jhb171achill

Back in the dim, cobweb-strewn, Guinness-soaked recesses of what passes as a functioning organ between my ears, the GNR lies in twlight zone. Late flurries of excitement with brown carriages whisked by huge 4.4.0s between Dublin and points north; gleaming navy and cream railcars, with view out front from first class, sunny days in Howth, and old stations in places where sentences end with "hi" being slowly demolished, as new UTA buses await long suffering trade outside. Probably the earliest journey I remember involved boarding the "Enterprise" at Great Victoria Street en route to Conno...AMIENS Street. I sat back in the plushly upholstered seat, admiring the armrests, and sensing that if I wanted to I could fall asleep there. I must declare an interest here: due to the occupation of jhb171 Senior, we travelled first class everywhere. Senior, when divested of us children, generally travelled on the footplate when on business, and first class when not. But here we were. I thought the carriage was very dark inside, and I asked when we could switch on the lights. I was told we would not need to - this was bizarre. In the house, if it's dark, you switch on the lights. But not in a train? As those in the west about to lose their railways might have put it, "that's bad oul craic, hi"! (As quoted from a friend of mine who is from the City of LondonCulchie). Senior disappeared for a moment, having seated myself ans Sister-The-Eldest in our compartment. There were bits of paper above our heads. Who was I to know that all this grown-up writing said "G N R Reserved Seat". Before too much consternation set in, he reappeared with a chocolate bar and a comic. Both were split between us. And so began my affiliation with eating good things on trains. Now, it's sweaty indigestible scones, then it was proper, pure, purple-wrapped Chocolate. On RPSI trains, the world's only superior experience is possible: Guinness. And as we left Great Victoria Street, it suddenly became light. We had moved out from the gloom of a soot-encrusted overall roof. All was light, airy and sunny, as coal smoke drifted through the window. Up front was a "Vs", but I didn't know that. All I knew was that the train smelled like the coal stove in our kitchen. Portadown. I remember it - the old station. Huge, busy, trains coming and going from weird and distant exotic places like Dungannon or Omagh. Were there rabbits in Warrenpoint? How can a Warren be Pointy? The inventive imagination of a child is the same one that fuels most of our interest in model railways. I remember looking down from Bessbrook viaduct and being shown a path below. This is still in situ, but so overgrown it cannot be readily seen from atop the viaduct. It is, and was, the route of the Bessbrook tramway. I must have slept. But at least I can say that I remember the Enterprise in the days of blue and brown and steam. Not all in Amiens Street was thus. A day out in Howth - sunny again, wasn't it always? Apart from playing on my great-aunt's lawn, I could see out of the front of one of these navy and cream things. The next time I would travel on one, I would be impressed by brand new black and tan paintwork. The driver seemed to move a little handle. This was not the same as what Senior did: he propelled the family car with his feet, not his hands. Interesting, that. Howth came into view and seagulls arrived to welcome us. Maybe they wanted a last look at an AEC before it became part of the CIE family. We were the only people in the first class part. I think the rest of the train was bunged, as it was a perfect day for the seaside. Maybe I slept again as I don't remember the journey back. It was not always to be. The Indian Summer of the GNR had run its course. Not long afterwards, I stood on the platform of Hillsborough Station in Co Down; the black and white image of me frozen in time in a frame on a window ledge above where I am typing this. I am in a winter coat, well wrapped up for the chill of winter, the chill of 1960's political and economic thinking: railways are old, outdated and redundant. The track has been lifted, but the station still has the standard GNR "STATION MASTER" cast iron sign on the door behind me. I have a vague and dim memory of my mother holding me up at the same spot a short time earlier, to tell me that Senior is aboard a black smoky train slowly drawing through. It was the lifting train. The chill stalked the sixties, as one by one, weed grown closed stations lost their track and rumours abounded of more closures. The words on the lips of enthusiasts at gatherings were not so much "Have ye seen the latest ICR at the Hatch?", as "I hear that Ballygobackwards is next for closure". A visit to Dungannon and Strabane about 1966 confirmed this. I have memories of seeing this twilight, surreal image of both places with signal equipment lying on the ground, well-maintained station buildings, platform canopies and (at Dungannon) even a full signal, signal cabins, goods stores, vehicles on goods platforms and footbridges, all awaiting the next train - only there were no people and no track. The busy GNR, of blue, brown and steam, had been shot by poachers and was slowly dying on its feet. Recently, at Whitehead, one of the RPSI's youngest volunteers obtained a highly prized award for his exemplary work on the restoration of the GN's No. 85. The past is the past: The King is Dead. Long live the King! The GNR's spirit survives and flourishes.

It's only taking a break for coaling and watering, Glenderg...

GSWR architecture is probably the most attractive in Ireland, with GNR "Mills" style and GNR (ex-INWR Gothic) close contenders. Ever seen Cootehill, Newtownbutler, Tynan or Glaslough stations? Still there to be admired (but on PRIVATE land).

Whenever I get off my back lying in the sun, Heirflick! Tis a warm oul wan today. Again. Great stuff! Cold Coronas at the ready at jhb171-land....

And a postscript: the reasons they let A and C class locos idle all day or night is that once shut down they could be troublesome starting, and apparently it was believed that they used less fuel idling. And, while G haulage has become a reality at Downpatrick in recent years, C class haulage hasn't. But, all good things come to those who wait. Just saying.

A few days to go, and this place will have no more trains. Up the line, Dunsandle will be quiet; no more will goods trains traverse Barnagh Bank or the Burma Road. Even the little town of Ardee, home of the legendary "wild man" (and in those days as drab and depressed an Irish town as you could get) will no longer have its goods train, daily, or was it twice yearly if required? So here we are. I've come all this way - all the way from Dublin with my green return Almex ticket - to travel behind a G. And what do I get? A C class. An oul ordinary C, same boring oul thing I can get out to Bray any day. Another oul Metrovick. Who'd be bothered with that. Well, glass half full: they have crisps in the local bar; how's that? Gourmet food with an underage pint And new track to cover. So maybe it isn't as bad a day as I thought. But a "C". Ah well. At least it's sunny and the pictures will come out well, though it's over £3 to get them developed. And a return from Connolly to Loughrea has cost me a fiver. It's not cheap being a railway enthusiast. So. I had alighted in great anticipation at Attymon earlier and descended into deep disappointment in seeing our black and tan Metrovick friend, a re-engined one, B209 or 206 or something. Got the photos, I could look it up. It transpired the regular G was away shunting Tuam Beet Factory; the beet season had started. It was to be thirty years or so before I travelled behind a G - at Downpatrick! It was a crisp dry sunny day, but with a definite hint of oncoming winter in the cold East Galway autumn air. It's always windy about those parts, isn't it? I had been about the town, and now I sat on the station seat, pondering why they let a locomotive sit and idle for four hours or so in between taking the mixed into Loughrea and out of the place again. And there was another disappointment, an even bigger one. The train was officially mixed, but that day there happen ed to be no goods traffic in or out, thus the train consisted of the solitary passenger coach only. Ah well, times two. I wandered into an office where there were several CIE staff including the driver. "Any chance of a footplate run back?" I asked. One of them looked at the others and asked me, "Are ye English?" Now, I know that the English are known as hardcore gricers the world over, and fair play till them all, they are quite right. But anyone who knows me personally and thinks I sound English is as likely to assume that Queen Elizabeth 2nd is a born and bred Alabama or Inner City Limerick native. "Eh, no", I responded, before summarising my past. For some reason, I sensed they didn't believe me. "Do ye ever see dem Deltic locos in England?", sez on of them, explaining how impressed he was when he saw them in, eh, England. "I'm actually from here", sez I; this time thinking they now believed me. And so I wandered back to the platform, took another picture of the train from the track. I realise now I risked life and limb that day, and was lucky to escape with my life, because I stepped from platform onto track without a day glo jacket, PTS, or steel capped boots, hard hat and three-year-acquired personal safety case, specially crafted and authorised by the Grand Wizard of the Health and Safety Department, Brussels. But, survive I did. I know this because I remember what happened after my brush with death and a decent colour film exposure estimate on the track. What happened next was that the train was about to go. The driver stepped up into the cab, so I thought, give it another go. "Just asking," I began. It was no use; the drived didn't want anyone up there that day. Back to the coach, with its mock-leather plastic upholstered bus seats, same as Dublin buses at the time. The train pulled out, with me the only passenger and no goods on the back, and the coach and loco crashed and lurched its way along old and almost derelict track up towards Attymon. As the late autumn evening sun lay low and cast dazzling glare over a river the line crossed; an image with me forever; I noticed that on the empty seat opposite me, someone had written in black biro, "FAREWELL TO THE DUNSANDLE EXPRESS".

My late mother recalled seeing someone relieved of a pair of shoes they had put on their feet (to avoid customs) while travelling on the Bundoran branch! Their old ones were in their shopping bag....

I can't seem to ever be able to open that new flickr format.....

None, really! Irish railways had much less need for shunters, and very often both in steam and diesel times, elderly main line or mixed traffic locos were assigned to shunting, or the train engine just did it. But the five members of CIE's "D" class were very close to a BR class 08. Just paint it black, and you're almost there. These things operated entirely in the Dublin area, mostly in Heuston goods yard and on North Wall goods transfers, from their construction as Ireland's first diesel shunters to their withdrawal in the 60s. So a layout with them would have to be set in the 50s or early 60s.

There's a Ruston sitting about in someone's front garden somewhere down the country, but for the life of me I can't remember where! Not the one at Upton... another one somewhere....

That was a rumour, Minister. The UTA simply bought them from Beyer P.

That was the idea, 201 - add a bit of humour! I saw an exhibition layout somewhere once, where a police car had pulled up outside the station goods yard on the layout, blue lights on it flashing and all. The policeman was gesturing in an animated fashion at a man who was modelled shrugging his shoulders beside his car, which was parked in front of the goods yard gate and a prominent "no parking" sign! Looked the part.

That's true, Lough Erne. There were also two ex-Ulsterbus engines purchased at the time, with installation in mind. Apparently they were broadly similar to engines that the railcar carried in one of its several re-enginings. They may well still be about Whitehead. Downpatrick also had a MPD driving trailer at one stage, which was destroyed by vandals in the Boxing Day fire about 10 years ago. Doesn't look like MPDs were destined to be preserved, any more that MEDs or 450s!

Imagine Newcastle BCDR, where "the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea!" That would make an amazing layout.... GN and BCDR stock together....

I always had this notion of a layout based somewhere in the north with an obviously loyalist housing area on one side of the tracks, and a republican one on the other - all with suitable "cultural" emblems and graffiti, and some of Gareth's land rovers blocking the road between! And maroon Hunslets, AEC cars, 70s, and a 141 on a black'n'tan Enterprise sweep past, oblivious......

Been following these posts nice the first, and never cease to be amazed at how good they are. One thing's for certain; you've plenty of practice by now! Keep 'em coming.... !!

Staff did do this sort of thing back then, broithe.... I remember a guard on the Enterprise asking, at the height of the "Troubles" at Dundalk, "who owns this bag?"... Nobody owned up. Normally, cue a bomb scare as the train was evacuated and bomb disposal arrived. In this case, the guard shrugged, picked it up (while we passengers prayed to the Almighty) and carried it off to his BR van. Even the Enterprise itself at that stage comprised laminates and Park Royals, because CIE didn't want good Mk 2s blown up at the border!

I don't think it does nowadays.... Wasn't it destroyed by fire some years ago? No MPD stuff has survived, but what used to be a 70 class intermediate is Downpatrick's no. 728, currently in late stages of being restored to full passenger use after years as a mobile waiting room...

The "liners" into Larne were really a few NIR containers carrying mail, tagged onto the back of railcars...

Another one of these past sunny days; they always seem to have been forever, or at least hotter than today, but in reality were rarely as good as the last two weeks here now! I walked along St John's Road, then a road rather than the cross that it is today between a dual carriageway, motorway, and (during rush hour) a car park. The "Guinness" gates were open, and lorries busily ferried the black stuff into the yard, while a gantry crane load it onto the four wheeled "Lancashire flats" for onward transmission to the thirsty of Belfast, Cork, Galway, Ballina, Limerick, Tralee, and many other places. A short time earlier I had watched same being unload at Kilkenny and Clonmel.. I had no hard hat, steel capped boots, or day glo vest; the latter was decades away from being invented. Railway staff wore - you'd better sit down for this one - ordinary clothes or railway uniforms. Really. As true as I do sit here, m'lud. Nobody challenged me, I just wandered about, camera in hand. Here's what I saw that day. One of those brand new giant B class yokes - 071s, they are called. Up he came out of platform 2 with the down Cork, packed Mk 2's, or as we just called them at the time, AC stock. Roaring past, in La Grange's brown version of CIE's orange, clean as a whistle. It was 071 itself, with about 9 behind it. Another passenger train arrived with an "A" up front. It comprised a couple each of Cravens and laminates, and about 4 Park Royals, with a Dutch van at one end. Over in what was then platform 3, another "class leader", 121, paired another of its class on what I believe was a down Limerick train. In any event, both 121s were straight our of the paint shop, and they looked well with their own set of Mk 2s, all in "supertrain" livery. In came an up Waterford, another brown and black 071 (none had yet received "proper" orange), and lets have a look now, what's pottering about the yard? Three "E"s, one in the Guinness sidings, another lifting arrivals out of the platform roads to allow the train engine to charge back up to Inchicore, and another over in the goods yard. How do I know that? Because, camera in hand, I slipped across the main running lines in between trains, in my soft shoes and denim jacket, and off I went over to the goods yard to see. Wagons abounded outside the goods office, now the IRRS HQ. The whole area from outside it, road included, and all the car park and new platforms was all sidings. Mostly there were "H" vans, with a good few corrugated opens in between. The vans we about 40% grey, the rest brown. One or two of the grey ones still had "snails", and many had destinations chalked on their doors. To complete the picture, one derelict "tin van" and a couple of good operational ones sat in the vicinity, and at the end of one siding, a corrugated open rested at a drunken angle off the track, where it had overrun a weed grown buffer stop... Back to the station to buy a packet of crisps and a tin of coca cola (about 30p for both) and a navy and cream half cab double decker back into town. I would maybe take a jaunt out to Howth on a push pull the next day, and get some "C" action....

They were indeed, Mayner. Five or six old AEC railcars or laminates / Park Royals packed solid with commuting humanity would have been a heavy enough task, even without the constant stopping and starting. In later years, a 121 on the Mk 3 push pulls also made a good bit of noise.

I remember notch 8 in a "C" hauled local... Good stuff! As readers will be aware, an "in principle" agreement has been made between ITG and DCDR... Watch this space!

It was originally LMS maroon all over, the only markings being a "1" on each end, and lettering "L M S N C C". Later it gained cream upper panels, the cream dropping to a V shape on the ends. It did not have lining. The UTA painted it in their standard Brunswick green, initially with lighter green in the same position as the NCC cream. The early UTA crest (the "red hand" rounded) was in the middle body side, and near each end on the sides was a "1" surrounded by a mall circle, the original standard type of UTA numeral style. Later, it received standard 1960's UTA livery - the same green all over, no lighter upper panels, but with the "wasp" ends with diagonal black stripes on the yellow panel which the company used as standard in the 60's. Hope this helps!

There were tank containers all right - but I never recall seeing any with Bell markings on them. Having said that, I don't remember what else they might have had. Overall, "normal" containers comprised most goods traffic, just as "H" vans had a few years earlier.

Stunning! Must dig out me own stuff....