jhb171achill

Absolutely, Minister. Railways, boats, canals and old buildings.... when you look at what is routinely achieved in Britain, and far more importantly the public support it gets, we are very much in second place here.

Excellent! Brings back memories...!

The ones with the roofs chopped off were of MGWR, GSWR and DSER origin, and maybe then some. But many six wheelers outlasted them and were routinely in traffic especially on branch lines and in the Cork area well into the early 60s. The last rake was kept for Youghal excursions and was not withdrawn until early '64, having last been used in '63. An IRRS jaunt in early '64 had one on use - the very last - it was withdrawn about a week later.

You wouldn't be the first, Warbonnet! Thankfully where I'm moving to will be within walking distance of the Luas.....

Ghastly, utterly ghastly. A boycott of Dublin buses is on the cards....

Somewhat off topic... but an essential part of the railway scene up to as late as early 1964 was the traditional old MGWR six wheeler. Anyone have any thoughts of a kit of that? I should have an outline drawing somewhere -if anyone's interested, or indeed, if I can find it...

Superb work! Another one "off the beaten track" - great to see models like this.

Very interesting, Mayner - I had heard of beige colour for MGWR PW stuff, but the mid green is a new one to me. And I must have overlooked that, because I have a lot of Padraig's papers! If that pic dates from then, the van could be green, though the very light shade makes me doubt it. On balance, probably pale grey.

Note - that the G601 class were the only ones ever in silver or green - despite G614 above, or more to the point, G611 at Downpatrick, the later (G61x) ones went straight into traffic in black and tan, some later black.

Superb!

Just looking at your model again - the weathered look of the lettering really looks the part too... Congrats!

Wow! Excellent stuff Richie! Looks fantastic. Maybe grey on the ironwork, or weathering instead of black? Superb model. This is an area much neglected. Until 1960 or so when the standard CIE design became almost all-encompassing, there still remained some real relics, some one-offs like the curious 5J (I think?) on the Courtmacsherry branch, and various designs of old Midkand and GSWR types scattered about. A wooden GNR one ended up in West Cork in between the time CIE acquired part of the GNR (1958) and closure if that system in 1961. Hint for modellers on that one, incidentally; the black ironwork on the GNR example (superbly restored otherwise, and a great credit to those involved) at Whitehead is entirely wrong. Black wagon chassis and ironwork was rare in Ireland - not unknown, but only on certain wagons. GNR goods brake vans were not among them...

A few grains of turf carefully placed near the electric heater! :-)

Richie - just spent a bit of time searching the most obscure recesses of my records to establish what colour it might be. To no avail; grey it may be, then - as Georgeconna says, nobody will know! One detail I do notice - the lettering, almost certainly black, appears to be shaded in white. The Isle of Man Railway did this with rolling stock, though the other way round.... Ironwork appears to be the same light grey as the body (middle bars showing rust) as with the norm on Irish wagons. Like you, I belong to that small micro-minority fascinated by goods (and passenger) brake vans. I'll be interested to see how this one turns out! If you're modelling GSR or CIE period, it would of course be LMS-shade grey with G S or a snail (if any of them survived that long).

Gentlemen, we all have our limitations... :-) I haven't a clue what colour these were! I have seen evidence elsewhere of MGWR goods stock painted a very light colour with darker lettering, but it's one of those things I never got round to asking reliable eye witnesses like Bob Clements. I would suspect light grey, but could be wrong. At that time, NCC, GNR, DSER all had mid greys - fairly standard - whereas the GSWR had a much darker shade. Leave this one with with me and I'll see what I can dig out.

How do you write "G N R" in squiggles, Leslie! :-)

Excellent, Horsetan.... Let's start a campaign!

When jhb171 senior started work on the GSR, serious problems were encountered along the coast hetween Dublin and Wicklow, leading to major repair work having to be dive in a number of locations. He used this experience to do exactly the same type of work along the Carrickfergus - Larne lobe of the NCC.

That's the issue, David, and it is related to what I said in a different post - that manpower and money resources, let alone time, in the Irish preservation world are a great deal more limited (for a variety of reasons) than across the water, for instance. The main framing of "B" is nothing like as bad as it looks and as stated there's a spare engine. But no control gear whatsoever - this will have to be acquired or newly made. No brakes, no electrics for lighting etc. None of that is rocket science especially for 1940s technology; different if it was a 70 year old De Dietrich! So, if and when funding appears, this will happen, but efforts have been made on and off for quite a few years to secure same, thus far to no avail. PS - can you enlarge your workshop? There's €200k in it for you... ;-)

Is it planned, tony?

Wow! Well, in all seriousness, and to go back to the subject if CC1, existing technology would allow an electrically heated live steam one in 00....,

Maybe Dustin could go to the Eurovision in a Dublin bus with a mascot - single journey.

I remember reading of 00 gauge live steam in the past... presumably lighter fuel fired, but I am nearly sure I read of a coal fired loco on that scale somewhere?

Will do, Warbonnet, thanks.

As David says, the railcar is now at Downpatrick. A detailed examination of it was done when it was acquired from IE a few years ago, and it was found that the engine was as sick as the bodywork. The roof, miraculously, isn't too bad, but the thing needs to be sent away. The specialist firm in England to whom it would go quoted a figure not far short of €200k which given the necessary work was about right. An appeal by DCDR some years ago yielded just enough money to secure a good spare engine, which is now in store at Downpatrick. The railcar is under a tarpaulin. If and when grant aid can be made available, it will be sent to England (or maybe to David Holman!) to be fully restored to working order. When CIE acquired it in 1957, it was repainted in the then standard lighter carriage green, and numbered 2509. After 1962 it got the black'n'tan which it still carries.