jhb171achill

What a STUNNING model! (less white above front windows though!) I remember the last run on an IRRS trip with 106 back in (I think?) 1977 / 8..... never saw them on their stamping ground, but a Waterford - Mallow based layout would look well with a few...

Just shows the gems that IRRS meetings throw up! I am rarely in Dublin on Thursday nights but hopefully I will be able to get to some of these meetings in the future. I would very strongly recommend membership of the IRRS to modellers, as they have much useful information in there.

There will be steam trains on the Downpatrick & Co Down Railway on 1st January, if that would be any interest if you are in / around the north. It's not that far from Cultra (Ulster Folk and Transport Museum... which is excellent).

On re-reading the above, please forgive my typos! I norm;aly spel quiet. w3ell.

Thanks for comments re liveries, folks. In answer to: "......Except the converted parcels/brake van that became the iconic weedsprayer wagon. I assume Edgar Craven Bredin was the same engineer, along with Beaumont, responsible for both iconic carriage design types associated with his name?....." Yes. H J A Beaumont joined Inchicore in 1899 as a trainee draughtsman in the old drawing office there and by the time Edgar Bredin came along he was the senior one, thus it was to him that Bredin turned when he wanted a shape put on his plans. Info on HJAB is surprisingly sparse. He was an extremely private man who kept himself to himself and his family. In family ownership, nothing whatsoever has survived of his... and most of his drawings of the 800 class locos was destroyed in a clear out at the works in the early 1960s. Bredin and HJAB were involved with the second batc h of Drumm trains and numerous rebuilds of both locos and carriages, as well as the 800 class and the "Bredin" coaches. The coaches were the first steel-skinned coaches in Ireland, though the GNR(I) were developing their own at the same time. To this end, HJAB made several visits to Dundalk Works, and his counterparts came to Inchicore to review progress. There were two versions: side corridor main line stock and centre aisle suburban stock with no end gangways at first, though these were later added. With all having gangways eventually, the suburban ones were not at all uncommon on the main lines. Many were still in use on CIE well into the 1970s. The RPSI had three (or pissib ly four; memory lets me down here), all but one of which suffered fatal damage in a fire at Mullingar some years ago, where one was torched, and in the late 90s another 2 were among 5 or 6 coaches awaiting restoration at Whitehead which were destroyed in a vandal-related fire. (Pity the vandals weren't in them). The sole remaining complete one is currently undergoing restoration by the RPSI and will hopefully return to main line service. I think, as someone said, there is a non-operational one at Dromod. If so, it is likely to be 1900, the solitary Bredin all-first. Bredin / HJAB also designed the steel-panelled TPOs, post office sorting vans and full brakes which were to be seen in use well into CIE period. The very last CIE-built full brakes were built to an essentially Bredin design in the late 50s, by which time both Bredin and HJAB were no longer in the railway. (HJAB, in fact, had died in 1951).

Ah! The dreaded Saxons are kidnapping Henry Shefflin to play for Man U. That's why the sub is in reverse.

Looks fantastic... wonder if it's possible to get the NIR logs and numerals used on these? I seem to remember someone did those rub-on transfers at one time....

Looks absolutely stunning!

I take the point that repaints of BR models are not quite the real thing, but I'd say an exact replica would end up being much dearer in the shops. The windows show up the BR ancestry more than anything else - they have round corners, whereas AECs had much squarer corners. In my own modellin g days, none of the RTR stuff was available so one had to make do with one's own efforts, or a repainted BR Mk 1 for just about anything! The only thing I would add - and please accept as very constructive criticism, as the overall effect is excellent - is that the blue looks more like GNR loco blue than railcar blue. The railcars had a navy blue shade, while loco blue is best seen at Whitehead on 171 and 85. Painting the ends of carriages in the bodyside livery was much more a BR thing than the product of anything over here (like black wagon chassis and ironwork). With the exception of some (but not all) non-corridor stock, CIE and UTA painted carriages black on the ends, irrespective of side livery. GNR railcars and loco hauled stock had blue and cream on the ends usually (I have seen phots of black on ends in this livery too, though I can't recall whether it was railcars or loco hauled stock...).. The flying snail is the wrong way round on the green cars too.... Anyway; that's my tuppence half'penny worth.... great model, long overdue, and great credit to Silverfox. Maybe a 70 class next? (Runs and hides....)

A pleasure, weshty!

Correct, Horsetan. And in the ten or fifteen years post-independence (and other times since!) Ireland was not a wealthy country as we know!

Yes. We buried Mike on Saturday last; a true gentleman as mentioned and a good friend to all involved in the DCDR. RIP, Mike; we'll keep 'er lit for you!

The Belfast factory was Eastwoods, now itself long gone. CIE and the UTA scrapped locos in Belfast, Dundalk and Dublin; Mullingar also, and possibly at other locations. Both did a lot of scrapping themselves.

Bear in mind the colour became truly orange in the 80's - it was a duller browner shade before that, right back to 1962. When the 071s were first delivered, the colour they were painted in the USA was browner still until first Inchicore repaint.

The orange / black side window frame is a detail stroke of genius! Looks amazing.

The only colour pic I saw of an Inchicore "Cab" operation was of an ancient loco and an even more ancient ex-MGW six-wheeler. The loco was so dirty that Poirot couldn't have worked out what colour it had been painted - though I'd be 99.99% certain it was grey. The coach was in VERY dirty and faded initial CIE dark brunswick green with badly faded loight green bands above and below windows. I doubt if the "joined-on" locos / coach portion were ever green, as the last was scrapped about 1949, just a few years into pre-nationalisation CIE ownership. For a modeller, the loco would probably be 100% weathering paint! A grey loco could well have shown faded lining in a scrap line, though I doubt in traffic. CBSCR engines were originally green, apparently of an olive shade, with quite elaborate yellow lining. Name and number plates were indeed removed for economy - though I doubt if they got the price of a dozen eggs as a result of recycling the scrap! If you are ever in Clifden, the six-wheel coach under tarpaulin there in the Station House Hotel car park shows glimpses of both CIE and GSR lining.

That carriage looks like a Bredin-origin one to me - if so, it's 1935 rather than 1937 design, i would guess.

Seems odd now, doesn't it! Note one of the later 4 wheeled heating vans still in use on the train headed by a 141... and red "buffer beams" still on the brand new DARTs!

Me loyalties WELL divided this Sunday. Dublin -v- Mayo; I'll have a blue shirt though, as will Mrs Woman, who is not a Dubliner at all..... C'mon ye boys in blue! If it was anyone else playing Mayo, I'd be shouting me head off for Mayo................. see ye in the North Star before the match, and in the Cusack during it! :tumbsup: :) =D=D=D :-bd

Haha sorry heirflick! Yes, with a dearth of published photos and periodicals until recent times, details of many aspects of the railways useful to modellers (and none more so than liveries) were not as well publicisdd as they might have been. In Britain, the tendency was for railway companies to paint all metalwork black, though exceptions existed. Here it was the other way round. Few companies did this, most preferrring all over grey - of various shades - and brown, or pre 1925 on some lines, black or almost-black grey, all over. Having said that, many wagons were also infrequent visitors to paint shops, and the paintwork would become very heavily faded and weathered, so nondescript brake dust mixed with dirt would be a good "weathering livery" on some black chassis! Look even at modern IE freight stock - if you can find any which aren't plastered with graffiti, or even find any at all! They will show signs of the same - a nondescript dirty colour with a rusty brown tint (from brake dust).

Another addition.... with money being even more scarce in the 30's than it is now, and less importance given to instant "corporate branding", repainting was generally done when something needed to be painted, not when it changed owner. Thus, especially with goods and departmental stock, pre 1925 amalgamation liveries were to be seen until at least the mid thirties, with wagons bearing faded "D S E R", "G S W R" or "M G W R" lettering on them cropping up all over the place. If you are modelling this, the DSER used lettering only slightly smaller than the GSR, but GSWR, CBSCR and MGWR wagon lettering was smaller, about one plank height usually. And while the wagons were generally painted the same colour all over, exhaust smoke from engines made the roofs dirty very quickly, indeed even diesel exhausts soon discoloured light grey or brown wagon's roofs in CIE days. A very newly painted wagon stuck out because of the clean grey or brown wheels, brakegear and roof.

Hahaha good thinking snapper! I've one on the go at the moment in which liveries will be commented on as always! (Liveries have always interested me; dunno why - they don't often interest all that many people... present company excepted of course.. but there ye go!) I meant to add, by the way, with regard to wagon liveries, grey all over, NOT black metalwork, strapping or chassis. This is an error often made by modellers, like I did myself back in the day when I did a bit of modelling, and chassis off Triang Hornby things (inevitably black, as per BR where metalwork WAS black) were the norm....

Locomotives With the exception of the three 800 class, all locomotives adopted the livery which the GSWR had used since about 1918; namely a very dark "battleship" grey which was spray painted over the entire locomotive, including the cab interior, motion, and between the frames, as if the engine had been driven through a sheep dip. The only relief was the red buffer beam, with ornate shaded number on it. Former GSWR engines were inherited like this, and continued thus, right into CIE days, and indeed all but a very few ended their days uncder CIE in grey. Locomotives from other companies were gradually treated the same, with numberplates being replaced usually by standard GSWR pattern ones (a few exceptions, e.g. ex-Cork, Blackrock & Passage narrow gauge engines transferred to the C & L). Old liveries such as the elaborately lined MGWR and WLWR ones, disappeared. The numberplates were often painted over, but occasionally had the raised rim and lettering / numerals picked out by sanding them down, i.e. bare metal, other times by painting them. Eye witnesses (several of whom I have known) noted this painting of numberplates was sometimes a lighter grey or a creamy colour (possibly off white), but more usually bare metal. Numberplate background was the same overall battleship grey. describe locos fresh out of the paint shop as having a slight bluish hue, something to be seen on RPSI No. 186 when very clean, or when initially painted thus at Whitehead. In use, after a while in traffic and many "cleanings" with oily rags, locos began to look much darker, almost black. A close look, though, showed they were not black. The three 800s were a lightish green, much lighter than the later green as seen on 800 in Cultra museum. It also had a distinct bluish tint, and the recently releasec scale model of it advertised on these boards has captured this perfectly. Lining was light yellow and black and number and name plates had edges and numerals polished, with dark blue backgrounds and red buffer beams. Bear in mind, incidentally, that 800 in Cultra has CIE green, but GSR markings, if ever photographing it for modelling purposes. GSR carriages initially continued the GSWR tradition of a very dark maroon, so dark it looked brownish; this was known as "crimson lake". The exact shade may be seen on ex-GSW coaches 836 and 1097 at Downpatrick; 836 also having accurate GSWR lining, crests and lettering. Coaches of other companies gradually got this colour as well, with GSR coats of arms and large "1", or "3" numerals on carriage doors to indicate class. Lining was gold. By the mid 1920s an experimental livery was tried on corridor coaches on the Cork line. This was a chocolate brown up to lower waist panel level, with cream above and grey roofs. The cream had a thin black line seperating it from the brown, and two black lines just above the window level, and just below cantrail. Crests and numerals were the same as before. This livery was gradually extended to more corridor and bogie coaches, but was never used on six wheel stock with the exception of a very small number of vans (probably treated thus for ioperating on Cork line, but one at least was photographed bringing up the rear of a branch line train in Mayo). Nor was it ever used on the narrow gauge, and many secondary bogie coaches remained in the dark lake colour. When the "steels" (the first steel sided coaches, often known as "Bredins") were intorduced in 1935, they were painted a much lighter shade of maroon, almost idenitical to that used by the LMS NCC / LMS in GB, all over. Again, the same numerals and crests were applied to the sides, and the lining was also like that of the LMS - a black line edged in yellow at waist level, and two thin yellow lines above windows and below cantrail. Some lowly branch line carriages, most narrow gauge stock, and things like horse boxes were unlined. A very small number of very old passenger carriages even then used as emergency accommodation only, has the letters "G S" instead of the crest, and no lining, same as on horse boxes. Newly painted brown and cream coaches were in evidence up to about 1933/4, but after the late 30s the new LMS style maroon spread to most stock, before the advent of the earlier CIE green livery after 1945. Inherited wagons were a mixed bag. The GSWR had painted its wagons dark grey or more usually, black, but companies like the DSER and MGWR used various shades of grey (yes, possibly even fifty shades of grey!). The GSWR had painted departmental stock a sand colour at one time, but this was discontinued. Gradually, a grey colour became standard across the board. The shade was darker than that later used by CIE, and probably very close again to LMS wagon grey. Narrow gauge wagons were also treated thus, though one interesting exception to the rule was that the Cavan & Leitrim had painted its ballast wagons yellow - just like a century later! The GSR continued this, using yellow 4 wheel open wagons with "G S" on the sides in smaller than usual letters. In common with most railway companies of the days, the owner's initials were prominent; large bold lettering "G S" was on the side of the wagons. The same size numbers were used on narrow gauge wagons, looking even bigger due to those wagon's small sizes. Stations, buildings and signal cabins had dark green paint round doors and frames, with cream used on upper panels or round window panes. Hope this helps.

Standard length for all GSWR horse boxes was 15ft6 or 16ft for all built prior to 1911 (9ft wheel base); 19ft length after that, with 12ft wheel base. Livery dark crimson lake initially, as on GSWR coach 836 at Downpatrick. The GSWR dimensions were fairly standard among other railway companies - all Irish horseboxes were short wheelbase / short length.

A pleasure Heirflick. I notice, looking at it again, the wagon has a painted departmental "A" series number 650A. The example shown in photos at the top of this post has a standard CIE wagon plate (and with a standard 5-digit number), but the above doesn't.... (unless there's a plate on the other side, or my eyesight is suffering from too many years of Guinness imbibing...!)