jhb171achill

I'm interested in this too.

Good potential there!

I'm sure you met some worthy characters on it, Mr. Wanderer!

Old Blarney, question 1: No. Question 3: Yes. Hunslets generally ran singly in push/pull mode with a set of 5 carriages (typically winter), and topped / tailed six or more usually seven in the summer. Five was the recommended maximum for one locomotive. Hunslets were underpowered for the work they were called upon to do, and nothing like as satisfactory as CIE's 121 / 141 / recently introduced 181 classes. NIR would have preferred a trio of 181s, but political pressure was put on them by the Stormont Government to "buy British". Thus was borne one of Ireland's more unusual diesel classes! Modellers: imagine a maroon and blue 1970 Mk 2 set with a maroon 181!

I've seen a very convincing NCC 4.4.0 made out of an (English) Midland Railway 4.4.0, and a reasonable approximation of a "Jeep" out of an LMS equivalent.... An LNER 0.6.0 can be reasonably made to look like a GSWR J15 or a MGWR J18.

Correct, minister. One class ex WLWR, one Macroom. In the middle of a house move, that's all that memory tells me, and I can't look up where they ended up due to all my "stuff" being in storage!

Excellent! Ideal for a line based on Tralee - Limerick - Collooney, or Limerick - Waterford. Model of Birdhill - Killaloe, anyone? Overall roof an' all..... Rework the cab "window", file off the coal bunker rails, dip it in a pot if grey paint, and away you go. Better still, fully lined WLWR maroon....

Stripes were gold, rebelred, on maroon ones; white (obviously) when orange and black.

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!