jhb171achill

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...........

Absolutely fantastic stuff, Ernie. As others have said, it is very greatly appreciated by all here and beyond.

Let's hope it's better researched than some of their railway-themed programmes in the past........ Look out for an authentic clip of a 141 class with ferts leaving Stranorlar in, oh, I'd say some time in the 1850s, as the colour in the film isn't great..... or a nice view of the Wexford Goods in the Barnesmore Gap, to the tune of "Are ye right there Michael are ye right"......... and learn how, as the last narrow gauge railway (with just three yards between the rails), it closed down on 31st December 1970..........

Anyone travelling on this next week?

This is true. Deserving as it would be, you’d find Irish enthusiasts inexplicably short of change….. When I was RPSI commercial officer in the late 70s / early 80s, I worked closely with galteemoreSenior. Upon questioning why, as a railway society, we tended to put more effort into selling teddy bears and plastic Thomas-the-Tank flags, I was told that Irish railway enthusiasts were - to put it mildly - very adept at keeping their wallets SHUT. In contrast when the May tour came about, on which the vast, vast majority came from Brexitstan, THEY couldn’t wait to empty their wallets towards a good cause. Manning the bookshop showed this up well. Six Irish enthusiasts would appear, read the new-issue books cover to cover, and when we tried to persuade them to either BUY, or get out of the way and let their English colleagues behind them get a look in, they would fish out a few washers and coins from a neat little wallet, mumble something about the price, or they be back later……and th’oul dog ate their homework. Cue Dave from Manchestah behind them. In two minutes he’s scooped up a pile of books, the then equivalent of a couple of hundred euros. He’d pay you, and stick a £20 note in the donations box. Down the train, raffle time. 1. British visitors: waving tenners in the air. Don’t care what the prize is - likely to donate it back anyway. 2. Irish No. 1: leafs through all the book prizes before announcing that he has the book or doesn’t really want it. Buy a ticket? “……eh, I don’t think I’ve any change…” 3. Irish No. 2 hears you coming and sticks his face to the window, watching a thorn hedge passing by with intense interest. Don’t believe me? Ask GalteemoreSenior, now raising on-train funds for almost sixty years……

Hand-me-downs from the GNR, courtesy of jhbSenior, who unofficially gave much assistance to the SLNCR, knowing they had no money. A consignment of ballast for the SLNCR arrived in Enniskillen one time from Goraghwood, following a bad embankment slip somewhere down the "country lane" - which was a description used by Enniskillen PW staff to describe the SLNCR. I understand that the financial department in Amiens St. was not put to any trouble regarding sales invoices for same to the SLNCR. The track above is ex-GN, from the same source. I doubt very much if Amiens St. were well-appraised of this arrangement either. Correct.

There's a story behind the railbus being here. These were not used on the Bundoran branch at this time, as might seem a possibility. Jhb171Senior used this yoke as his personal runabaout when conducting track and bridge inspections in the 1950s, when a spare loco and saloon 50 weren't available. In the case of the latter, he had a set of steps made for it so that when stopped in the middle of mowhere he was able to get up and down via the (open) end gangway..... Railbuses 1 & 2 were used by him for the same purpose. If this is June 1957, the reason this vehicle is parked here is due to a comprehensive survey he had to undertake to advise Amiens St of the likely quantities and quality of materials that would be recovered following closure of so much of the INWR.

Yes, I think three of them had - in the case of No. 4, on this side ONLY! The other side retained its UTA crest to the end. Quiz question: anyone know of any other locos (or coaches) running with the logo of one company on one side, and its predecessor on the other? I don't........ though in one of mine and Barry's books there's a diesel with a CIE logo on the end, and an IE "set-of-points" on the side!

Precisely. An excellent quality photo, showing very clearl;y how the dark grey livery (in which this example is still clad) got dirty and weathered. But look to the right; that's a very interesting wagon! An old two-plank with mismatching extra sides? I don't know! I think he gave a talk* to the IRRS some years ago on the nitty-gritty of this modernisation scheme, but I do not have his notes (that's if he made any!).... (.....or, in the curiously antediluvian archaic IRRS-speak, "gave a paper"!)

All in all, Ken - the loco and the (MUCH needed) horse boxes - this is absolutely stunning craftsmanship. Top class stuff. Hope the treatment is going well. Best wishes.

Looks a bit haphazard. I thought the new passenger emntrance on that side included complerte road access.... if so, that suggests the above is a bay platform facing Mallow? If it goes the whole way round, then the tracks will cut across the current new entrance, will they not?

All steam.......

No, no, no - it was when Adam was a boy! That's long before the GSWR............. they had silver spoons then, and the dining car bogies were made of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

STUNNING!!!!! The very very subtly faded look of the paintwork is just about as 100% photo-perfect as it's possible to get. The detailing is exquisite.....

I reckon that one's plausible at least, yes.... I'm just off now to meet Prince Hajjjid al-Bazrah bin-Allahhabaji now to get my inheritance he emailed me about. I'll be richer than Bezos, Musk and Suckerberg together, he told me. Nice man, and all it cost me was the price of my modest house and car!

No, genuinely- I wasn’t even aware of the “community map” until maybe 18 months ago!

OK, Mr Prince, I’ve emailed it off. Can you send me the $15,000,000? That would be an ecumenical matter.

Most interesting! Yet, a more utterly ridiculous “livery”, I’ve never seen on anything but modern British privatised locos which look like smartie tubes on wheels!

LOVE the dinosaur!

In looking up the location of a member on here, to whom I am thinking of selling something, I noticed that I was absent from the map of where all of our community live. So I clicked on my own profile to see where I lived; a portent, perhaps, of an early loss of my marbles, as I sit in a home gibbering at a bluebottle on the wall about the correct style of lining on Clogher Valley coaches, as the smell of custard and disinfectant wafts in from the hall..... and here's young Wyzckysnona with my new incontinence knickers......... to find that I live in MALI. In central Africa. Now, I have just worked out how to relocate myself to north County Dublin, but the thing is, I never remember going to Mali at all, nor do I remember how I got there or back. (Maybe IRM deported me for not buying Taras...) So, dear reader, if you live in Mali, and wonder how I disappeared from The Crescent Moon Institution for the Distracted and Bewildered, there's your answer.

That's a totally new one to me! Throughout history there have always been one-off livery variations, like a single grey locomotive in GSR times which had "G. S. R." in cream on its tank sides - one of the C&L tanks. Again, short-lived. I was asked many times about a book on liveries. A nice idea, but the number of one-offs and oddball short-lived things - such as the above - would make such a book simply impossible to be all-encompassing. Include one oddball one, like an NIR Hunslet in tartan for one afternoon, or a Muskerry tank in fluorescent day glow yellow for one hour, or a green CIE carriage with a WHITE flying snail (!) for one minute - and you'll have a clamour of complaint that you didn't include the DART which was painted in invisible paint for two days, or the bright blue Donegal 2.6.4T with white chimney! So, you stick to main "official" liveries instead. But then, the book is actually not complete........... If anyone else wants to undertake a publication like that, I'de be delighted to share a large amount of info I've collected over the years, but I wouldn'y have the time now at my state of vintage............!

Sadly not, Thomas! You’re thinking of the old 24XX series dining cars or the one on the 1970 “Enterpriae”. Long gone, along with ALL train catering, even trollies, on all services bar the Dublin - Belfast line. On this, there’s a trolley in standard class and table service in 1st, with a limited but adequate microwave menu.

Yes, Ballybrophy-Limerick was always the "Nenagh Branch" even when it was operated, to all intents and purposes, as a main line. This dates from its origins - it was originally to be just a branch of the GSWR from Ballybrophy to Nenagh. Then the Waterford & Limerick set forth from Limerick to Birdhill and Killaloe - its own branch. Then the two were joined at Birdhill and it was Killaloe that became a backwater branch. We could veer also into nicknames, though this theme has been done to death on posts here before - the "Dirty, Slow & Easy" (DSER), "Slow, Late & Never Comfortable" (SLNC) and so on. Some years ago a book about the Lough Swilly referred to a name of "That Old Sinner" for that line. It is not a term I ever heard of in railway circles - maybe some cold-faced damnation-loving pulpit-screamer somewhere up in Dunfanaghy called it that for daring to propose trains on the "Sobboth"!

Lost in the mists, Roger, but I’ll try to dig it up! Dark green was, in any event, a common manufacturers colour for industrials. Some fifty years ago, during a refurb at Whitehead, traces of green were found under the blue of the Guinness engine…..