jhb171achill

Indeed, minister.... and... a GSWR based layout could have the famous Inchicore armoured train!

That one's fairly standard for ex GSWR lines. By panelling it in, a half-reasonable MGWR area lookalike can be achieved. If modelling former DSER or GNR areas, it wouldn't really suit.

Leslie; my psycho-analyst, psychologist, and griceologist are all highly impressed, and apart from saying that it proves the point, their only comment is that had your grandfather held you up to see a CAF, an NIR 450 or a 29000, now THAT would have been mental cruelty.....

Ballast wagons tended to be standard opens and 4 wheel hoppers, many of GSR or GSWR origin, grey or brown all over, not today's yellow!

The basic body shape of those LMS coaches and the Bredins were not dissimilar. The main difference was that main line Bredins usually had centre doors with a loo either side. Originally lined GSR maroon, then CIE dark Brunswick green, then light green (never silver - that was only for new builds late 50s) then black'n'tan.

Engines can vary - I think one at least one had a Volkswagen beetle engine.

Good thinking, Noel - though beware of olive green as such - it's more Brunswick green for CIE, or the lighter shade (as seen on some DCDR stock) post-1955.

And up to about 1970 even an occasional wooden bogie coach - almost inevitably of GSWR origin...

That's one of those tales like we see here and there - like the time I went to Loughrea seeking "G" class haulage, and it was "only" a "C" class!!!

Wowwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Excellent! Brings back recent memories of a week on board....

It kept me off the streets, Burnthebox!!!! ;-) Well.... for a while..... !!!

Those LMS coaches would actually pass muster even better as Bredins... a good few of which were still in traffic in the 70s. Last one I travelled in was as late as 1976 or 1977.

It was simple enough, Burnthebox. I bought some Hornby BR parcel vans which with corrugated ends looked very similar to the 1954 batch of vans built by the GNR for bagged cement traffic. After 1958 these spread throughout the CIE system and were to be seen among "H" vans, old wooden GSR vans and Pal-vans in every loose coupled goods until the mid 70s. I simply repainted them head to toe in a plain Humbrol grey, or in some cases brown which was same as current CIE, and added crude weathering (thickish poster paint rubbed into cracks with fingers!). My own layout was dismantled and given away when I acquired my first house in 1982! It had been based on Loughrea and had a cardboard G, and a "Q Kits" A and C - along with an LMS 2.6.4T masquerading as a "Jeep" and two BR class 31's, simply because I liked them! Carriages were BR Mk. 1's, repainted in black'n'tan....

I remember seeing Castle Rackrent in a Railway Modeller article. Even by today's exceptionally high standards, that layout was - is - the very best possible, accurate in every detail. Castle Rackrent must serve as the epitome of what a modeller can achieve. It was a good half century ahead of its time in this regard. Anyone know if it is still operational, in any form?

I had planned to go - couldn't in the end - pity!

Burnthebox, my own models were unfortunately handed onto another enthusiast maybe 25 years ago - but I'm assuming you mean photos of the real thing rather than my crude attempts. The archive of Ernie Brack on Flickr shows this type of thing to perfection. Ernie took some great photos of wagons back then. Various Colourpoint books show livery details too - albeit usually (obviously, prototypically) very heavily weathered! Basically, Irish railways almost always* painted wagon chassis the same as body colour, buffers etc. included; whereas British Rail and Hornby painted them black! CIE almost always painted wagon roofs the same as body colour too, though these weathered quicker.... * One exception was NCC "Brown Vans" which under NCC, UTA and also NIR ownership always had black chassis.... Other NCC wagons, along with GNR, GSR and CIE examples, had body colour chassis on all standard types.

Nice job indeed!

Flickr is unfortunately a very unwieldy thing to navigate around.......

Any passing Moguls or Jeeps......?

I know a former neighbour who has a GNR "U" class chimney as a flower pot.....

Noel, if you were hanging onto these as they are - go for it - but if you wanted to operate them on a layout and wanted greater realism as I found myself years ago, the usual repainting of chassis and roof in brown (as it should be) does wonders. "Black chassis disease" for Irish goods stock is a Hornby-inspired inaccuracy which bedevils many a good layout.... (AND many a good preservation project; witness DCDR's plough van and CIE "H" van, RPSI's "Ivan" and the gunpowder van in Cultra - for starters....!)

Ah..... I was never in one of the "comfortable" ones, me being in GNR (God's) Territory an' all.......

I'd see it as the dreaded navy and lime green things seen about Connolly - prob a half hourly service. It would be extremely interesting though, and I often thought of a model of it too. Albert Quay would be another interesting one for modern times - prob lots of 2-car 26's and little else! Maybe a stray 141 still.....

That actually amplifies my point, Mayner - the "Railway Modeller" was in fact your point of reference for those same formative years - same as me. My layout had BR class 31s, Hymeks, stuff I had never even seen. Apart, of course, from the pages of the eagerly awaited annual Hornby catalogue! Later, crude attempts at CIE were to follow. Today's youthful modellers have RTR or kit-form CIE stuff, a luxury you or I could only dream of.

The one NCC 4.4.0 that was used as an experiment on GVS to Cavan was by that time in UTA black! So it's probable that apart from the odd foray of an NCC loco to Aldergrove (from Antrim; this did happen, esp. during ww2), little or no maroon ever went GNR side. As others have said, though, you're the boss on your layout! You could have 85 "Merlin" on loan to the NCC and repainted maroon...... (jhb171 runs and dives for cover before someone issues a fatwa.....!!!!!!!!)