jhb171achill

It's like Derry. Put enthusiasts in charge, and if something's possible, it can happen. Put local government officials in charge, and all will go irretrievably pear shaped.

Good detective work, Mr Mayner!

Wish I'd known that not long ago - bought a new one for a good bit more, and the cost of installing it wasn't cheap either!

Best of luck, folks. In fifteen years time, we'll have a historic layout showing long-withdrawn antiques like DD and Mk 4 sets, and those old ICRs......

Totally correct, WTCLASS. Privatisation across the water has resulted in more public money being thrown at what was BR, with less quality of service, at higher prices to the public. That's mathematical fact. So who benefits? Shareholders and bonus-led layers and layers of duplicated management; again, mathematical fact. Knowing the "nose-in-trough" and short sighted, ill-informed and selfish attitude of almost all politicians on this island, should we open a book on how long it will take them to catch on to ways of further wrecking our railway system? BR had no bonuses and shareholders, and one board. That's mathematical fact too. As our good friends in the States might say, "Go Figure!"!

As a matter of interest, what size - what dimensions - would your Arigna Road layout be?

Was it No. 800?

A pleasure, Mike. If anyone else wants it, it's yours for nothing.....

Disgraceful. Rural elderly people have enough worries to contend with, between rural crime, closure of Garda or PSNI stations, lack of public transport, doctors and hospitals..... without the activities of these worthless scumbags. Incidentally, flogging in the Isle of Man were often carried out at the annual proclamation of laws at Tynwald Hill, near St Johns, the junction of the Peel and Ramsey lines. Did anyone ever see the massive operation the railway had to undertake in order to get huge crowds to St Johns on this day each year?

It could have been, minister, I can't remember. In terms of GSWR standardisation, they were a lot better organised than might be obvious, but after the amalgamation they had to deal with all sorts! When Sprite's boiler was installed in 90, several other swops took place at the same time. I must try to find the details.

Interesting........ Makes sense...... I had a document at one stage - may still have it somewhere - detailing the position about boilers in 1922. Even before the amalgamation and this standardisation, there was hardly a loco with its original boiler in Inchicore, so the idea of switch and swop was already there. Even little engines like "Sprite", "St Molaga" and the four J30s (90, 91, 92 and 100) were carrying boilers from each other. No. 90, for example, had had "Sprite"'s boiler installed following its rebuild in 1915. It may well still be carrying this in preservation. I've just remembered - senior mentioned once the there were very divided opinions on 900 at Inchicore. That would fit very well with Mayner's thoughts on the matter.

Take a holiday. All this modelling wears ye out. Go on, Achill for a week for under two pounds.

How to impress your friends. Write your letters on headed paper. Download, print and use. I've Clogher Valley and Lough Swilly somewhere too.

The interiors of some of these yokes had interesting layouts. And now all we have is centre-aisle railcars with no opening windows, which smell of the nearby unventilated humid toilet. Progress! Ha! De Deitrichs, Mk. 4's, the characterless Mk 2's.... Brel stuff...., MPDs, ICRs, CAFs, 2600s, Castles, yeah yeah........ All the same, says jhb171 the old fashioned philistine. BREL products are to quality railway carriage design what McDonalds, pre-horsemeat-scare, was to fine gourmet dining. Derby own-brand Tesco versus Inchicore, Limerick, Dundalk and York Road quality and craftsmanship. Rant over; here are the pics.

The LUAS Green Line in days of yore. No stops at Central Park, Balally, Kilmacud or any of those other Johnny-come-lately places. We're talking Old Dublin here. Actually, we're not. Beyond the Grand Canal it's outer suburbs. Beyond Ranelagh it's la-la land, culchie land, beyond the Pale in places where only those of a rural disposition may be found......

Just in case you were in any doubt.

And, more grey-loco haulage, without an 071 or a sperry train in sight: ......so there you are. Fun's over; time to get a 400 class 4.6.0 back to Dublin, then one of those GNR 4.4.0s if you're going to Belfast. You know that the GNR have just started painting their express locos BLUE! Pity there's no such thing as colour film, iphones or DVDs.

Senior was not impressed with them in his day, despite being a keen cyclist on stony unsurfaced roads in remote country areas like Ashtown and Stillorgan! Here's how we got from A to B back in the day, back when Jesus was a child and pussy was a kitten......

If you happen to be free on and from 10th September 1934.......

I have to say I thought it was an excellent series.

hahahaha! I think I'll try my own house first - just to see if there's anything half valuable left.....

It's easy to come across as reactionary, and unable to understand the youth, or forget that "ah, sure, we were all young once" But, by God, if most of us on here got up to half what a tiny minority of people do now with absolute impunity because "they've a hard upbringing", "they've a drug habit" or "they have a really old iPhone and their friends laugh at them", we would have faced sanctions which would make us too afraid to even contemplate doing it again. Crime figures were a fraction, because there was a deterrent. Today there's little deterrent to crime. I'm away to rob a few houses. I need to fund a holiday because sure it's me right, isn't it!

I hope this gathers the momentum it deserves and indeed, points to a new way in Derry. That is - voluntary bodies, not ill informed and uninterested local councillors.

Excellent stuff.....! Pat - the white lining "was just far away". Ted told me. And me camera's fine - I was just standing on my head when I scanned those old pictures.......

There you have it. I'm inclined to think that they were delivered with white, but Inchicore possibly decided that due to the obvious lack of definition, black lining ought to be added. That would make perfect sense. I can't remember offhand which one (or maybe two) got red buffer beams while carrying grey livery, but this would again indicate experimentation to get the right look. Around the same time, an "A" and a "C" class received, experimentally, a yellow © and orange (A) buffer beam. This was in the early days of black'n'tan. So perhaps, mystery solved. We'll all have seen a picture of 019 in Inchicore in the mid 90s with just one end done up in an experimental orange, black and yellow livery which was to become the basis for the initial 201 livery, and in more recent times a Mk 3 with one end in two tone green - experiments for the Drogheda railcars. It's a bit like modelling - you can paint something to see how it looks, but in case it's going to be wrong it's maybe better to practice the colour on some old vehicle body first! The UTA, in their very early days, painted a number of steam locomotives in differing shades of green to see what they'd be like, before settling for lined black. One "Jeep", I think it was No. 5, ended up in a shade not unlike that applied in more recent times to locomotives in the Isle of Man. I always wondered how that would have looked on the few GNR 4.4.0's they repainted, or on a BCDR tank, let alone a Jeep!