jhb171achill

Yes, Glenderg, it is. The windows were originally single as shown on the first pic. The triple window on your pic was a UTA amendment I think - I doubt if the GNR amended them thus, but I would stand to be corrected. The UTA painted them brown. I am not sure what way CIE painted them, if indeed they had any - perhaps, with so many "tin vans" being built CIE had less need for them and maybe didn't use them?

Very much so - there were a number of variations. When CIE was formed in 1945, they adopted the green colour and logo of the Dublin United Tramways company; the "flying snail" dated initially from the 1930s, as did that shade or darkish brunswick green. CIE added the lighter green broad stripes, as seen on preserved buses and on the Bachmann "flying snail" coaches, which would actually be better in UTA green as they are of LMS design - they'd make very comvincing NCC coaches, but that's wandering off the point! This original livery had the "snail", the numerals and the broad light green lines edged in gold. The light green was initially not QUITE as light as the "eau de nil" but close enough. Thus, modelling the period 1945-50, a layout would have newly painted coaches in this livery, but quite a few, especially older 6-wheelers or parcel vans / passenger brakes still in GSR maroon of the later type, i.e. LMS red. This faded, incidentally, to a more browny red, due to brake dust; a weatherer's dream, well able to be very convincingly done by many here. In 1950 when the first AEC cars were introduced, the livery currently worn by Downpatrick's brake genny standard 3223 was adopted but only for railcars. Base colour was the same, but a single thinner light green line along the waist was used, and both it and the snail, as well as the lettering, no longer had the gold lining. Unlike locos and wagons, which were almost "sheep dipped" in their respective body colours, carriage roofs were always dark grey, and chassis always black at this stage, on all coaching stock. Carriage ends were black, never green, unlike the GSR, which tended to paint the ends of non-corridor stock in the body colour, though I am aware some were black too. The "steels", in GSR days, and all similar coaches, always had black ends. CIE generally painted all coach ends black, bar a few on narrow gauge lines. The "railcar" green had several interesting variations; some were seen (one or two in West Cork in particular) with a striped pattern on the curved very front of the roof. I am not sure what colour the stripes were, but this detail was only applied to a few AEC cars; most had grey roofs all over. There were variations. On the West Cork system, some old bogie coaches had the dark green with an unlined "snail" about a third along the bodyside, and another about 2/3 along; otherwise the standard was always ONE snail. On coaches treated thus, perhaps only one or two, there was no lining at all, and the unlined snail and unlined numeral was a very much lighter colour, possibly even white. On the Cavan & Leitrim, carriages carried a light green band above the window level only, not below, and neither it or the numerals & snail were gold-lined. The West Clare stock had no lining but were otherwise as above; many items of coaching stock on this system had no snails either; just plain green with a number (suffixed with "c", of course). In 1955, the Park Royals appeared in the lighter green now worn by DCDR's TPO, and the RPSI's Dublin heritage set, with lining and snails as on them; namely unlined in gold, and the thin waist line rather than thick bands of light green above and below window, which no vehicle painted light green ever had. Then we have the new tin vans and laminates appearing unpainted - chassis, roof, ends included. After 4 milliseconds in traffic this became an awful, drab, dirty looking dull uneven patchy grey (I'm really selling it, aren't I!). Carriages turned out thus never had flying snails at all, and numerals were reported by some to have been red on at least some of them, though locos turned out in silver always had snails and numerals in the standard light green, no gold lining. By 1960, ex-GNR coaches are appearing on CIE lines. Unlike the UTA, who painted out the GN crest on some and applied a UTA one to the otherwise-unrepainted coach, CIE left them alone until a proper repaint was due, after which they came out in the standard light green livery - except for one, the RPSI's 114, which is believed to be the only GNR coach whcih went straight from GNR livery into black'ntan as late as about 1965. Many of the remaining sixwheelers and old wooden stock was by now repainted into the light green, but by 1960 a few old examples in the dark green with full "above & below" gold lined light green bands were to be seen, among light green vehicles and a few "silver" ones. Then the famous black'n'tan era started. I was in Kildare signal box one day with my father and a 141 speeded through with an up train from Cork. The 141 can't have been long out of its Hornby box (or should that be Bachmann?), and the train consisted of carriages all in green, bar the last vehicle which was just repainted. "Oh!" says Senior; "is that the new livery!". "Yeah", said the signalman, in a somewhat deadpan way, "Ye'd think we'd have seen the last of the black and tans!". I digress; it was early 1963 when all but a few experimental coaches, started to be painted in b'n't en masse, even as grey and yellow 121s were appearing to haul them. This livery was to remain on Cravens unaltered until the early 1990s. As a corporate image livery it was very strong and ahead of its time. The next major change was of course when the "supertrain" livery appeared from 1972; all over orange, roof included, and the body colour for the first time slightly coming round the coach end, and a black band of window-depth. Post 1987, the "tippex lines" were added, giving the attractive livery of orange & black edged in white. And the rest ye know! The final incarnation of orange and black was to be that on the 2600s when new, with a black band just below the window level edged in white, the "Arrow" branding, and for the first time the chassis, bogies and roof were light grey instead of dark grey or black. If that was the "Fanta Can" livery, we then had the "Lilt can" lime green and dark blue, followed by NIR's "red bull" livery! Dunno what you'd call the current forty shades of grey (and green...)... a "novel" livery? Hope that helps!

Yes, that's the "P" van. If anyone wants to model it, some assistance might come from the fact that the DCDR has the chassis of one, on which the BCDR "Golfers Coach" (aka Royal Saloon) is sitting. Original bogies as above and all. I think there might be one at Whitehead, but I just can't remember!!!!

Nothing like that did run here, though the GNR had similar TYPE of van, the "P" van, used in the same way the SR in GB would have used this, on the ends of passenger trains with a lot of mail or parcels. A "P" van would actually make a nice model, right enough.

I can even get ye a copy of the grey paint! Gimme a shout privately!

"OR", not "of"!!

thats is sickeningly beautiful! i would happily trade the M-I-L for a set like that. how many chips are required to operate her? The layout of the M I L, Heirflick? :-)

I was doing the bar on that trip, and I served a pint to someone who had their head stuck out of the window. He was holding his pint and great chunks of leaves and greenery kept coming through the open windows. One big lump landed in his pint and he looked at it in dismay. I said to him "There's your side salad to have with it"........

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!