jhb171achill

Looking this up now!

I presume that’s a wartime livery…. Its near enough the right colour for GSR / CIE, though if you wanted to go that route all you need is a number on the cabside instead of the tender, and a grey smokebox. Certainly does look “Irish-ish”….. Presumably you removed the smoke deflectors that the British versions had?

Looks a bit young for Drew in the 1970s? Could be an old photo? It does look very like him when younger, perhaps.

Great stuff, Noel, as always!

Is that a British version of a "Woolwich" I see there?

But you were right initially in that it WAS on the "County Donegal Railways" system - albeit a section owned by the NCC........

Brilliant trip and brilliant weather - was on it.

"Erin", No. 299 (later), by the look of it.

It's also riddled with vicious curves, as is the Strabane - Letterkenny line.

True. If any Shapeways stuff IS actually good quality and worth the (quite high) prices, that fact will sadly be lost amongst a litany of awful reviews of their other stuff. As a result, despite there being a number of things I'd like to get off their website, without knowing specifics about individual prints of things, unfortunately I wouldn't touch them.

That's more like it.

I've been privately shown pics of some of these prints from this manufacturer - as far as 00 scale is concerned anyway, they are VERY rough indeed. I was tempted by the computer-generated images of the MGWR stuff - I'd have bought quite a few if it was good, but it's the opposite, unfortunately.

The likelihood of any new link to Letterkenny-hey being built on either the old Lough Swilly route (via the boonies) or the CDR route (via Tripoli and Cork, as shown) is nil. Absolutely nil. The only way to do it is a new route, like suggested above via Newbuildings, new bridge across to carrigans, and via your green line. Dunno if that passes anywhere with more then seven inhabitants, but none of the others serve anywhere of much size either; thus Letterkenny itself, as a single destination, would have to be deemed to be viable in itself. I wonder if the proposers of such schemes have surveyed the number of bus passengers between the two points? That will give the best possible guess with regard to viability. As far as the Derry Road is concerned, massive disruption, diversions or both would be necessary now to get it out of Portadown, let alone through Dungannon and Omagh. Experience in other countries of reopenings after decades closed often produce results like this. Expect some new stations to be nowhere near the originals!

I agree

Good point - I had forgotten that….

Is there any benefit in using a commercial delivery service (something I’m normally dead set against) instead of the clearly confused and inconsistent An Pist / Royal Fail?

One of the better preserved stations of the Irish narrow gauge. Note the similarities with Clogher valley and Cavan & Leitrim architecture.

An excellent topic for a model! Nice original find in the field....... wonder if it's still there.

I'm not sure what went wrong with them, but my recollections of them were that at any one time you'd be lucky to see one in use! Once NIR got 111 & 112 (113 came later), and there were spare 101s (themselves not the most reliable, especially 103), the "DH" class shunters saw little use and were gradually set aside.

It's got doors?

Something else to keep goldfish in!!

Is there enough damp in it yet to keep my goldfish in?

In all reality, for a location like that, and given the numbers and nature of the public throughout this island, the only thing suitable is something very small. If steam, you're looking at borrowing the Guinness engine. Maybe Derry docks No. 1 in Cultra? And it's not even No. C202!

The thing about an operation like this is its potential market - or lack thereof. Like Finntown, it is a very far way away from any population centre of any size. Finntown operates with small diesel mechanisms. The only operational standard gauge line in the country is at Downpatrick, where very small steam locos are used. As a former treasurer of both that operation and the RPSI, I can assure all that the cost of operating a "full-size" steam locomotive on ANY type of line anywhere in Ireland - be it new-build, old-build, or whether one like it ever ran on the line or not - is utterly unrealistic, unless the operator is prepared top personally subsidise train services there. Even with volunteer labour, such an operation will never come close to covering costs with steam. While the idea of a MGWR 2.4.0 exercising its legs along a 5ft 3 line in the west is a fantastic vision, one might as well wish for 800 to return to regular service on the Cork Main Line, with wooden-framed passenger stock behind it. And bear in mind that the DCDR struggled with financial paucity for a long time, and for an even longer time received a local authority annual subsidy. Much in preservation involves a conflict between the emotion and imagination of the enthusiast - and cold, hard, practical reality. All too often, that does not make for good listening at AGMs, nor does it make easy reading; but it's reality. Dromod successfully operates steam by using its own wood-firing and because it's just a short distance. If it was coal fired and went to Mohill, the costs would spiral colossally and even a quite busy operating day would probably COST money. Finntown operates a railcar; it it was a Donegal 2.6.4T being steamed, someone would have to piuck up a big bill for each open day. And so on, and so on. I do know that there was at least some discussion amongst some Connemara volunteers as to opinions on 5ft 3 versus narrow gauge; it is no accident that all railway heritage operations in this country (bar the DCDR) are narrow-gauge. Sooner or later, the issue of sustainability for this project must be faced head-on. A permanently (financially) unsustainable 5ft 3 operation, with a several-million-euro "new build" steam engine - or - a "scaled-down" version of the same with maybe a Sugar Company or "G" class diesel and a carriage in operation on open days, or something narrow gauge. In that descending order, descending cost to operate. Another matter; the DCDR has three steam engines (2 x ex-CSET and GSWR 90). It TAKES three steam locos to as good as guarantee steam all the time. In the DCDR's earlier days, with just one steam loco (borrowed from the RPSI), if it was out of action, diesels had to be used. An operational steam loco has three phasess of life within a ten-year cycle. (1) Newly restored, up'n'running and rarin' to go. (2) Mid life. A few tweaks here and there. (3) Withdrawal for mandatory boiler lift, inspection and almost certain attention to something above rail level. Therefore, when one loco is out of use, you need another. If at any point in time, one is undergoing major refurb, that means you need two others. Right now, for example, at Downpatrick, you've No. 1 nearing the end of its operational cycle, No. 3 in mid life and No. 90 out of traffic. The next stage will be 90 refurbed, 1 out of work for refurb (and museum display, no doubt) and 3 as the spare. That's the way it goes - same in the RPSI, which in all reality struggles to make some MAIN LINE trips pay. And the RPSI struggles to provide steam cover for all potential services it it doesn't have three operational main line locos, though, to be fair, it is faced with TWO operations, 150km apart. It is unrealistic in the extreme to compare what goes on at Bridgnorth, Pickering or Porthmadog with what happens here. We have one tenth the market that britain has, and a good third of the island's population lives in or around Dublin and Belfast. Add to that the fact that (present company excluded!) the general public on this island, of all backgrounds, haven't a fraction of the interest in industrial heritage as thge good folks of Brexitstan have. Stradbally pioneered operational railway preservation here almost sixty years ago. They have survived and thrived - because they have exactly the right model - for THIS island. Which reminds me - it's just over fifty years since I last travelled on it. It is HIGH time I returned. I have simply no excuse not to, nowadays! As an aside, with the unfortunate decline of the BnM narrow-gauge now, if anyone, anywhere, wants to establish a new heritage railway - or even a private one! - there are probably going to be a good many Wagonmasters on sale in the next few years - when they're gone, the3y're gone, as the supermarket ads say.

I wonder when or if the PO and customs will ever get their act together. Ridiculous. I am happy to publicly post that I will go out of my way to disobey the rules on these issues - due to their disarray and nonsense - by having stuff posted to all sorts of addresses outside the jurisdiction where I can get them at some future stage without paying €129 in charges for something worth €2.