jhb171achill

This may be a little obscure, and Mayner reminded me of it and might be one of the few who might know; but there was a firm about 40 years ago in England called "K's kits" or "K's" something, who made white metal kits of a wide range in British loco prototypes. By today's standards they looked perhaps a little crude, but they had a big range of them, often of prototypes ignored by the lines of Hornby. I never bought any, but I had several of their catalogues. Thus, while I cannot be certain, I believe they relied on the buyer to either build or buy a suitable chassis - certainly they weren't suitable for all modelling skill levels. Perhaps if any of those can be tracked down, there might be something in there that would suit as an Irish prototype. It was Mayner's post above which reminded me that they did do several LNWR prototypes.

Or a squashed badger? .....

That would be the MGWR's D16 class, of which there were six, all rebuilt about 1901 from former 2.4.0s which were built in 1882. So synonymous with the Achill line, they were often referred to as "Achill bogies". They occasionally worked into Ballina after the Achill line shut, but were quickly withdrawn as they were too weak to do much else in other places. They didn't actually get to Clifden, as far as is known. That line was the preserve of G2 2.4.0 and J18 0.6.0 types. With the wild western turf, sky, river and mountain scenery, an Achill or Clifden based layout would be a winner!

No probs, Rialto - brake vans are indeed a much neglected subject generally. Good to see them being given their place!

Excellent, David! Can't wait to see the outcome!

There were several GSWR 4.4.0 classes with outside framed bogies. Even if you used the chassis of this and built most of the rest from scratch, you could use it as a basis for a very convincing GSWR lookalike! But yes, a D17......

I remember doing something like that with a Hornby roof many years ago. I got rid of the roughness by applying several coats of paint and waiting until it was really dry and rubbing it down a bit before painting it again. Time consuming and adequate for the times, but I am sure some of our experts here would have far superior ways of doing it.

Indeed, mine's on the wall. And it supports a very good cause!

Platform Six is where you get the 5ft 3 train to Hogwarts.

STUNNING! Excellent stuff. Between the 80 class set and this, the often-neglected area of old UTA & NIR railcars is being well and truly addressed.

The Irish Shell loco was (and is) plain unlined mid green with certain bits picked out in red. If memory serves me correctly, Shell petrol tankers had a livery of red and green in the late 50s / early 60s. It's currently out of action, but served faithfully as the Whitehead shutter for years. I believe its build date was 1951.

David, my last post there had a word recognition typo. Upholstery colour should read greyish light blue.

Re banana vans, very very few Irish wagons were ever in private owner liveries, unlike UK; and when repainting, remember to do the chassis too.brown wagons had, and have, brown chassis and (until very recently in the case of container flats only) brown bogies, grey wagons had grey chassis. The ubiquitous application of black as a chassis colour for wagons is a GB / BR thing, not UTA, NIR, or CIE.

Correct, killucan, though I don't have the numbers, and it was very short lived in particular for one of them.

I enquired of those who might know. The inside walls were probably light or mid brown, with ceilings a light colour, almost certainly cream. This would not be unlike many laminates or Park Royals. Cab interior probably brown too. My own best guess, for several reasons, is that upholstery was either green or greyish black ue - very unlikely to be anything else.

Ah! Danny Manns..... Memories of last summer! And the Grand in Killarney too.... Sorry, I digress.....

The only ones I know of, Rialto, were built by the NCC and several lasted into UTA and NIR days. One of these is preserved at Downpatrick, though if you choose to model it, bear in mind the livery on it currently is completely wrong. I don't think the MGWR / GS had any with outside balconies, which would mean you wouldn't have got one on the Sligo line, unless there was so e sort of one-off I'm kit aware of, maybe on the SLNCR. Any SLNCR ones I've ever seen pics of have internal balconies or none, and in any event they would have been confined to that line.

My nephew got a kit a few years ago and made one up unpowered... Kits might be the way to go for that sort of thing.

Indeed, Minister. I will ask a few suspects next time I'm in and post the answers here. Jhb171 Senior travelled in it numerous tines but doesn't remember the colour. The only pic I have ever seen myself of its interior is in black and white.

Mr Thump, that is SO realistic! Well done. Love the weathering on 086 as well.

Interesting re the loco, Riversuir! Trainmodel - is that pic of the collapsed bridge one of the Corrib bridge during demolition?

I don't think it's Lough Swilly engine, though that's an interesting theory (reaches for LLSR books!). Industrial certainly, given small coal capacity. Looks 4ft 81/2 to me, appears to have "dumb buffers" thus proving industrial ancestry. Could be anything in GB; the more I look at it the more I would think isn't Irish.

That is a lovely little street of houses! The line of CIE vans also looks the part, though applying grey to the chassis (never black on CIE) would make them very like some of the later GNR vans that CIE inherited in 1958. Many were still in use into the 70s. Excellent stuff...!

As a friend of mine from rural Fermanagh would say, Garfield, "that's savage!"

cg - a few answers, hopefully. The follow up to "Rails Through the West" will be another odyssey through 1960s to 1990s Black and Tan country, with a well known but comparatively obscure cross country route featuring. Expect some green as well as b'n't. With regard to your Ratio coaches, I think I know the ones you mean, ad they do indeed pass a reasonable resemblance to some GSWR types. The GSWR had only a few clerestory roofed coaches, and fewer still would still have been in traffic in the fifties, do you might consider flat roof replacements if the ones you buy are clerestory. If it is the bow-ended model, this means WLWR origin, as this is the only Irish railway company to have curved lower ends on carriages (as opposed to sides, of course!). As for livery. If it is set pre 1955, you could have an occasional GSR liveried coach. The few pics I have seen of such things show the maroon faded to a pinky reddish brown (covered in soot and brake dust, no doubt) by this stage. Most, though would be painted the new (1945) CIE green, with full light green lining above and below windows, this plus snails and numerals edged in gold. The light green cane later, so if you are post 1955 or so, only older wooden carriages are still this dark shade. On the West Cork system, a few old CBSCR coaches acquired plain dark green with no lining, and two snails instead of one. At least one appeared to have its snails in white instead of light green. Post 1955, any wooden carriages being reprinted acquired the livery currently on the RPSI's Dublin heritage set, or DCDRs TPO. That us, a lighter green with a thinner and even lighter green unlined waistline, and unlined numerals and snail. A few were turned out without snails. Chassis were black. Ends were black - never green of either shade. Roofs were dark grey. Pullmans remained dark green to the end. It would have been interesting to see what one would have looked like in black n tan!