jhb171achill

The above are showing up as ok (well, one's upside down...) on my iPad.... so hopefully they are visible. Can I ask viewers if the earlier ones all are?

Yippee! They appeared.... for now! See captions in previous posts. Now, let's have a go at GNR van 111N....

. Oil . Cement . Fertiliser

This wretched thing is driving me mad....! Each time I post the pictures, they show up fine on my computer, however as the day progresses some disappear, some appear the right way up and others upside down! Apologies, Kirley; I'll see what I can do! (My patience with mechanical, electrical or computer devices is minus zero......!)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16647[/ATTACH] Down morning Waterford train, Heuston, A class haulage as usual, about 1977. Look at the typical consist..... a 1950-pattern CIE parcel brake, a 32XX-series brake standard,a Park Royal and a Craven. When assembling trains of an era up to the end of wooden framed stock (about 1990), it's important for the modeller to be aware that Cravens didn't operate in rakes - as the best stock, there'd be one or two in a typical train, otherwise made up of all sorts of things!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16644[/ATTACH] Oil, cement and fertiliser; the three staples in the late seventies. (Beet also, but it was summer!) [ATTACH=CONFIG]16645[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]16646[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16643[/ATTACH] Former GNR van No. 111, now 111N. The number is painted in the right (though the "N", which would on wagons have been slightly smaller font, has worn or faded off). The standard CIE cast plate on the left has "CIE", the number, the tonnage, and "111N" as normal CIE practice. (No, it wouldn't come off! Hmmmm). By this stage (about 1977) it was withdrawn, and with the recent almost total elimination of loose coupled goods trains,sidings in stations all over the country were stuffed with withdrawn H vans and their like.

Standard CIE brakes with standard livery and standard weathering! The one on the left still has wooden planking. You'd see quite a few like that. The odd one was still grey. For modellers of the era, such vehicles were almost never clean and shiny looking. Some looked even shabbier than these.... Modellers, note the differing positions of the lamps. Above the ducket as on the right hand van, was the norm.

A bogie rail wagon still in use was (in 1976) one of very few MGWR vehicles in stock. The only others were several former six wheeled passenger carriages in use as departmental vans. One of these is now at Whitehead, two are on the DCDR, one is in Clifden, and all are as yet unrestored. Accompanying this wagon on that afternoon in the North Wall Yard was former MGWR bogie coach 1M, by then long converted into a departmental car, the last MGWR bogie coach extant, but withdrawn.

Brand new: yet to enter traffic. About 1978 I think. Inchicore barrier, 1976. The two of these were the last locomotives by a long stretch to wear the late 1960s black with yellow ends - a livery which even in its day didn't cover a fraction of the fleet. It was never applied to any GM, D, E or G classes, and I don't think any B101s got it either. A few if the A and C class, plus this pair, were the only yellow ended locos. A single member of the C class had yellow buffer beams with it for a short time.

Inchicore, end-of-life time for the fascinating fleet of G.... ....and the E401 class.

This was the only loco ever to have silver tablet catchers, and it was short lived... And finally, an extra one.... By the late 70s, most G class locos had migrated to Inchicore. The Loughrea branch had just closed - it had always occupied a couple at least, while others in their day shunted as far afield as Ballina, Dundalk and Tralee, as well as in Inchicore. This forlorn example in summer 1975 (an absolute scorcher of a summer!) was in this twilight position of being fixable, and it might be fixed....or it might not. Fans of this class at this time could scarcely tell whether one pottering about Inchicore was actually in traffic or not.

I'm going to have another go at listing the pics which didn't seem to show above. They are, in order, a burnt MED at Antrim, an old horse box at Athlone converted into a sleeping van, a former MGWR station seat sign at Attymon, a standard 1960-80 era CIE station sign at Ardrahan, an old two-plank CIE ballast wagon of GSR origin (I think; maybe v early CIE), and a double headed Galway / Westport train leaving Moate with loco 186 in proud possession of silver tanker catchers. See above captions for full descriptions. All photos were taken between 1975 and 1980. May contain traces of nuts. Please do not try this at home. Terms and conditions apply. ......

I'm not sure, Heirflick - I thought they were the same all along.... The pic has them with their lids on, of course....

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16624[/ATTACH] A two plank ballast wagon of GSR ancestry, 1976.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16623[/ATTACH] In advance of a royal visit Ireland (I think it was the Queen of either Belgium or the Netherlands) one single loco was specially repainted, and as a result wore silver tablet catchers for a while. This picture was taken at Moate. It is the midday down Westport train.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16622[/ATTACH] It's summer 1975 and the Limerick Ballina train has paused here. It consisted of 192, two work-stained laminates and a four wheel "tin van" with a noticeably lopsided gait. This shows the then standard CIE station signage. The Irish and English versions were the same typeface. A few stations retained GSR black enamel signs with the Irish version in Gaelic script. The Foynes branch and, I think possibly Bray and Bagenalstown, were examples of this. Limerick and Midleton signal cabins had GSR signs too, as did what I think was the last survivor even in recent years, Cherryville junction cabin (albeit painted).

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16621[/ATTACH] This station seat sign in white lettering on blue enamel background, indicating that it is an original MGWR sign, surviving GSR days well into CIE days. This picture was taken on 1st November 1975, two days before the branch closed. Behind it, a "C" class sat in the bay platform with a single laminate brake standard, the Loughrea branch set for the day. The MGWR painted stations and signal cabins a bright red and buff-shade cream, with dark blue signage as above.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16620[/ATTACH] I photographed this former horsebox at Athlone in 1977. I'm not sure of its provenance, but I suspect it's ex GSWR. Anyone here got access to the list of departmental "A" numbers? That would indicate its original number. If that had no suffix it is GSWR or even WLWR. It might, however, have an "M" or "D", indicating MGWR or DSER ancestry. At this stage it was a sleeping van.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16619[/ATTACH] The end of the MEDs. They were gathered in Antrim GNR yard and vandals burnt the last ones out as shown here about 1980. Nobody was remotely interested in preserving them! It would be different nowadays. I have to confess to never having liked them at all - they were noisy and extremely uncomfortable to travel in, and often filled with nauseous diesel fumes.

The UTA painted some wagons a reddish bauxite brown from the early 60s for a very few years until they finished with freight. This example was in Antrim ballast siding in June 1976. It will be noted that NIR have cut down the sides which were originally the height of the ends, on all these wagons. It will also be noted that NIR overpainted their numerals and lettering over the "U T". They didn't bother repainting this wagon in their very pale grey livery. That said, the pale grey wagon livery ŵhich NIR adopted was used for (a) very few wagons as goods had finished; and (b) on account of that, the repainted or re-lettered ones were only used for ballast trains. The NCC guards van on the DCDR and the surviving "Ivan" (GNR brake van) at Whitehead were used for this purpose, and there was at least one other ex GNR van too. It survived at Downpatrick having been saved, and its parts were used in the restoration of "Ivan". The DCDR (NCC) van is currently painted in this NIR grey livery, although it's incorrectly lettered "U T". The UTA painted these vans a much darker grey - darker than CIE used and more like English LMS grey, ironwork included. The black ironwork on both the NCC van and "Ivan" is not correct. The NIR livery using black ironwork is therefore rare on three counts: firstly, only a few ballast wagons and a handful of guards vans ever got it (no goods vans at all), secondly it was very short lived, and thirdly it is one of the extremely few examples of an Irish railway company painting a goods vehicle one body colour, but with chassis and ironwork picked out in black. To the right of the wagon above is one painted light grey by NIR, but no black ironwork! The grey paint was very poorly applied on all wagons thus painted and would show the original UTA paintwork beneath it very quickly. The wagon above is one of those built for the Courtaulds traffic in Carrickfergus.

Livery as well as weathering information. Newish Tara's, 1978, North Wall. They were originally blue all over - a mid royal blue. After a while they'd get covered in dust.

I think this is the one which was preserved, Mayner. It was vandalised at Tuam some years ago (the preserved one) but survived and is not at Dunsandle.

While most guards vans were the standard CIE design by 1970, a very few older ones struggled on a not longer. This long lived example of GSWR origin was pictured in a scrap line in 1978; I think I saw another in Tralee a couple of years before that. This one still has its snail, as some still-grey wagons did at the time (especially H vans). Incidentally, brown wagons never had snails, as this logo was discontinued about 8 or 9 years before wagons started being painted brown. Of standard CIE types, they were initially grey with duckets included. The yellow and black stripes on the duckets were added later. In brown days, duckets were always striped yellow and black. An example in the UFTM in Cultra has black and white stripes on the ducket, as well as a wrongly proportioned CIE roundel. They were never painted thus, and didn't even look that way when weathered or faded. Modellers are advised to be very wary of copying liveries from the preservation world. All of the major players; RPSI, DCDR and UFTM, have many examples of convincing-looking, and well painted, but utterly wrong liveries. Preserved CDR railcars in Finntown and Derry have wrong CDR crests, and I could go on.....