jhb171achill

Trouble is, they haven’t been financially self-supporting on almost all routes for decades and the government will only fund the transport element. I agree, though, badly missed.

I went up on the 10:50. It arrived in Dublin from the 08:00 up, with 216. It departed for Belfast five minutes late, due to an engine swop. They had taken 216 off and put 206 on. This set departed again on the 14:00. Just short of Drogheda it was held at the signal as the 13:00 up set was stuck in the platform - dunno what loco was on it, but it had failed there. 206 (+ 9002) arrived in Connolly 20 mins late as a result. In other news, there were two Malahide Trams at Fairview. One was out on test runs the other night. I saw it gliding silently past Malahide at 02:30 about 3 nights ago. I am told about six may have been delivered by now - are the others in Inchicore?

Saw 216 today, plus last night at about 02:15, saw one of the new 91 class SuperTrams gliding silently past Malahide!

0 gauge, with another "0" added, I believe, as in "00"!

In all seriousness, if this is the case, it will be one of the most important announcements from IRM so far. These workhorses had a long enough life, but a very varied work schedule. In their various liveries (eleven that I can think of) they were to be seen in one of the widest varieties of scene that any Irish diesel was. - Unchanged Victorian branch lines hauling 1880s and 1890s six-wheelers (Mountmellick, Banagher, Ballina, Loughrea, Foynes, Baltimore, Clonakilty, Courtmacsherry, Fenit, Castleisland, Kingscourt, possibly Athboy, etc etc.) - Main lines and longer branch and secondary lines, passenger and goods (including Cavan, West Cork, Valentia) - Crossley era, B233/234 variants, GM era - NIR ballast trains - Main line passenger - Main line goods - CIE ballast trains (I had a cab ride in one from Clonsilla to North Wall on a ballast train) - Pre-DART intensive Dublin suburban push-pull - Shunting - Multiple working with GM classes The 141s are often seen as the go-everywhere workhorses of CIE for some forty years or so. The C / B201 class (MV or 104 class to NIR heads) were if anything more widely travelled even than these. Thus, when this sinks in, it would be single most important thing for anyone to have on any layout based between 1957 and 1986. I would think these will SELL LIKE HOT CAKES!!!!!!!

This day I burned my finger whilst doing battle with a GSR carriage bogie.........!

A D and a C? Next - G & E???

Ooooh boy. If this is to be the case, put me down for a couple of silver, one each green and black, and a black'n'tan post re-engining......! I'll sell the car. Make that two green, one with stripe, one without. That black'n'tan one especially looks the business!!!!

Certainly sounds fishy....

I've had several, and I have eyed up their impressive range of BR railcars. In their favour - currently, but hopefully not always - the only supplier of ready to run models of a number of Irish prototypes ("C" class, B101 class, an approximation to an AEC railcar, and a number of CIE ? GNR UTA coaches). Against - for what you get, flimsy, and in livery terms an utter disaster in most cases - light years from accuracy. despite being advised too, by myself and several others, they just refuse to amend this deadly simple error. In other words, they don't listen to the customer - not a good idea for a small niche manufacturer. The price has been criticised as too high here and there, but to be fair, given that each model is hand-made, I don't think the costs are at all unreasonable in this day and age. So, overall, a mixed bag. For some models for which the only other option is scratch build yourself, yet that supply RTR, the only option, thus worth looking into. I have several of their tin vans, which are utterly essential for any 1960s layout. I got a silver one, a green one and a black'n'tan one. The green one as I expected was completely the wrong colour, so I repainted it, and it survived(!) Their AEC set is an adaptation of a British railcar. When they started doing this, to be fair the only thing that made it look Irish at all was the livery. However, again to their credit, they amended the look of the thing and what they do now is a great deal better. It is lacking in detail, though a bit of pockling about with it would solve that. You can get them in CIE black'n'tan, which looks very well. The green version of CIE is so bad that an entire repaint is necessary. It's no more accurate than if it was painted pink. The UTA and GNR livery versions are not right either, though seemingly improved from their earlier versions, i think. If you're not fussed about wrong liveries, and the fact that the model is not an accurate model, but more an approximation, then it's probably worth a punt as there isn't any alternative. On that basis alone, i had considered a two car set myself.

Exactly - one of the reasons for the great variation in this hobby. Personally, I like exactly prototypical models, believable track layouts, and prototypical operation - however, if there are no signals at all, despite the above, that doesn’t bother me. Once Dugort is finally finished scenically (my 702nd birthday) the signals will be ornamental! To other modellers, that’s a horror story….!

Is that a 3D print?

There are parts of the USA - coastal Oregon, perhaps (same climate as here!) or various areas of New England, where the scenery is similar to here. Perhaps a few locos of types you’d have seen in those areas to haul your American freight stock, or even a fictitious “short line” which has “hired in” the locos you already have, no matter what railroad they originated on? A reasonable addendum to Rule 1?

Amazing slow running....! Superb stuff.

100% on all that, yes. You could add the 70 class to the initial observation. (For a model of an MED, for sound, just turn up full volume any audio recording of white noise on an abrasive surface, tumbling down an aluminium staircase in an echo chamber........ (and that's when you're sitting inside it, whilst being asphixiyated by a mix of stale cigarette smoke and diesel fumes.....). At least in a 70 or 80 class power car, all you had to worry about was the cigarette smoke, being deafened by rattling window vibrations, and your eyeballs being shaken out of their sockets by same.... But, I hear "Hellfire! Thrash!" from our younger members; just be careful what you wish for, folks, and be thankful you never had a daily commute in one.... I digress; An AEC in some shape or form is as utterly essential for ANY layout- north or south - in the 1950-1970 period, and over a decade longer for unpowered push-pull AEC cars on CIE. The GNR and CIE had them in the early 1950s; the GNR cars ended up being split between the UTA & CIE, with the former lasting well into the NIR era. For our younger audiences, these things were used on main line trains and commuter trains, and even West Cork and the Waterford-Tramore lines. On three occasions at least, they even traversed the remote Roughty Valley to get to Kenmare for GAA specials! They ran through crowded Belfast and Dublin suburbs, and the fields of Sligo, Mayo, Galway, Kerry and Tyrone and Derry. A layout within the period 1953-1970 is as incomplete without AEC cars as a contemporary layout based in the west of Ireland is without an ICR, or contemporary Dublin Connolly without a DART. So, Mol, we look forward with customary drooling to your AEC project in development!

I think the old-school approach of having one vehicle powered with all the DCC and sound gubbins, and the other completely unpowered, bar perhaps a pick-up for lighting, would be the best or only option here.

If there was even a powered and unpowered AEC, as they occasionally only ran in 2-car sets, we could fill in a centre coach with many options.

Exactly. The lining style varied from design to design. yes, it's a mis-matching tender, which was actually common. As for the colour difference, there isn't one. One is faded and the other is fairly fresh. the GNR used a single shade of loco blue; but like supposedly varying shades of anything as apparently indicated by old colour slides with varying qualities of emulsion, and varying degrees of care in their conservation over the last sixty or seventy years, the tales we hear of such and such a colour having myriad varieties are largely incorrect. ACTUAL variations will be documented, such as the 1980s (very slight) change in CIE orange, or the two main shades of CIE green (one with the DOCUMENTED variations that Mol's research has touched upon). I saw one somewhere with "P W DEPT" on it.....

You don't want to get into THAT habit. That would be an ecumenical matter.

By the looks of it, nun of them did...... I had an abacus with me.

Bit of a stretch, yes, but it's a wonder what dropping it into a bucket of dark grey paint will do! Tender is very different, and a major plasticard job with the cab, and bob's yer uncle!

On GSR livery: wagons marked “G S” had largely disappeared by the early to mid-1950s, more due to replacement of large numbers of prehistoric ones than repainting! Carriages - by 1950 there were very few left in maroon, bar maybe the occasional old parcels van. One coach on the Cavan & Leitrim remained “maroon” (by then, a tatty and badly faded brownish-pink!) until 1958. I’ve seen a pic taken about 1950 of scruffy-maroon six-wheelers in Cork. Probably secondary stock.

From first to last known examples: Buses - 1945-67-ish The (very small minority of) steam engines which weren’t grey (or black) - 1946-62 Diesels - while many started off silver in the mid-50s, the B113 & D classes were always green - 1945-approx 1963/4. Carriages - 1945-late 60s. I’ve seen pics of stock still green in ‘67. Road freight - as buses. Station paintwork - inherited a dark green and cream scheme from the GSR, and while most stations were repainted (mostly in white, black and several shades of grey) from the early 60s, some retained it later. But green lives on at Dugort Harbour!

Update - text on Wexford now complete. Photo selection (200!) finalised and extended captions written and fact-checked. Proof-reading in progress. Maps & diagrams chosen, but captions to be done. Five photo captions to be extended in the light of new info. Permission obtained to publish 3 or 4 images which aren’t Barry’s. We meet to finalise everything the Friday after next, then arrange meeting with publisher. After that it’s up to him! Meanwhile after a lengthy break (life gets in the way) I’m back on the Kenmare project. Captions written for what photos I have so far, bar 3 or 4; text maybe 3/4 finished, though I want to re-do one of the chapters and include more info in another. Only one chapter not touched yet; another (about operations) needs a little tweaking, and I await clarification on several issues from the extremely few people left who coherently remember the line. Such are the machinations of putting these things together!