jhb171achill

It certainly would!

Three liveries in twenty years for the Enterprise, all as drab and dull as ditchwater. At least this one has a BIT of colour in it - there's a pic somewhere of a finished loco with a swirl of red on its side. Takes a bit of getting used to but isn't too bad. Oh for orange and black! I always thought the Enterprise should have had a bright livery something like red and cream, orange, maybe like the original 450 class livery or the short-lived NIR "suburban" livery of the eighties....

"The Church"..... thought you meant the bar in Dublin! Excellent model, well done!

Superb stuff, David. Conveniently, the proposed Belmullet terminus would have been quite like your layout, in that it was in a comparatively narrow space and was a dead end facing a street! Had it been built it would have required some sort of Fenit / Killybegs / Ardglass / Bantry type spur to serve the harbour. Now there's a remote Midland branch terminus in the making! A MGWR six-wheel coach kit is well overdue, as is a standard H van of beet truck..... I digress...

There are two of GSWR design at Downpatrick. Detail differences; CIE would have both. UTA had GNR type but obviously not GSWR.

It's got the potential to totally revolutionise model railways. What's the betting that by 2050 you'll be able to scab a few photos of a vehicle and it will "print" out, full colour livery, faded bits, weathering and all?

Correct, railer; just two shades 1962-recently. New 071's, painted in the States, were the exception as mentioned elsewhere, and their browny colour didn't survive first repaint.

The coaches in that picture at Manulla need to be looked at in the context of one lot being in shadow, with t he ones on the right having bright sun shining on them. Like any colour, that will result in a totally different look in photographs. In reality the difference, which as aclass007 says looks considerable, was nothing like as different. The post 1990 shade was more orangey (i.e. less "tan") rather than darker or lighter. While I know this isn't what is being referred to above, but as an aside to this, you will often hear it said that CIE's tan / orange / "golden brown"(!), or the GNR(I)'s loco blue, or earlier CIE green were, respectively "a million shades" of the various colours at different times. That's myth, usually borne of simple lack of accurate research. Actual post-1990 shade paint exists on some RPSI Cravens; the loco blue used at Whitehead is accurate, the light CIE green on C231 on the DCDR is accurate, and actual darker CIE green exists on Maedb in Cultra and on the flying snail crest in Enniskillen railway museum. When referring to colour photos, it's important to consider lighting, the quality of the film (judge by surrounding scenery, sky colour, people's skin colour, plant colours), and the likely degree of actual weathering or fading of the subject matter in the photograph. Reference to several photos will usually give a better idea than one, and will highlight differences (or even cast doubt on theories that there were any!). Eyewitness accounts can be extremely reliable, or totally unreliable / plain wrong, depending on the artistic eye or memory of the beholder, or even the level of interest they had when they initially saw it.

Indeed! But it may soon be possible, by cycle. Kerry CoCo has been given €3m to develop Killorglin to Cahirciveen as a cycleway, a la Achill branch or Newcastle West....

A G2 will fit perfectly on your layout, David. The SLNCR purchased two second hand locos from the GNR at one time, and these ran for some years until the company could afford (to such extent as it ever could!) replacements / railbuses. Maybe, just maybe, using artistic licence, they have a G2 on long term loan from CIE on your branch line........

I've a box of these free passes.... first class to Tullow, Larne Harbour to Strabane via Waterside and Victoria Road, Kingsbridge to Banagher, Amiens Street to Oldcastle, Enniskillen to Bundoran, Enniskillen to Westland Row, Kingsbridge to Kilrush for himself plus bicycle, first class free pass for unlimited travel between Aughnacloy and Maguiresbridge, etc etc.... plus numerous Dublin to Cork etc....

Excellent pics - you can see the colour scheme in the bogie stock, which would be the same as the six-wheeled carriages. A filthy grey engine just caps it! The SLNCR's black locos looked a lot smarter. In the black and white picture the lining on the second and third coaches is clear, but hardly discernible on the first. As Mayner mentioned, no snails, though all would have had their running number, almost always on the left. Class numbers on doors were used most times, but not always on these ancient relics; both versions are clear. Incidentally, the two bogies in the colour pic are GSWR vehicles of 1915-20 period, while the MGWR six wheelers are two firsts with a second in between them. The leading first, like many at that stage, has been demoted, hence no class numbers on the doors. This trio date from the mid 1880 - mid 1890 period, therefore they could have been up to forty years older than the bogies in the other picture!

While this isn't a political board, Mr Putin definitely needs to have serious manners put on him.

Brilliant!!! Love those railbuses - have they got those for the reopened Armagh line?

Thanks, Dive - yes, getting back to some semblance of normality now!

Until the next time, Dive! Remember 85 was permanently retired about ten years ago...... 186 is actually in good enough order; it's just that it's of less use than the others.

Yes, Garfield, Valentia was, like Drumshanbo, one of a number of places persistently misspelt by not just CIE, but the GSR and its predecessors too.

The OBB (Austrian Railways) ha a similar device in the 1980s/1990s, like a simplified version of it.

A microcosm of Senior's travels, back in the says when Jesus was in shorts, Pussy was a kitten, and the Red Cow Roundabout was cobbled in black'n'white....

Excellent. I was in shorts when it last left traffic.....

Absolutely top class stuff, excellent finish.

Indeed, Broithe; that's actually the 15:12 Persia to Banagher bus.

Those of us who frequented the streets of Dublin and Cork when U2* were a pub support group in the Baggot Inn in Dublin will remember the much-unlined "desert sand" or "Dunduckety Mud" bus livery. The CIE logos on them all were originally tan surround with black lettering, but even navy blue had appeared on some, or deep red, white, black.... by the time this livery ended. So, a bus modeller has a whole rainbow to choose from in logos. ( * the band, not the 4.4.0!) As for the railway, things were thankfully more standardised, as follows: LOCOMOTIVES In black'n'tan and "supertrain" (1972-87) liveries, the loco logo (tongue-twister?) was always white letters with tan surround, no matter what it was applied to. In all these liveries, the logo was always against a black background. There was a single exception: the Illinois-applied version on the newly delivered 071s, which differed in details. First, it was all white. Secondly, the lettering was a different font. Thirdly, the "broken wheel" was larger, and the eight "pieces" were thinner. All 071s received standard issue on first repaint. PASSENGER STOCK CIE and ex-GNR railcars of AEC and BUT origin had roundels on power card. These had white lettering and black surrounds. Standard passenger stock never had logos at all. GOODS STOCK This is where there was a little bit of variety. On all brown painted stock (post 1969 or so), without exception, logos were always all-white. But on grey stock it was different. As older stock was repainted with "snails" replaced, all-white logos were used, including on all open wagons of wooden construction. The corrugated Bullied opens (the "beet trucks") no logos of any type were ever applied. Once they started churning out the H vans in the lighter post-1960 grey, the logos were tan surround, white letters, as on locomotives. The same applied to 4-wheel "pallet vans" repainted in the sixties. One often sees all-white logos on model grey goods stock, but on account of the vast majority of vehicles in traffic being H vans in those days, the majority of logos seen by the trainspotter were tan "wheel" surrounding white letters. Grey cattle wagons (the last of which survived until 1975) had all-white logos.

Believe it or not, the origin of that "snail", as far as I am aware, actually pre-dates ours!

Arrggh....! :-) Dive, I would never do that for effect... If not strictly correct, they're not.... and I would have to very humbly ask MM not to shoot the messenger.... that said, I'm a huge supporter of anyone who puts their money where their mouth is in order to supply our (very commercially small) community with quality models. And there's no doubt MM do that. So hats off to them for starters. If a manufacturer produces a model which is the wrong colour, or has incorrect markings, as long as it looks right will be fine for many modellers. For those whose primary concern is accuracy, they can repaint them. It would be much worse if a manufacturer produced a Craven which was a scale ten feet too short, a 121 with two cabs, or a model NCC "Jeep" which was a 4.6.4T!