jhb171achill

So there's the story. The UTA take it over, but see no future for it, so to start with they do not repaint it into UTA livery. Meanwhile, the GNR, which in reality was taking more and more to do with the BCDR before its absorbtion into the UTA, are aware that this loco is up for grabs. It ends up being borrowed; meantime the GNR becomes part of CIE. They transfer it to the seaside terminus for one season, as its boiler is declared to be in good condition. And thus, it ends up appearing at Brookh....sorry, Northside Dublin Seaside! (Footnote: it was seen shunting at Brookhall also, in May 1957....)

I want to go on one to Cavan.

The "good" I remember from my own childhood would be, i suppose, sinking back into deep seta cushions in forst class compartments in GNR coaches behind steam....playing with the antimacassars......... watching a GNR 0.6.0 shunting somewhere..... early sighting of a 121 and what I think was probably an all-black "C" class at Westland Row bumbling about..... seeing the last steam-hauled "Enterprise" at a level crossing, and Donegal locomotives and carriages at Strabane awaiting a never-to-appear Dr. Cox from America! Teenage travels - first holidays away from home - with runabout tickets on a railway largely populated by clapped-out Park Royals, laminates and Bredins, new Cravens, and hauled by 121 / 141 / 181 / A & C class locos. My one and only run behind a B101. Plus covering lines no longer with us - Harcourt St (OK, I don't remember THAT one - I was about 2!), Ardee, Loughrea, Mullingar-Athlone in a mail train, Kilmacthomas, New Ross, Claremorris - Limerick, Foynes on a cold day......Youghal on a hot day.................... and so on............ Also happy days footplatibng 5'6" gauge main line express steam in India in the 1970s, and in South Africa in 1977...........

That was a "customer train". They don't carry "passengers" now, any more than "sundries" or cattle to Ballinasloe fair..............................only "customers"....

I can testify to the fact that the old UTA MED & MPD cars, plus the truly AWFUL NIR 450 class, made 2600s & 29s feel like 1st class in the Titanic by comparison. And it's a statement of fact that a modern ICR is quieter and more comfortable than MOST old railcars in the past. The exceptions were the centre and trailer cars (NOT the power cars!) in the 70 class, and the AEC / BUT cars for comfort - though they'd deafen you and could be draughty in winter. There's a huge, huge difference between the outward appearance of many a train, and what it's like to travel in!

Wait till we get these electric hybrid things. They will make no noise at all; we will all drool over the mini-"thrash" of the last ICR.................................... And those of us who remember 071s will be seen as being just as odd as people like me who remember steam.................!!

WHAAAAAT!!! That is OUTSTANDING. Very well done indeed!

"This fish is dead! No, it's not - it's just resting! Beautiful scales......... Listen, my man. It's bereft of life! It has wound up its mortal coil! It has gone to join the Choir Eternale! THIS is an EX-FISH!!!! "

I was warned once about using beachside stuff as ballast due to salt, so the solution there is probably once you gather the ballast material, boil it in a pot (kills organisms anyway) and drain before using it.

I've been told to put this about social media! https://bookings.modelrailwaymuseum.ie/Home

It would need a fully operational "A" class locomotive included at that price.

I always had this idea of doing a UTA / early NIR layout if a RTR AEC set ever appears; and on one side of the railway I would have a gable wall covered in hardcore republican graffiti, and on the other something covered in hardcore loyalist graffiti! All the clichés in one...... RUC vans, young lads with petrol bombs, British army jeeps, the works.......while a 2.6.4T (real!) Jeep made its way past with a ballast train, and an AEC set pottered through in the other direction on the 11:15 to Londonportadown.....

A handful did - the MGWR even had several (but only several) with a full length side corridor. Overall, the NORM in all 6-wheelers of all classes on all railways was just a row of non-connected compartments, sometimes with just the central two sharing a jax. The exceptions, where they existed, were a fascinating mix, though. I am unaware of the internal layout of any DSER ones having any sort of mini-corridor. jhb171Senior never recalled any having it when he commuted on the Harcourt St line in the late 1920s and the 1930s. he DID recall, though, that (like the GNR and the MGWR at the very least), some of the DSER stock only had half-height internal partitions - which schoolboys used to climb over into the next compartment.... That's a fantastic looking model, by the way! 0 or 00 scale?

What IS that thing?

Indeed.... You'd have got "pairs" of mixed 121 / 141 / 181 types way back fifty years ago, right up to the mid-noughties; first time I saw a 121 + 141 combo was, I think, in 1972............... so it's a prototypical scene which covers some thirty years and more....

Good luck with it! I’ve a few working timetables from early GSR days which show it, if that’s any help.

They've even got the colour scheme accurate enough for the Western District of the GNR(I)!

If there's anything at all, it's going to be in the IRRS archives. You'd need to set sail for Dublin and speak to Herbie or Tim about access. The archives are normally closed in the summer. From West Cork, we can give you directions on how to get to Jackeen Land, and how to go through immigration at the Pale border!

Yes. Brake van liveries were as follows. 1. Non CIE standard types: grey all over from birth to death. Snails latterly, a few got CIE roundels in their final days. At least one old ex-GNR van did. 2. CIE standards, be they planked or sheet steel, be they 20T or 30T: (a) All over grey from new, snails, grey ducket. (b) After about 1963, roundels start appearing. (c) Not quite at the same time but soon after, ducket is painted yellow and black diagonal stripes, with the bit above and below the ducket plain black. Grey roof, grey chassis as before. (d) After 1970, substiture brown for grey. Brown chassis, brown roof, brown everything - but yellow and black striped ducket again, and also again with black bit above and below it. By the mid 1960s, when the striped duckets were beginning to appear, this coincided with the withdrawal of the very last of all older types. I'm unaware of any MGW vans or DSE examples even entering the 1960s, and GNR ones were withdrawn almost as soon as CIE got them. A few old GSWR ones were retained - one was ordinarily resident on the Loughrea branch, the other on the Castleisland branch, during the 1960s, but both remained plain grey until final withdrawal.

Interesting shots, and topical in view of the new 00 Works release and Hattons 6-wheelers. 193 was the solitary J15 to have a black smokebox and grey livery; usually they were all grey. This one was repainted thus as late as 1961 in Cork (or possiboly Limerick). Six months or so later it was withdrawn from use. This is probably the best colour phot in existence showing a clean grey livery. The 6-wheel van is one of just six or seven such to survive the final mass extinction of all remaining six-wheel PASSENGER-carrying stock in early 1963. These surviving full vans continued in use for a few years more. While no record is known of one in actual use beyond 1968, as far as I am aware, two were technically still on the books until 1970; one of these at least being out of use in practice. It is known that 3 of the survivors (including Downpatrick's No. 69) received black'n'tan - the others probably remained green as two of these were gone by 1965. Hattons will be offering the GSWR full brake type in black'n'tan - obviously all the others will be in the two green liveries. I think the van shown above is 79 - another was on thge Ballinrobe branch until closure - but in recently-acquired black'n'tan. Indeed - it was also used on passenger trains on the Youghal branch for a while in the early 1960s.

Correct, though an unusual design.

Not THAT much on 1st July indeed; but I was at the centenary celebrations on that day fifty years ago, so I just had to go back for the 150th! Arrrrrggghhhh!!!! Ther "colourisation" Monster strikes again!

The rare No. 3 "Pender" is pictured at an ever rarer location - on the quays at Ramsey! The man standing on Port Erin platform, and at the MER Ramsey terminus is my grandfather, HJAB. That's the one! It was a dull bauxite-red colour, probably the same as the locomotives had been up to the late 1960s Ailsa era.

Superb stuff, gents! Must dig up my dad's photos of it again from the 1930s (first visit) to early 1950s (second visit there)........ Here goes:

It’s beautiful too! Cue for a 3ft gauge layout; the Inishbofin Railway….!