jhb171achill

Correct! Remember that well...!

I think that’s the best way, Mike. But easier for me since I remember the last days of steam, so disgracefully filthy locos were “normal”!

Thing is, the fantastically scenic end of Dugort Harbour was done by Kevan McIntosh, so I can claim zero credit for it ….. so it’s starting new skills for me that’s needed now! Thanks for the replies above, folks.

It’s the big cattle fair tomorrow, so 162 brings in the goods, then departs with a Woolwich as well, which is on its way to Castletown - superpower on the branch, but there are 43 wagons of beasts estimated in the morning. The drovers start loading at 04:45. Market Day a few years later, and an early morning scene before anyone turns up, at (what will become) Castletown West. There’s a third coach on today, and it’s one of those brand new Cravens….

I need to get from this …..to this:

Any idea where I’d get one…. or which make?

Question for the learned: I'm getting to the stage of putting grass and bushes etc on my layout. I see that grass applicators are some €80-ish or more, and then i'd need one of those mini-hoover-like things to scoop up stray fibres. Does anyone have one I can borrow, or buy 2nd-hand; or if I bought one is there anyone out there who might then buy it 2nd-hand from me? I am reluctant to buy a thing like this which will only really be used once!

The van is a "P" van, used for newspaper traffic mostly, but also any sort of general parcels traffic by rail, and mailbags on occasion. The CIE van next to it looks like an ex-GNR one; for modellers, it isn't brown - nothiong with a flyiong snail ever was - it's grey covered with a lot of brake dust! Bear in mind that as now, but more so in the past, "weathering" tended to be a brownish rather than greyish colour, due to oxidisation of brake dust from brake shoes. Can't make out what type of coach it is - no doubt ex-GNR - but as a very outside chance possibly NCC; but it's in UTA green, of course. I wonder if this could be when the loco was heading north following its sale to the UTA?

I wonder will it show a South African 12AR threading its way through the Finntown area, or a West Cork 4.6.0T?

“Just as well Johnny Mac isn’t on this morning, this thing would wreck his back…” “Ye hear he’s being moved to the buses in Tralee next month?” . ”…..well, it says so in the paper here. Abandonment order, it says. Listowel, Newcastle West, the lot. At least we’re safe here coz’ the buses and lorries can’t get past Sheehan’s Bridge without reversing….”

“……..yes, I knew your father well, when he was station master in Knocklong… give him my regards, tell him I’m sorry I missed him…” . ”I can’t get the boot opened…” ”You’d have been better bringing your uncle’s Fordson and that turf trailer he has….” . 162 prepares to leave with the midday mixed in July 1960, and A55 leaves Castletown with the morning down passenger in April 1964.

This clarifies the details of the Galway main line; often thought by many to have been FULLY double at one stage, but it wasn't quite........

Someone told me at some stage that the presenter, the excellent Anne Cassin, had relatives on the railway herself........... yes, she seems to have travelled on a 29. Mad things to put on the Enterprise - why not an ICR? RTE included a shot of Inchicore Works, footgae of T & D cattle trains at Castlegregory junction, and interior shots of a driver in a West Clare "F" class diesel. Typical lazy research. Airfixfan, of this parish, was of course featured, along with several of our good colleagues from the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre and RPSI Whitehead. Why, oh why, oh why, though, have they a black dome on "Drumboe"! Fix it, lads, fix it before I run outta smelling salts..........!

As a happy owner of a Midland 2.4.0 I highly recommend it!

Well worth awaiting!

Wouldn’t have thought so - the GSR stripped all of its maintenance equipment bar the odd screwdriver!

Even Ennis, narrow gauge, until Feb 61!

If you mean sheds, lots, though in many cases roofless but still used. If you mean loco works for heavy repairs etc, York Road (NCC) for one. Limerick was also still doing some heavy work. Cork, Dundalk and Waterford were still doing minor repairs. If you mean steam, the above applies until late 1962 or thereabouts. If you mean diesel, later in the decade, pretty much only Inchicore & York Road.

At one time - but had also been double at some stage earlier, I believe. Correct!

Exactly the same as other green steam engines - if you look at modern photos of "Maedb" (800) in the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in Co Down, you'll get the actual paint - better still, go to see it. The green - with black and white lining, eau-de-nil "snails" on the tender and numerals on cabsides, is the same green applied to coaches prior to the "light green" period of 1955-62; and also allpied to buses 1945-63. Prior to 1945 thyey were plain grey all over, with cast number plates (grey too!). They would never have been black.

Looking fantastic! Most interesting track layout...... perfect for 009.

"......an' de Achill branch was a narra gauge line built to take emigrants to Scotland, and shure the Connemara express ran along it...somewhere.....an' the last train carried all the dead of Mayo after the famine......."

Perfect back story; straight out of a mid-60s IRRS Journal!

Superb - the music too! One of your compositions?

Love the "troubles" stuff! At the 25th anniversary of the GFA, a timely reminded of how far we've moved away from all that...........