jhb171achill

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!

Same applied, Minister, to almost all steam engine tenders - though there was a very occasional exception on a handful of grey (but not green) ones! Carriages and wagons, naturally, always had the standard left-facing one.

So speaks our Great Sage, Murrayec...... Excellent! What a turn for this discussion to take; meantime, a snail facing the "wrong" way - i.e. a left-handed snail..... Incidentally, the colour rendition on this photograph which was taken about 1960, is excellent. Therefore it may be used as a good reference for CIE loco and (pre-1955) carriage green, as well as the "eau-de-nil".

Haha excellent! And as you can see, Roy Keane is now the president of Persia.

After Mallow - Waterford closed. Now largely in working order on the DCDR, but on long term display in the carriage gallery there.

Absolutely! But the train guard intercepted them at Kilmessan Junction and took them off on the Guinness and whiskey in the local bar..... They were never heard of again, back in Persia.....

That's superb stuff as always. I'd love to see that layout.

Very true. But DUTC picked it up from the London Underground, which arrived at it by a different route. Their logo had a line (a train, or a journey) superimposed on a circle, which represented the underground tunnel. DUTC couldn't copy it directly, even with the colours changed, so they added "speed stripes"! Naturally, the speed stripes represented a 72 year old J15 0.6.0, a 65 year old gas lit six wheeled coach, three loose coupled cattle trucks and a wooden guard's van, hurtling at breakneck speed to Athboy.....!!!

Do you know what irritates me - the manufacturer calling those things "N" class! They didn't run on BR..... though to be fair, they were to all intents and purposes the same as their English cousins..... The "snails" aren't right on them..... One was painted black in the fifties for a very short while with red lining. The rest were either all-grey or 800-style lined green. All were all-grey prior to 1949. Incidentally, the solitary black one had an "eau-de-nil" cabside numeral, like green-painted CIE locos. That was a one-off; other grey CIE locos including the few black ones had pale yellow numerals, though lined eau-d-n snails.

The 0.6.0 - could be resurrected OK - first repaint grey all over, use pale yellow for cab numeral and smaller font, light "eau-de-nil" green (gold-lined) snail facing the other way! No probs.... ;-)

The two above the "snail" are the original DUTC garters on the lined grey, and green backgrounds respectively. For those interested, there's a Dublin & Blessington one there as well - also on original paintwork, as are most in the collection.

I'll be there, Wanderer. I'm going to see the Luas trials to Burtonport as well.

I would say that Mr Murphy has done a huge service to the Irish modelling fraternity, and deserves great accolades for that. I am sure we all support him in his endeavours and I hope we will all continue to do so.

Very true indeed, Old Blarney. Also, when attaching an "eau-de-nil" (never yellow!) "flying snail" to a steam loco tender, the same rule usually applied; the snail faced forward on both sides. I have a notion that I saw a photo somewhere of one facing "backwards" (i.e. the "normal" way round) on a tender, so this may have happened, but not often.