jhb171achill

Quite possibly... I'm not familiar with the area. It's a good few years since I've been north of Ballina itself..

I doubt if it carried a livery like that. Coloured upper panels like that were not the norm in those days. It might have had some panels picked out in a lighter shade, but almost certainly not a broad "band" of lighter colour. I agree with you that as far as possible, accuracy is far more important than what some of us might think "looks well" in this day and age.....

It would have been unlikely to have had a toilet when first built, but it appears to have been rebuilt, probably with one, later. Gas lighting indeed. It's not possible at this stage to ascertain whether it would have ended its days as a first. It very likely did remain 1st, but we couldn't be certain. It appears to have been withdrawn about 110 years ago, thus unless it had spent many years in store, would have probably worn GNR livery. Very careful analysis of oldest panels on it may reveal livery. PM me about next time you're in Downpatrick and if I am up north and free I will join you and we can examine it in detail.

David, you need to get down to Glenfarne these summer nights and start laying a few miles of track!

She's a genetically modified sheep......

Totally correct, Eoin. It's ghastly.

It'll be good to see a Martello tower with no graffiti!

I have to say, few if any of these ultra-advertising-agency liveries prevalent in GB do anything for me at all..... many (most?) are quite grotesque...

Livery detail: in pre 1980s times, NIR painted the NCC crane standard maroon. The GNR one at least had been painted red by the UTA. Yellow painted PW and maintenance equipment was unknown, apart from a few Cavan & Leitrim ballast wagons many moons earlier! Prior to UTA, breakdown cranes tended to be quite dark grey or black, not only with the earlier UTA and predecessors, but GNR and CIE as well. At least one CIE one was lighter (wagon) grey in the 60s / 70s. The NCC one at Downpatrick ended its days with the original (upright and gold-lined) NIR monogram. The GNR one at Whitehead retained its UTA cost of arms (not the red-hand-roundel) on its arrival at Whitehead in the 70s.

There is indeed a missing match truck. To see what these looked like, the GNR one still at whitehead with the GNR crane, is very much typical of the species.

Ok once you get used to it.... Anything's better than the navy & lime green......

Yes, looks like a GSWR one. They had one in Inchicore, and dating from W & L days had one in Limerick. I stand to be corrected, but that's probably the Limerick GSWR one, it's W & L predecessor having been long gone (in 1920, maybe?).

A reopened Killala branch, eh? Brings to mind my one-time plan to do a layout based on Achill having reopened as a heritage line!

Comments by Blaine & Waffles are correct. The yellow ones were ex-BR. I think there were two, and they were intended to replace the old MGWR and GSWR ones. I think the one plinthed at Mallow is an ex-BR one but I could be wrong - it might be the GSWR one. As stated, the NCC one is on the DCDR and the GNR one is at Whitehead. The BR ones were quite different in detail from any if the Irish ones. For a start, they were much newer!

These days, it seems all trains have to run in daylight. On a line like Sligo, there's no reason why the trains couldn't be run at night, thus avoiding taking up daytime paths.

Aarrrrgh! I knew I forgot something. A photo of that layout should have been in "Rails Through the West"! Nobody would have noticed it was a model..... Cue some emails to me from the publisher, "got a letter from a man who says he is an IRM poster, he wants to know why there was an oil tank in there that day....."

Probably containers would be the easiest option. Garfield, I take it you go to mass with eco-friendly wafers, in a church lit by rainwater and heated by wind! ;-)

Superb model - is it scratchbuilt or converted from something? Either way, looks excellent. If converted, how did you do such a convincing job?

It's only now I'm discovering what biomass actually is!!

Absolutely no idea, josefstadt! I would think your theory is as good as any.... It's too short a number to be a wagon, too long to be a loco. Could it be something off maintenance equipment?

So Inchicore won't start churning out corrugated four wheelers! ;-)

Quite possibly in dining cars too.... Or UTA owned hotels? I think they still had the Midland Hotel adjacent to York Road and the Slieve Donard at that time.

I'm sure that if there is a business case for rail, our colleagues in the government and the railway will make sure that it is suitably avoided.....

Hard to tell. Obviously, it's a Dublin & South a Eastern Railway loco, possibly one of the 0.4.2 tender engines. There is no clue in the internal shot of the cab, but the front windows look the same - could well be the same loco, or at least the same class.

With weathering, even better; as close to perfection in any model as can be got. I'd love to see this layout in the flesh.