jhb171achill

Youghal indeed; loco in 2nd livery it carried (after grey and yellow)...

Very neat job indeed, Nelson. The crest looks good - all too often UTA crests on models are too big in scale.

That Sulzer is SERIOUSLY good looking!

The Bandon Tank (460) shown in that photo is, I believe, one of the CIE locos which received black treatment instead of grey.

Late GSWR / all GSR - all grey, except the three 800 class. CIE - same, but passenger / Dublin suburban locos largely lined green after about 1949/50, and a handful (but not that many) repainted in black from the mid 50's to the end of steam. A grey loco very quickly started to look blackish if "cleaned" with oily rags, or rarely cleaned!

.... and liveries. The locomotives would have been either all-over grey, as the GSWR started painting them line this about 1915/8. An unrepainted loco would be (by now work-stained) black lined in red. Carriages were a very dark maroon colour - as seen on Downpatrick's 836. Goods stock was an extremely dark grey, much darker than locomotives, almost black. Some older ones were black, though in 1921 any like this would look very shabby.

The train make up would probably be three six wheel coaches - a first, second and third class; or a first and two thirds. This would be followed by a passenger brand van, with the mails in another similar vehicle, either just behind the locomotive or behind the passenger vehicles. There could even be a couple more. The train would have changed locomotives at Limerick, where further vehicles would have been added; further again (probably) at Ballybrophy and / or Portarlington. There could have also been goods trucks and a guards van bringing up the rear, at least as far as Limerick.

Showed it to Senior this afternoon. He remembered it - he was hovering in the vicinity with his dad, but neither appear in the film. His father designed the carriage-body-work.

Only getting to this now - was working on the train Thursday to Monday, and at the "End of Tour" session in the Crown in Belfast last night. Overall, apart from 85's problem, it went well. 85, incidentally, is cured now and good to go next trip. Thank you to all who supported the tour.

Not at all a thick question, Glenderg, as there were variations. The initial shade had a distinctly brownish tint. In fact CIE officially referred to it as "golden brown" (although it wasn't really brown at all). This lasted throughout the black'n'tan period and well into the post-1972 Supertrain period. A combination of a different type of paint and different techniques for applying it led to a slightly less tan tint by the mid 80s, though it wasn't a livery change as such. By the time the "tippex" livery (CIE with white stripes and original IE logo) appeared in 1987, and the Mk 3's were coming out (RIP), the most recent more bright orange shade appeared. Again, though, it wasn't an official livery change, just a different result of trying to achieve the same thing. All modellers will be well familiar with that! When the DCDR was repainting the cabs of 146 recently, the old shades showed up. The difference was noticeable, but not huge. In traffic, all shades weathered to a duller shade.

This is of particular interest to modellers. Those who have had many birthdays fewer than myself and some other posters here (yiz know who ye are!) will be aware that prior to 1970, and the introduction of the NIR Enterprise and 80 class railcars a few years later, the uniformity seen almost universally since was almost unknown. Now, a modeller who likes Mk 3's will run them, with a EGV of the sole type they had. Craven-likers will run a train all of those, as will modellers of NIR Mk 2s etc. So - if you like laminates, by all means; but back in the day you would almost never get a train of a uniform design of them, or of anything. Thus, models based prior to the early 70s almost need, as obligatory, a hotch-potch of all manner of stuff behind them. In the colour pic at Manulla Junction above, we have (from behind the loco onwards), a GSWR wooden side corridor comp in green, a GSWR side corridor third in black'n'tan, a laminate in b'n't, a green laminate, what I think may be a Bredin in b'n't, and two other vehicles, whose side profiles show that they are different from each other, and from the others in the train. Thus, we have a seven vehicle train in two liveries and with no two carriages the same. A dirty silver luggage van, or an-ex-GNR KJ15 in blue and cream would equally have been possible candidates for inclusion. Such a combination was typical, if not normal; and a train of uniform type was almost unknown. The opposite of today.

Super work - where / when is it set?

Indeed, Boskonay!

A well brought up young lady, to be sure!

There must be a lot of politicians living there.....

Near the Burren in Co Clare there's a Boston.

That man's an artistic genius!

Tis all a conspiracy theory. Everyone knows that Mission Control is actually in Sligo.

There's a retro precedent. Who'd have ever thought 071s in GSWR / GSR / CIE all-over grey! De Dietrich set in all brown, with the NIR 201s in blue? Oh....wait....

Get onto Vlad and tell him to leave Ukraine alone, and make himself a model of the Ukrainian railways instead. Many here could advise him!

Small voice in corner says : a 201 in 1970s black'n'tan might look good...

That is highly valuable information - the sort of thing we don't all think of. Years ago, I had occasion to take an old disused layout baseboard to the dump, and it occurred to me en route that had it still been operational with track and scenery on it, there's no way under the sun it would have made that particular journey undamaged. Even for those not attending exhibitions, you might have to move house some day (as I am at the moment), so a lot of thought needs to go into layout design for that reason alone...

I saw one a few months back reserved for Barack O'Bama on the 1920 Galway - Heuston....

Absolutely TOP CLASS! In every detail!

Yes, heirflick. The very first one was completely assembled immediately before the MGWR became part of the GSR. It was turned out in fully lined current MGWR livery (lined black 1918-25), but renumbered twice, no less, and painted all over grey before it turned a wheel in traffic. All were grey - like everything else - until about 1950, when they were one of the classes chosen for lined CIE green as on 800 now. The few that got unlined black, and the one unique lined black one came later. I have a note of exact details somewhere but if memory serves correctly this was mid 50s. Not that many CIE locos received black - most remained (filthy) grey until the end.