. Prior to that they were coach green.

Politics apart, I used to wonder what way Ireland's railways would have developed if no border had been created in 1921, and (like the GSR) all the railways came under one ownership of an all-Ireland independent Republic. Alternatively, if all of Ireland had remained as a part of the UK under British rule, would Ireland's railways have been included in the 1948 nationalised creation of British Rail?

Had the SLNCR survived, given the track and traffic considerations, it's safe to say that it would have become the preserve of "C"'s and lat 141s.... A "G" might shunt in Manorhamilton or Enniskillen if it had fallen into CIE ownership....

I knew I'd never seen "JL" on anything!!! The low numbers (just two-digit) were another giveaway.

I'd love to see the underground - it's already necessary, never mind when the economy grows (and population with it). 1.25 million people, or about a fifth of the entire island population, already live in greater Dublin. In other words, Dublin now has as many people as almost three-quarters of Northern Ireland. So it arguably needs an internal rail network bigger than NIR!!

And then there were "S" and "SA" on 141 class locos...

Wasn't so sure about the "JL" - departmental stock was always numbered with an "A" suffix. The vehicles quoted by that photographer who Glenderg quoted were vehicles i saw myself, and they didn't have "JL" an two-digit numbers when I saw them - maybe the original photographer had it wrong? Incidentally, those carriages shown are an exceptionally interesting quarter and it's a real shame they didn't survive. The grey one pictured at North Wall was the very last surviving MGWR bogie coach - originally Dining Car No. 1 (later 1M), and which was converted to an ordinary coach some years later. It had consequently been in the famous MGWR "Tourist Train". It was built in 1901 or 1902, and survived until the 80s at N Wall, where it was broken up. The three pictured at Mullingar are from left to right, WLWR No. 935 (the last surviving W LWR bogie; the exceptionally interesting Director's Saloon of theirs, of 1897). Then 1110, a 1915 GSWR bogie corridor third, and in the distance, 13M, a late 1880s MGWR six wheeler, the chassis of which is now at Downpatrick underneath their GNR six wheel body.

Absolutely top class!

Prior to the seventies, much if not most of this work was done by gangs of men with shovels. Also, the technology of yellow machines has moved forward in leaps and bounds in only the last 10-15 years. Another point worth noting is that yellow, as an all-encompassing and seemingly universal colour for anything maintenance related is a comparatively new phenomenon. Actual tamping machines were yellow from the 1960s on, but related wagons, locomotives, crew carriages and road-based machinery wasn't; and staff wore dungarees and overalls, not day-glo pantomime costumes.

In reality, private enterprise does a better job at some things, while the state is better at others. Disciples of Marx and of Thatcher both fail to see this reality.

Meddling, as such, is OK in theory when the indigenous system is wrong - though who's the judge and jury? For example, the Greek taxation and pension system needs to be meddled with big time, if there's to be the remotest chance of them staying in the euro, or even remotely solvent. Irrespective of that, in this (Irish railway) case the indigenous system is right, and privatisation is wrong full stop. It is expensive and inefficient, and will represent woefully bad value for the taxpayer if it is foisted upon us.

Well, the amount of imports is due to the lack of anything here to create freight....! But, as far as the railway is concerned, it's purely academic. It's simple; railways in Ireland will cost money, and would have done even if the excellent motorway network wasn't ever built. So - we pay, we get railways. We don't - or - we divert the subsidy to private companies and their bonuses and salaries - and THEN the railways will wither and die.

I could add a few other things which need to be borne in mind. Ireland doesn't have large tonnages of anything, let alone over long distances. We don't have long distances full stop. No coal, no huge opencast mines. A dozen wagons out of Tara is irrelevant commercially. I lament the onset of all these railcars (as I strongly suspect Derailed probably does too!) but if we're to have any railways at all, they must be run as cheaply as possible. And that leaves no room at all for BR style additional layers of shareholders, regulatory bodies, and friends of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael being paid €678,000 a year to "oversee" it all, as a shiny private company with (here's another) a colossal campaign of advertising, paid for indirectly by the taxpayer. So there's €3m budget up for grabs. Option 1: spend it on track and station upgrades Option 2: spend €1.1m on consultants fees, dividends, directors salaries and bonuses - we mustn't forget the bonuses.... and €1.9m on track and station upgrades. Make no mistake about this, folks. Look at Irish Water. We all need to be prepared to campaign loudly and long. Mayner makes the point that we can't have it both ways. Absolutely correct. However, special examples can exist Europe-wide, and this may well be a very good example.

Where do we go from here? RPSI website for the next trip to Ballykay, that's where.....

If this is a "newbie", it's a seriously impressive one! Well done timmycork, great progress.

Black'n'tan TGV's? Harz mountain steam locos with flying snails.....! Seriously, all the above points are perfectly valid. Ireland has six million people. One third of them live in the greater Belfast, Dublin and Cork areas. Derry, Galway, Limerick and Waterford are the next biggest cities; but all four have populations between 85000 and 100000. If we count those plus their immediate hinterlands, it shows us that just seven centres on this island account for 40% of the island population. By international standards, only Dublin is a significantly sized city. Many countries - whether with privately or publicly run railways, would have abandoned the less used ones years ago. Just saying! It's no coincidence that the Cork-Dublin-Belfast lines carry the lion's share of traffic. The survival of so many other lines has, unfortunately, more to do with the poor road system in the recent past, than any notion that there's loads of commercially viable traffic out there if only the railway would look. There's loads of traffic all right, but it's not COMMERCIALLY viable. Hence the dilemma. Now - our government has a choice (and such privatisation directives will affect NIR too; it's just as much an EU railway as IE is) - allow all comers in and pay them whatever their bloated privatised bosses want, or say "sorry, lads; what IE got is all you're getting". Let's hope it's the latter. Another thing: in a country this size, there are no duplicated routes and no room for competition. As our transatlantic friends might say; "Go figure"!

That's just unbelievable. That's the very top end of modelling in all respects.