jhb171achill

Interesting to see the contrast between pictures 3 & 4. In one, a beautifully and meticulously restored station building - but the other showing what's opposite it. Throughout the preservation world, all across Europe and further afield, sidings choked with lines of barry-scrapyard-style junk, which will never see the light of day in preservation! Yes, bodies I've been involved with are just as guilty too............................................!! Looks like a fascinating little line.

In all likelihood, yes. I’ve a notion it’s 231.

That's the RPSI influence (Don't tell Nats.....)! Just now, a DD passed by Malahide with the 16:05 up, (10 mins late like yesterday) but with one of the zebras pushing it.

Worry not! Many place names have obscure or modified roots through oddball anglicisation. Who’s to say that Ballycombe didn’t have some old legend about some ancient figure combing their hair….. Anglicised “Ballycombe” = Baile na cíor = The “townland of the comb”….

Then it's sat down in Belfast, I suppose...........

2 x 2-CAF just passed Malahide 8 mins late on the 16:05 belfast - Dublin. De Deitrich ill again?

It hadn't seen a passenger train service since 1931! One of the first lines to lose its passenger trains in the entire country. Even the goods didn't last much longer. Latterly it slumbered in near dereliction for many years, the weeds only disturbed the odd time by a cattle train on market days.

So is it possible at this stage to state with any degree of certainty whether the last Tara train has operated?

The mines trains

I’m assuming this is finished now?

That loading bank could even be used to load beet. Several GNR locations such as Navan, Malahide and a couple of other places between Amiens St and Dundalk were loading beet in a few cases into the 1970s.

Kenmare too.... 4.4.0s were on that line regularly until the mid-1950s, though J15s were the norm, of course, as you suggest.

Well, none of them ever WERE black, to be fair; might as well paint it in Dart livery! If black, however, better to use a matt black, rather than a shiny one.....

Any thoughts on a suitable British RTR which might be altered to resemble one of these?

They certainly thinned out, Leslie, especially after the C class entered traffic in 1956/7/8, but a few remained on main line stopping trains, plus there were only a few years of steam left anyway. With growing interest - partly fuelled by your excellent wagons - in the “dark green” era, steam is necessary for most passenger workings. By the time A, C & B101 class diesels were hauling passenger trains, the coaching stock was rapidly becoming the lighter shade of green; a point to be borne in mind by the good folks wanting green six-wheelers to put behind IRM “A”s!

I think that whole IRN site is as ancient history now as 2.2.2 Burys on the Cork Mail! As the 141s were breathing their last almost twenty years ago, only one or two posters were still using it…

My thoughts exactly. A 4.4.0 of GSWR design would be a good and versatile bet.

Absolutely superb stuff. For any modeller of BnM lines, this is a treasure trove.

There would be much to be said for having a type of new train standard with the Dart bi-modals. Just have different seating configurations (EXTREMELY different) inside them, but retain the bodyshell and under-floor-gubbins and control systems. Sooner or later they'll electrify Greystones - Belfast - Bangor, I would think, so new Enterprises would end up being mechanically compatible with everything else between Greystonesw, Kildare, Maynooth and Bangor. And here's a completely revolutionary idea; make EVERYTHING from now on with the same couplers, so that no train anywhere will ever be stranded because it's incompatible with others. Bet the Victorians wish they'd dreamed THAT one up. Oh, wait...............

Superb stuff!

Your comments are much appreciated, Newtoncork. The British models are currently in storage in the same building, pending funding for new cabinets for them. I was looking at several of them only this afternoon - two (different types) of Llandudno trams, a Liverpool tram and a Birkenhead one! Excellent stuff. His LNWR stuff is absolutely superb. If funding cannot be had soon enough, or if space remains an issue, we're looking at having a one-off exhuibition of his British stuff at some stage. We'll see! Here's a taster, though, a bit closer to home; his excellent model of West Clare no. 5, currently (real thing) at Moyasta Junction preserved. You mention the original layout. This was in storage for years, and the bulk of it has now been repatriated to inchicore Works, where it was built. It is the intention of Irish Rail to display the major parts of it at some stage. Some of the CASTLE (as opposed to Fry-made) models have now gone to Headhunters in Enniskillen and others to the DCDR at Downpatrick. These are on permanent loan and are intended for public display at those places. The Enniskillen material is mostly GNR and CDRJC stuff, while the items sent to Downpatrick relate to the 1980s NIR Mk 2 "Enterprise" set, and some representative CIE fitted 4-wheelers of 1970s / 80s design. Only today, I took delivery of some paperwork kindly sent to me by Headhunters Museum in Enniskillen, which relates to his his correspondence with the GNR at Dundalk, when he was looking for outline drawings of locomotives. One of many things that in future it is hoped to display too.

Sean Cain would be the expert on these operations, but he wrote here and there about the demise of one of these two systems (Attymon) a few years ago. I'm pretty certain that Clonkeen has gone too. The demise of the bord na mona lines, such an iconic (and HUGE) part of Irish narrow gauge railway history, is happening in its final throes now, largely unnoticed by the enthusiast community. Evidently, it will be as good as gone within a few months from now.

Re-gauging stuff like that would be a fiddly and time-consuming job, hardly worth it - and the stock would look pretty weird. If you WERE to re-gauge stuff, make it 12mm track, not N / 009, as the latter would be too unstable for such a wide and high model in comparison to the track; thus a high centre of gravity. Better to start from scratch and build a 009 or N gauge layout, and sell the 00 gauge stuff (I know, you've just bought it!). I had a huge collection of 009 for years - it's amazing what crops up from time to time on fleabay.

I'm just thinking that in that form, it's fine for a landscape publication, but this one will be same sort of format as the Wexford & Tipperary ones.........

In these PC days, we're not allowed to say "leprechauns" any more. We have to say "custodians of pots of gold". Besides, they've mostly moved to Abohill and Glenfarne.