jhb171achill

Indeed, Garfield; not bad for a gentleman of a rural disposition! ;-) The D & B brought cattle trucks down from de hills late in the evening. The D & B locomotive would leave the wagons on a siding outside their terminus in Terenure, where at night a DUTC steeple-cab electric loco (they had two) would collect them and bring them over the DUTC system to the docks, or to Smithfield. Sand traffic traversed the streets at night in wagons. The D & B had a sand pit up in the hills from which sand was taken into Dublin. This traffic was prevalent about a century ago, but had dwindled to a trickle before the line shut in the early 1930s. The D & B terminus yard at Terenure was "under the wires" to enable the DUTC electric locos to bumble about within the environs... but they could not venture any further. The D & B had covered vans, cattle trucks, and opens. The open wagons couls also be fitted with temporary wooden lath sides to convert them for cattle traffic as well. The main source of such traffic was Blessington Fair.

No.... a clue: it was in a built up area!

Top class work as always! Great to see it step by step.

As a result of someone asking me "what is grey", I would clarify a point. The grey most commonly seen in colour photos is the light grey used by CIE from the late 1960s until the brown became all-encompassing. NIR used an even lighter grey (as on Downpatrick's NCC Goods Brake Van) on PW vehicles only (as NIR never ran goods trains of their own) for a very short time in the 1970s. But - and this one's important for modellers - the correct shade of grey to use in all other applications is much darker. The GSR, and later CIE, a well as the NCC and UTA, used a colour identical or as good as, to LMS wagon grey in England - this shade is readily available from model suppliers in that neck of the woods. The BCDR used an even darker shade which can be seen on a rescued BCDR van body at Downpatrick. It would best be described as dark slate grey. I recall seeing a wagon in the 1960s like this, still marked "B C D R" and noticing how much darker it was. The GNR used a similar shade to CIE / GSR / CIE. The SLNCR used a somewhat lighter shade of grey. The lighter grey used by CIE on covered vans was not often replicated on opens, as the Bullied steel ones were very much to the fore from the late 1960s. Few wooden bodied opens obtained light grey, and fewer still brown, though there some examples. Narrow gauge stuff was a mixed bag, as they so rarely saw a paint brush! The CDRJC had a lighter shade latterly at any rate, though in the 1920s some stock was painted black. The Cavan & Leitrim had just a small number of PW open wagons, which a century ahead of the modern Health & Safety Regime, were all yellow! The GSWR used a dark grey which was almost black for much of its goods stock. When hauled (post 1915) by a plain slate-grey locomotive, this can't have looked very colourful!

I remember them well..... I recall travelling in one somewhere near Swinford in Co Mayo. On a narrow stone-walled road (as usual back then, mid 70s) it clipped wing mirrors with a van coming the other way, despite both trying to get as far into the ditch as they could. I sat in the second seat from the front. In front of me, the two front seats either side of the aisle had boxes of day-old chicks on one, and bundles of newspapers for shops on the other! The heady days of "bus parcels traffic"....

Wonder if her pyjama bottoms were among the items.....

As an aside, I often wonder what would have happened had that line remained, and not become subsumed into CIE... David Holman has referred to this; the idea of making up a history for a layout. I often think that the rationales that people have behind the existence of a layout are in themselves fascinating... I would imagine a modern day SLNCR would have used (Lough Swilly style) cast-offs from NIR & IR until maybe the mid 90s, when they would have taken advantage of the money awash then, and bought a couple of 2 car 2600s...... Timber from Manorhamilton, anyone?

What Irish tramway operated goods trains at night?

Bessbrook & Newry Tramway. Not only were they able to run on the road, one pair of wheels would articulate when on road, like a road trailer. These were fixed rigidly when on raila.

Yes, Crew on C & VBT.

Looking very promising!

The Ballymena & Larne (as opposed to Ballymoney - that was where the Ballycastle Rly started) had two of these IOM-esque locos. One was sold eventually to the Castlederg & Victoria Bridge Tramway in Co Tyrone, and eked out its last days there, still in faded NCC maroon but with a Castlederg coat of arms on it! It had tramway "skirts" fitted on one side, but these impeded lubrication of the motion and were usually not attached, leading to the somewhat ugly sight of the loco with the framework for them only, appearing on most trains it pulled.

People must have been built differently in those days............

They would indeed have been.... just as now, some 66 years later!

The unusual is always interesting! Me too...

Superb stuff! More N gauge needed!

Are those N gauge 071s? Hand made, presumably? They look very well... are there close-ups?

Very good work indeed!

Is it narrow or broad gauge? :-)

112 is doing a victory lap around Croker, with Bernard having been issued a footplate pass; it will head a special to Ballyboden and Castleknock via Westport, consisting of 112 and the three blue RPSI coaches! There will be blue beer in the bar on board..... I just love these mushrooms I'm snacking on.

Indeed, josefstadt... but modelling a narrow gauge snail in 4mm would be beyond most modellers! Especially a working one..... :-)

IRRS archives will have GNR timetables starting with first "Enterprise" in 1947, if you are in or about Dublin, or a member.

I started with Hornby stuff, and with no Mark's Models in the 70's, I pasted paper black'n'tan sides over Hornby Mk 1s, hauled by BR class 31 and 35's! That went to the wall when I discovered the things that 17 year olds do, including working with 12 inches to the foot models... which self-weathered themselves after every outing! A dabble in 009 and a Spanish-based garden railway followed. I am now "between layouts" but hoping at some stage to resurrect my collection of Austrian narrow gauge, something which has always interested me, but never had anything black and tan, or that carried a "flying snail"!

But then I was given Rails Through The West for my birthday earlier this year and my ideas went out the window. I love that! My favourite period too, and that book has a follow up in preparation.... ;-)

Well done - your skills show already. A fulfilling future in modelling beckons!