jhb171achill

A42 trundles through Castletown West tonight (well, tonight in 1959) with empty wagons from the harbour, as the branch local with No. 472 sits at the up platform, having arrived twenty five minutes earlier. When A42 has passed through, 472 will run round and return to Dugort Harbour after the evening Tralee train has arrived.

The lack of birth control 80 years ago was the problem!

I count myself very lucky that my very earliest railway memories just about date back to the tail end of that “traditional” era - bells and clanking levers in signal cabins, the last few steam engines, old wooden carriages with compartments, etc etc… shunting of loose-coupled goods vans in rural stations, old fashioned ticket offices and creosote smell off newly replaced sleepers in warm summer days…. And NO graffiti ANYWHERE.

Very sad news. May he rest in peace. I've H vans, 9 & 10 ton wooden-bodied (GNR) vans, twenty cattle wagons, brake vans and guard's vans!

Must say I’d quite like to hear that!

It was my first attempt at brass kits - it doesn't bear close inspection, though, and the paint job could be a great deal tidier (painting is not my strong point) - but it does look appropriately weathered!

C231 shunts at Dugort Harbour in 1959, C201 seen passing in 1964, and the civil engineer arrives for an inspection visit in 1973….

Indeed; but Cultra does have a venerable tradition of livery errors; witness the "G S" on a CIE-liveried "Maedb", for example! Is this the Dart Plus Dundalk - Port Laoise service?

Sounds EXACTLY like I remember it! I saw them throughout their lives, from an early trial run and their first week in service, to being in the very last service train hauled by one (an ailing 101)… about 1993. It was last-minute deputising for a failed railcar that evening.

Keep well, Ernie! Your continuing input here is very greatly appreciated by all.

THAT'S the picture I had seen somewhere!

I saw a picture online, and it wasn't that long ago - of a newly-built loco for some American railway (or POSSIBLY South American) in a yellow and grey colour scheme about 1960-ish. More grey than yllow, ad arranged differently. If I come across it again I'll post it.

It is possible. However, another possibility is that GM had produced other locos for American lines about the same time as the 121ss were being built, so it is possible that some influence came from those quarters; if so, whether it was suggested by La Grange or Illinois will never be known. Looking at those two IRRS pics of Paddy Flanagan's, I was unaware any of the £P£ class buses got the yellow and grey livery. And lo and behold - while the U class depicted in the posters has a grey "snail" (of course), that on the "P" appears to be a standard eau-de-nil one across the radiator cover! But - it absolutely does my head in to see yellow "snails" on model steam engine tenders - it's like putting a bright red "double arrow" on a BR diesel on 1970s rail blue!

No need to worry there - apart from grey 121s on delivery, not a single thing on rails ever had a yellow flying snail!

Looking forward to seeing you, Mol!

You can maybe 3D print its furry dice….

No skirt on that one…. I never remember seeing one on a powered one, as in railcar, but I have seen pics of it, I think. I rarely travelled in them as railcars, but I do remember one time when an AEC set took me from Amiens St to Portadown, whereupon I transferred to another in UTA livery to take me to Lisburn! This was not a normal working and it wasn’t because of a DD failure, or bombs - it was about 1966/7. I’d live to know what was going on that day. The CIE one did EVERY stop, including Castlebellingham and Dunleer. As an aside, a few years earlier than that I saw a CIE AEC set heading south out of Belfast…. again, a one-off; Senior was with me and said he’d never seen a CIE set north of Dundalk….

Are you fitting it with sound and DCC?

I still have some degree of hope to see this done in my lifetime.

Amazing to think that in 1955 and even 1960 there were still quite a few steam-operated, mixed train branch services... Kenmare, Foynes, Valentia, Loughrea, Ballinrobe, Ballaghaderreen.....

DNGR stock was built to irish dimensions. Regarding NCC stock, vehicles brought in from Britain in the 1940s were obviously to the British loading gauge, so they were agood 9 inches narrower and also lower in height, though not as low as pre-1910 stock. NCC stock "proper" was built in Belfast or in Britain - to irish dimensions. I remember in UTA days, often seeing loco-hauled trains which were a mix of ex-GNR and ex-NCC stock of both types - and you could spot the British wartime ones a mile off due to being narrowr and slightly lower (maybe about 4 - 5 inches lower?) As for Genesis, I believe that GSR and DNGR liveries, at least, MAY be under consideration.

Yes to both! ...... that pic looks distinctly Loughrea-ish.... "DB" - given the south-easterly location, is this the Dublin & Bunclody Railway?

Those were like hen's teeth! Dunno how many they made but I think they sold quickly..... For your own purposes, if you wanted one to go with passenger-carrying six wheelers, and accuracy with it, then it would have to be green.

Yes, exactly. The Hattons stock is the right height and length for Irish six-wheel stock - exactly. But with british railways having a noticeably narrower loading gauge (width) than Irish stock, THIS is indeed exactly where a difference shows. My solution is that I use my SSM six-wheelers, made up from brass kits by Eoin of this parish, mixed and mingled with a green Park Royal I have, and the Hattons ones with a repainted British clerestorey bogie I have - it also being narrower as it was an LMS model. The compromise is the black and tan full passenger brake. When the very last of the six-wheelers were withdrawn, the green livery was still in vogue, and therefo9re no passenger-carrying six-wheeler ever saw black'n'tan. After they were all withdrawn and scrapped, or converted to breakdown vans in some cases (and painted grey), something like 6 or 7 FULL BRAKE six-wheelers remained. While at least two of these were withdrawn only a year or two later, and thus remained green to the end, a very small number survived to be BnT. Thus, once repainted this way, they ONLY ran with passenger-carrying BOGIE stock; which in turn means that they'd look odd behind a Craven. But, needs must and I am delighted to have one.

Correct. And early bogie coaches, a few of which made it into the 1950s and early diesel era, while longer, were also as low-roofed. Beside anything built after 1915 they looked lower still in comparison. This included a tin vans, which were full modern coach height - check out pics of a six-wheeled train with a tin van….