jhb171achill

Woww!!!

Interesting to see a view INSIDE a working goods shed. All too few!

Hahaha excellent Kirley. Forgot to mention that GNR style building is also amazing. I'm taking it by the red phone box we're somewhere about South Armagh! Or Strabane! Actually, the one and only time I was at Strabane station (immediately after closure, unfortunately) there was a red letter box on the platform...

I saw BF's stuff quite recently and it is indeed an excellent resource. The earliest I have seen in light grey would be slightly earlier, but there is no doubt that it wouold not have been widespread until well into the mid or late 60s, by which time the brown was beginning to surface as well. I saw several H vans in the 70s still retaining "flying snails" but light grey. (Thus, I suppose, one detail for modellers: brown would always have a broken wheel, not a snail, whereas grey could have either). The brown livery (slightly less reddish than today's) can't have been on too many of those outside planked vans, as although Mayner rightly says, there were more than a few of them about in the 70s, they were getting elderly and many still in use were probably facing imminent withdrawal. The GSR built these in the late 30s (as far as I know) and into the 40s. They were built as conventional vans, but I have to say it never occurred to me that they might have been thus designed for better insulation. I may actually be able to find that out for certain, as I'm going to visit Senior this afternoon! Did you notice among Brian's pics there also an ex-GNR van with plywood panelling? You can just make out the "G N" under the CIE paint. Its number (not visible ion the photo) would have been suffixed with "N".

Absolutely excellent stuff, esp. the MED set! Curious question though - how come everything runs "wrong line"? I love the small details like the little farm - those type of corrugated galvanised barns are SO common around the country adjacent to railways, and yet we rarely see them on layouts....

Sorry, Hunslet, I have to confess that's a page I wouldn't have looked at all that often as i wouldn't really have much that anyone would want these days... I did have a "black'n'tan" era layout of sorts at one time, but I gave away virtually everything on it to my nephew or a colleague in Dublin... years ago! If I ever get a spare 5 minutes I'll start putting together a lot of Austrian 009 narrow gauge stuff I have - I was always interested in OBB n-g after travelling on a lot of those liones, many now sadly gone, in the 70s.

Always thought that India or Indonesia might make a superb, and very unusual basis for a layout. In both cases you had steam locos of American, British and mainland European origins operating side by side, some ancient, some modern. With severe lack of investment in the 70s, 80s and 90s, these places were not unlike Ireland in the early 50s, with services operated by genuine museum pieces, like Sharp, Stewart 2.4.0 tender locos built in the 1870s operating in Indonesia (Java), meeting main line trains at junction stations (like Madiun) hauled by Alco or GE diesels of American origin, or huge 2.8.2's built by Henschel in 1953. A layout with fantastic contrasts. Meanwhile in India, a 5'6" gauge streamlined pacific, not unlike 800 "Maedb" in size and performance, would sweep into a junction station like Neral or Gwalior, where a tiny 2ft gauge loco (perhaps a Baldwin 2.8.4) would await across the platform. I was at 3 or 4 places in India in the 70s where scenes like this could be seen. Another feature of these scenarios is that you would see an apparently idle loco in steam, or an elderly black-smoking diesel, setting off from weed covered sidings with a single van to go up the line to the next station on a short "trip" working in between normal trains; even in layout form, the relaxed and occasionally chaotic nature of operations would be captured perfectly. Just a thought.

On a thing like that, the port area might also have a lot of office space all round it on newly developed land, generating commuter services in and out from Portadown, and also there could be something loaded or unloaded of an Alexandra Road - esque quay tramway, operated by 111 and 112 (or 888888888111 and 800000000112)!! IE could re-introduce freight flows to Belfast, operating between North Wall or Dundalk and Belfast Port......

I was nearly able to get a ticket for that - they were like hen's teeth but I thought I had a contact.... next time!

Gents - it found a home very quickly, as will have the "C" if I can find it...! Thanks to those who replied for your interest.

I have an old body for an A class made by a crowd called "Q" kits about 35 years ago. If anyone here wants it they can have it for the postage. I may have one of their C class ones too, if I can find it - I never made up either of them. They are made from some sort of resin.

Thanks HF - got more stuff to post at some stage. I've just re-read the above and the typos are horrific!!! I have a "paint shop" described as a "paint chop"!!! But there ye go. The paragraph about open wagons implies that at least one BULLIED wagon was brown - this is not what I meant, I just worded it badly. That description was meant to apply to old wooden open wagons, the further description in the para relating to Bullieds............ ah well........!

The RPSI colour is close enough to authentic, Ger711. I'm not well up on modern paint manufacturers - back when I was making crude attempts at CIE models i had everything black'n'tan so I never tried any green. In traffic, I have seen pics of various things straight out of the paint shop in green and it did look quite bright on a newly painted vehicle, but would weather down quite quickly. If you intend to model the loco "ex-works", it would be quite bright. It would probably have been mildly weathered most of the time, so if you did that the weathering process would dull it down anyway.

Those big concrete ones were mass produced by the GSR and are to seen all over the former GSR system - easy to make! In a rural setting, cover them with ivy, in an urban one, graffiti!

Wow! A Lough Swilly bus! Good to see one of those - brings back memories of mad weekends up in Donegal hi !

Wow! First time I've noticed this - excellent! Even with an ITG headboard! All you need is an O & K to go with it!!! :-)

There's an exception to every rule. By it's very nature, it's sheer size, a large major city terminus should be very difficult to model in anything like a convincing manner, whereas small country termini can fit into a modest spare bedroom! But this one's the exception - a city terminus with truly amazing realism and the highest level of skills we've seen in Irish modelling. Keep 'er lit! Love the viaduct, the trackwork and realistic edging of ballast, super-elevation, filthy 141 pilot engine, fantastically weahered bulk trains...... brings me right back!

Wow! That makes for a superb line up! And don't forget visiting RPSI trains! I hear the May Tour might visit it!

That site is actually only a fraction of what the GNR had. The whole area around Apollo Road behind it was also railway land, as was more of the land up towards Lislea Drive.

Meant to say, the authentic light CIE green is on some of the Dublin-based RPSI stock and the ex-CIE TPO at Downpatrick.

Irishrailwayman, I'd say LNER green would be very slightly too bright, but it's not a bad idea! With so many superb kits now available, and the very good standards of modelling these days (and getting better!) I wonder is there any paint manufacturer out there who might do authentic Irish ones? I have samples of GSWR / GSR / CIE loco grey, GNR loco blue, and the earlier CIE dark green. The GSR maroon was slightly brighter than LMS maroon (though not very different), and the brown and cream used by the GSR for a while was as good as identical to that of the GWR across the water. There used to be a firm called "Precision Paints" who could supply many authentic shades for many British liveries, and LMS / GWR (and I am sure LNER) was available from them. The GSR used much the same wagon grey as the LMS, as did the GNR(I) and the NCC. BCDR grey was darker. So LMS wagon grey would have a lot of uses in Ireland. There's one for the manufacturers!

They'd be flying machines on the main line.....

That's right, Minister. The green livery was intended to be applied to main line locos and Dublin suburban locos. It wasn't an exact science, but it did apply to the Bandon tanks! One "60 class" GSWR 4.4.0 became green - now THAT would have been a sight for sore eyes.

Indeed so, Broithe! We unloaded it and they sat down and I made them a cup of tea. No wait, I got that bit wrong..!! :-)

True.... first time I've been on interweb today....... was in Temple Bar photo archive all day...