jhb171achill

This has got to be my single favourite layout. And as we all know, very SERIOUS competition isn't lacking! I love the artistic effects. Not just the scenery, good as it is; just look at the weathering too... and the detail.......

Well, many Aussies are descended from us..........! As our good friends from the USA would say, "go figure"!!!!!

For that 80 to work, you have to include, inside it, 7 drunk 20-something lads singing offensively sectarian songs, on the 22:50 from Botanic..... fuelled by a certain Mr. Arthur. Guinness. ... Your model is so superbly realistic, it evokes these memories straight away! Excellent!!!!!

Tonight on the 1800 ex Galway was a crowd of noisy young lads with strong Dub accents making eejits of themselves shouting, swearing and drinking.... Two and a half hours of it... But at least it was good humoured noise.... Looked like they were maybe returning from a stag do or something.

WOW!!! Best 80 model I've ever seen....

It must have been, Hunslet! But the run was exciting..... Yes, the 80s were new. The first batch went into use in '74, the rest '77 / '78. The 70s, a few MPDs, and MEDs soldiered on a few years more. The last of the AECs and BUTs, from memory, disappeared in '74 / '75. The 80s struck us as odd at the time. We were used to railcar sets with either a gangwayed power car at each end, or a non gangway end one. Not a set with one of each! The 80s, obviously, were of this species. Odder still, the concept of 2 car sets was very unusual indeed. Almost all NIR trains of the day were 3 car, or more on the NCC. Even in the early 90s, the idea of a Derry train, once a major main line player, being a 2 car 80 was peculiar, given that what that actually meant was only one and a half carriages of actual passenger accommodation. I saw this service thus operated more than once, though to be fair it was usually a three piece.

Dunluce, that is seriously good stuff! Just for info, the guards van should be all over grey, no black bits, and a somewhat darker shade. (Yours looks like the DCDR version, which is entirely inaccurate, unfortunately - as is the black chassis on their "H" van). The reddish brown used on some wagons is close enough to BR bauxite, available from model shops in England. The NCC used standard LMS wagon grey, again available from Humbrol or whoever makes their paints nowadays. You will find photos of NCC wagons in the background in various photos in the IRRS premises in Dublin. For one of such youth, if you pardon me for saying, as others have said your standards are at the very top of the game. Your depth of knowledge is also, so membership of the IRRS would doubtless be invaluable to you. There is a wealth of information in their archives, and members who are regular attenders would be delighted to help you, I am sure. Of all the major companies, though, illustrations of their goods stock does seem harder to come by in books, for some reason; possibly because courtesy of the UTA, so much goods traffic in the NCC area vanished between the mid 50s and mid 60s. Good luck!

True, Hunslet! I wonder about that five car set.. I very much doubt myself whether a single power car could have done that - especially the hell-for-leather run north of Antrim. There must have been some sort of unusual formation with two power cars, which would inevitably have meant that you couldn't have walked end to end in the train. Doubtless it was the result of a breakdown or some hurried unusual formation. Pity I didn't have a picture of it. There were indeed a few BUTs kicking about then. Yesterday, going through Senior's stuff, I came upon a colour slide of a three car AEC in Lisburn station a few years earlier. The leading car is No. 111, still in that "suburban" light blue and cream; the centre car is newly maroon and grey, and the power car at the other end is UTA green.... That will figure in a future publication, for sure!

It brings back memories for me too! What prompted that post was that I came across a reference to the 70s this afternoon while looking up info on something different. I could trot out more... I had a few takes about the Austrian narrow gauge!

That is a stunning layout - one of my favourites!

Thank you, Mr Flick! :-)

Ah! Excuse me... I belong to "kettle" technology! A diseasel is a diseasel.......! And my interest in the species ended with the 141s....

Hopefully tied to the track...... no, that's not fair to the track.

Having re-read this, I'm just wondering why a 5 car set was being led by a driving trailer? Anyone? Normally a train like this would have had a power car at each end....

That's in the days of the bus conductors... they had them on at least some routes at least until 1980, many many moons after they had gone from Belfast or from Ulsterbus. Did the rural CIE services, or LLSR, still have conductors at that stage?

Different engine??

We're in the mid seventies here, and I've got an interview in Coleraine; not a town I was ever able to develop a great fondness for, I have to admit, but an interview's an interview. I boarded a train at York Road and sat opposite a young lady with impossibly wide bellbottoms, and who was impossibly tall. Let's call her Flossie. We were in a leading driving trailer of what I think was about a five car 70 class set. It was a stormy enough day, with autumn leaves blowing about. We left on time, more or less, but as we crashed and lurched our way up towards Bleach Green, it seemed we had several signals against us, and for several periods the train trundled along quite slowly. Up the double track section to Antrim, following laborious wheel-screeching across points in the vicinity of Bleach Green. I had looked out for the former junction to the "Back Line", still very visible and still with track on most of it, though only connected at the Greenisland end. The train sat for a while in Antrim, where we crossed a brand new 80 class set, not long out of its Hornby Box. 70's ruled the roost, though, on the NCC main line, aided and abetted by the motley collection of MPDs. Most MPDs and 70s were in maroon and oyster grey, though the new "Enterprise" livery (then so called) was making inroads. This soon-to-be-familiar maroon and blue was applied from new to the 80s, which never carried the maroon and grey; similarly, none of the MED sets ever received the maroon and blue. By the time we left Antrim, we were almost 10 minutes late. I never found out why, but as we set sail north on the (still double track) NCC main line, yer man threw the throttle open and off we went! It turned out to be the most spirited run I ever did in a 70 class set, and the leading driving trailer was buckin' and leppin' about like a good thing! Side to side it swayed, bogies crashing over joints, suspension lurching myself and Flossie, the only passengers up front for the whole ride, like a roller coaster in Barry's in Portrush. At one point I gripped the seat cushions. I had never before done so on a train, nor have I since, and nor do I want to. How that thing stayed on the track is a miracle - I didn't know a train could BE so bouncy, until some years later I had a run in the cab of a 141 at speed.... Coleraine beckoned, and it was very cold and windy. Nothing new there; but as I left the train one thing stuck in my mind - a fleeting look af real fear on Flossie's face somewhere about Cullybaaackey, as they call it in those parts... Interview concluded, I set off back to the station. This time, it was a three car 70 class back to Belfast, and lo and behold, the leading and centre cars were absolutely brand newly painted in maroon and blue - you could smell the new paint. I sat in the power car and as those who ever did similar will recall, there mightn't have been as spirited a ride as in a leading trailer car, but as the railcar started from each station, the noise and vibration from the windows and even seat frames was, let's say memorable; just like the overpowering diesel smell in an MED. I'm not painting either in a good light, am I? But - these trains had character - real character. Need I add more? Belfast was reached easily on time. Now, a walk across to Great Victoria Street for a train back to Lisburn. Would it be only my second or third run in one of these new 80s? Or a humdrum AEC........ Yes!!! It was an 80 class. Sure you can go in an AEC any oul day. And I got the interview. But I didn't go back; life had pulled me in another directiom, and U2 are the support act in the Baggot Inn tonight.... See ye there. Guinness has gone up to 45p a pint, though....

Maybe it's just old age in my case, but I couldn't be bothered trying to humour of "make allowances" or give therapy to the likes of that... just liquidise them...... the damage caused to tourism as a result of any UK or American citizen witnessing that is to me, far more important than that individual or his ilk.....

Yes - a train every second month instead of bi-annually!

I hope the guards were called to deal with filth like that......

In this day and age we see trains made up of entirely the same type of vehicle - be it passenger or goods. No ICR sets sail with a De Dietrich coach and a Craven as intermediates; nor does the "Enterprise" ever consist of a mix of DD and Mk 4stock. Well, apart from the new EGVs, that is. Goods trains are all of idntical Tara wagons, no odd tank wagon, beet truck of flat wagon samdwiched in between; or a string of identical pockets or container flats. Even maintenance trains are made up of the one type of vehicle per train. Few exceptions exist, and few have existed for some time. But for anyone modelling any period pre 1990, standardised rakes were an extreme rarity. Many a fantastic layout set in the "Black'n'Tan" era or earlier, might have a rake of identical 4 wheeled vans behind a superbly weathered "A" class or a "Pair". Many a passenger train will have a string of identical Cravens (OK after Buttevant, but not before), or identical laminates, or even identical wooden stock. This is generally as inaccurate as the ICR with the DD intermediate. To take a few absolutely typical train make ups from old photos of mine taken in the late 70s, we can pick out the following... Goods: 30 ton van, 8 "H" vans, one with wood planked doors - one grey with snail, three grey with roundel, four brown. A flat with a BR "Freightliner" container, and several "Lancashire Flats", finally two beet wagons and a wood-planked open wagon. Passenger: Six wheel "Hot water Bottle" tin van, brake standard, full standard laminate, Craven, Park Royal, Craven, two more laminates, not the same. Another - BR van, two Cravens, Laminate, Park Royal, Laminate. This would be the norm. So, if you're modelling pre 1990, remember the mix! Cravens, several types of Laminates, several variations of Park Royals, several variations of laminated brake standards, brake standard gennies, four and six wheel heating and luggage vans, four wheel post vans converted to brakes 9there were four; one still exists at Heuston) - all these were indiscriminately mixed in main line and suburban trains. The only carriages never to operate in traffic with anything else were the Mk 2 air-cons from 1972; and all subsequent types. Mk 2AB, Mk 3 and of course Mk 4 all kept themselves to themselves. The goods picture was the same, though in pre container days, "H" or other covered vans formed perhaps 70% of all wagons in routine goods trains (not counting things like mining traffic or beet). Hope this is of interest to some!

First I heard of it - hope so, though. Don't discount 6111 as a future push-pull, though! ;-)

This is the first time I've looked at pics of this layout - stunning use of the space available. Looking forward to seeing it develop!

Tis indeed.... One of the most scenic railway routes ever built in Ireland. The greenway people have done a great job. I would recommend it to anyone.

The new question should be: "What is the difference between a duck?" Anyone?