jhb171achill

Been following these posts nice the first, and never cease to be amazed at how good they are. One thing's for certain; you've plenty of practice by now! Keep 'em coming.... !!

Staff did do this sort of thing back then, broithe.... I remember a guard on the Enterprise asking, at the height of the "Troubles" at Dundalk, "who owns this bag?"... Nobody owned up. Normally, cue a bomb scare as the train was evacuated and bomb disposal arrived. In this case, the guard shrugged, picked it up (while we passengers prayed to the Almighty) and carried it off to his BR van. Even the Enterprise itself at that stage comprised laminates and Park Royals, because CIE didn't want good Mk 2s blown up at the border!

I don't think it does nowadays.... Wasn't it destroyed by fire some years ago? No MPD stuff has survived, but what used to be a 70 class intermediate is Downpatrick's no. 728, currently in late stages of being restored to full passenger use after years as a mobile waiting room...

The "liners" into Larne were really a few NIR containers carrying mail, tagged onto the back of railcars...

Another one of these past sunny days; they always seem to have been forever, or at least hotter than today, but in reality were rarely as good as the last two weeks here now! I walked along St John's Road, then a road rather than the cross that it is today between a dual carriageway, motorway, and (during rush hour) a car park. The "Guinness" gates were open, and lorries busily ferried the black stuff into the yard, while a gantry crane load it onto the four wheeled "Lancashire flats" for onward transmission to the thirsty of Belfast, Cork, Galway, Ballina, Limerick, Tralee, and many other places. A short time earlier I had watched same being unload at Kilkenny and Clonmel.. I had no hard hat, steel capped boots, or day glo vest; the latter was decades away from being invented. Railway staff wore - you'd better sit down for this one - ordinary clothes or railway uniforms. Really. As true as I do sit here, m'lud. Nobody challenged me, I just wandered about, camera in hand. Here's what I saw that day. One of those brand new giant B class yokes - 071s, they are called. Up he came out of platform 2 with the down Cork, packed Mk 2's, or as we just called them at the time, AC stock. Roaring past, in La Grange's brown version of CIE's orange, clean as a whistle. It was 071 itself, with about 9 behind it. Another passenger train arrived with an "A" up front. It comprised a couple each of Cravens and laminates, and about 4 Park Royals, with a Dutch van at one end. Over in what was then platform 3, another "class leader", 121, paired another of its class on what I believe was a down Limerick train. In any event, both 121s were straight our of the paint shop, and they looked well with their own set of Mk 2s, all in "supertrain" livery. In came an up Waterford, another brown and black 071 (none had yet received "proper" orange), and lets have a look now, what's pottering about the yard? Three "E"s, one in the Guinness sidings, another lifting arrivals out of the platform roads to allow the train engine to charge back up to Inchicore, and another over in the goods yard. How do I know that? Because, camera in hand, I slipped across the main running lines in between trains, in my soft shoes and denim jacket, and off I went over to the goods yard to see. Wagons abounded outside the goods office, now the IRRS HQ. The whole area from outside it, road included, and all the car park and new platforms was all sidings. Mostly there were "H" vans, with a good few corrugated opens in between. The vans we about 40% grey, the rest brown. One or two of the grey ones still had "snails", and many had destinations chalked on their doors. To complete the picture, one derelict "tin van" and a couple of good operational ones sat in the vicinity, and at the end of one siding, a corrugated open rested at a drunken angle off the track, where it had overrun a weed grown buffer stop... Back to the station to buy a packet of crisps and a tin of coca cola (about 30p for both) and a navy and cream half cab double decker back into town. I would maybe take a jaunt out to Howth on a push pull the next day, and get some "C" action....

They were indeed, Mayner. Five or six old AEC railcars or laminates / Park Royals packed solid with commuting humanity would have been a heavy enough task, even without the constant stopping and starting. In later years, a 121 on the Mk 3 push pulls also made a good bit of noise.

I remember notch 8 in a "C" hauled local... Good stuff! As readers will be aware, an "in principle" agreement has been made between ITG and DCDR... Watch this space!

It was originally LMS maroon all over, the only markings being a "1" on each end, and lettering "L M S N C C". Later it gained cream upper panels, the cream dropping to a V shape on the ends. It did not have lining. The UTA painted it in their standard Brunswick green, initially with lighter green in the same position as the NCC cream. The early UTA crest (the "red hand" rounded) was in the middle body side, and near each end on the sides was a "1" surrounded by a mall circle, the original standard type of UTA numeral style. Later, it received standard 1960's UTA livery - the same green all over, no lighter upper panels, but with the "wasp" ends with diagonal black stripes on the yellow panel which the company used as standard in the 60's. Hope this helps!

There were tank containers all right - but I never recall seeing any with Bell markings on them. Having said that, I don't remember what else they might have had. Overall, "normal" containers comprised most goods traffic, just as "H" vans had a few years earlier.

Stunning! Must dig out me own stuff....

I believe the crane at Mallow is one of the ex-BR ones bought by CIE to replace the last old GSWR one. Thus, the only "Irish" steam cranes in existence are the old NCC one at Downpatrick, and the former GNR one at Whitehead.

Whole thing looks very well indeed!

Is that an orange windscreen wiper on 071, same as orange and black window frame on NIR's 112? (or 8888888112 or whatever they call it!)

There is clearly no truth in the oft-trotted-out official line here that the Irish Mk 3's were clapped out.... They would be FAR better (refurbished, of course) with well-maintained 201s and possibly PP working, than the "flying frogs" on the Cork line and the DD's on the Belfast line.

Yes, it would. With Downpatrick increasingly being ITG's operating base, this could well happen. But: how to save 6111 first!? Nobody denies it SHOULD be saved, but when CIE and the UFTM have failed to come to an arrangement over many years, it's almost as if they depend on, or hope for, interest from ITG, DCDR or RPSI. Nobody should be under any illusion that for any of these three organisations, preservation of this vehicle presents serious challenges. To paraphrase another thread on IRN, it's just a pity the scheme proposed for a NRM-like "state" transport museum at Mullingar some 20 years ago was not acted upon; as usual, certain politicians sabotaged it due to petty local interests of their own.

Sadly, this is totally out of date, and totally off the wall for the times they live in now!

I would have thought any main post office in the north. I'm going to try to get some in Belfast tomorrow.

It depends whether its firstloco acquired by a preservation society, or first preserved loco operated on CIE / NIR, or first preserved loco operated anywhere else (i.e., by default, DCDR). Westrail operated the first privately owned diesel on CIE lines using E428, now at Dunsandle. E421 was the first loco to operate in Downpatrick. The RPSI's 141 / 142 were the first "main line" diesels to operate on the national network, while A39 was the first main line diesel to operate on the DCDR. All good stuff, of course, irrespective of first-dates and the year in which it happened. There is now an agreement between ITG and DCDR which will see an operational "C" at Downpatrick as soon as this can be arranged. In the meantime, the guys at Carrick-on-Suir are the very epitome of what preservation is all about. They have slaved away, often with little recognition or thanks by the broad enthusiast world, for what pretty much amounts to all of the adult lives of some of them; this is a truly fantastic achievement for such a small band of people in a relatively out of the way place. They deserve the highest accolades that the enthusiast / preservationist world can give. Well done, folks. Keep 'er lit!

It's an experience that you can still have at Downpatrick any time 146 is running. DCDR sells footplate passes for the day. Usually it's steam on the public services, but 146 or A39 (and occasionally a "G") are regulars on the 12:30 empty stock to Inch Abbey, and the 17:30 equivalent.

It would be better to refurbish them and dump the De Dietrichs!!!

I see Anthony's scenery is just as realistic as his weathering! Have to say when I first saw a pic of the (real) 077, and despite the fact that I am a well known advocate of the all-over grey in GSR/CIE days for steam engines, I thought it looked ghastly, it's ghastliness only exceeded by the new logo. But now I like both..... and naturally, ghastly or not, Anthony's replication of it was always guaranteed to be superb...

Wow! Anthony, your weathering jobs look absolutely realistic. It doesn't take just skill with a brush to do that, it takes an extremely finely tuned artistic eye; well done as always.

Typical. Politicians interfering; good old Irish brown envelopes..... Related note: they say that democracy is the worst form of government in the world (apart from the alternatives); or that voters deserve what they vote for. In the above example, as many others, the latter is the case..... Now that you mention it, I do indeed remember talk of the Athlone scheme. While I can't remember the details, those close to it in the enthusiast world back then did take the view that it was pie in the sky, and the Mullingar one would have been far better.

You could model one with "Grange Castle" on the destination display!

Quite right, Mayner; given the circumstances at the time, it was very far sighted. The Mullingar project you mention was put to the RPSI at the time, and they expressed a wish to co-operate with whatever came of it. Unfortunately, nothing did! One of the projected plans in relation to this was the operation of heritage trains over the old Midland line to Athlone... one of life's "what-ifs"...