jhb171achill

Without wanting to divert the thread, a few other howlers I've heard over the years, quite often about more than one line - often, with apparent reference to them all: (a) "Sure the railways were all built by the British to control us" Fact check: Class 1 nonsense in all cases, though the British Govt. DID build the Wolfhill and Deerpark lines in 1918 for the coal. (b) "They should never have closed it. It would make a fortune today, what with all the tourists an' all". Fact check: Class 1 nonsense in all cases. (c) "When they closed it, sure they sold off all the scrap to make bombs to drop on the Germans". Fact check: Class 2 nonsense; ONE line, the Clogher Valley, closed in 1942, did have its track recovered for the war effort. (d) "Ah sure, it was only closed due to political jiggery-pokery". Fact check: In the case of the 1957 GNR / SLNCR closures and the "Derry Road", 100% true. For the closure of West Cork, arguably partly to largely true, likewise the BCDR and Ballycastle narrow gauge. In other cases, 90% - 100% nonsense! (e) One I heard implied lately, in this era of uneducated conspiracy theories which suggest that all freely, democratically elected governments are in some sense all inherently evil: "All them closures - sure someone was makin' money outta that, I tell ya. Brown envelopes, y'know". We're back to class 1 nonsense, again......and this time with bells and whistles. By the way, I like that thing yer man has in his garden! Doesn't bear close scrutiny, but no law says it must! Looks great in his garden!

Yes, the farm backing on the line is very probably true, but the rest is nonsense! If he's a "straight talker", it's probable he's simply repeating something that he believed from whoever told him..... but it's the "whoever" that was making stuff up! Bog railways - different thing entirely - I was referring to public railways. I was exploring the route of the T & D in the 1970s, at which time most of the route was still to be seen, and closed only 20 years earlier, so not overgrown at all. This oul lad informed me that there had been "trains up and down all day long" (whereas the timetable suggested two a day!) and that this included an "express train"...... I suppose such things are relative; the T & D did, in fact, travel somewhat faster than a local man would on foot.......

You're obviously cured fully! You are hereby discharged.........

You’re quite right - whatever it was, it very certainly wasn’t a railway vehicle of ANY sort; he’d have needed a low loader for it anyway! The only “old bits” you’d get on a lifted railway line might be a few old track bolts. The story appears to be nonsense! Old locomotives were quite simply never left abandoned out along railway lines. Usually they were put to work elsewhere, but otherwise scrapped. The scrap value was too much to just leave. Even in traction engine terms it still sounds like a tall story! These things are too big, heavy and cumbersome to just take home and polish!

Is there a fiddle yard each end?

Gone are the days when I (and others) could happily “trespass” on running lines to take pictures, with nothing more than a friendly wave from the driver! I remember spending an afternoon about 1976, wandering about the tracks in Heuston Station and goods yard, in and out of E’s shunting loose-coupled wagons, and brand-new 071s with Mk 2s, others with mixed Cravens, laminates and gawd knows what else…. NOT advocating this, of course, but today if I tried that I’d be taken away in the Black Maria to Mountjoy to serve life with hard labour, amongst mountebanks, ne’er-do-wells, and more minor offenders like mass murderers….

Tis always good craic down in Caaark, boy!

I feel your pain! Now, it's time for your meds............

This stuff is just fascinating.

VERY new!

Enterprise day today….. IMG_0211.mov

Saw a set today with 2 x 3-car NIR 3ks, and also 231 on a DD set.......

One of the DD sets today had a zebra on it. Not sure which of the two.

Indeed - a pattern repeated in many areas of the country. Looking through Barry Carse's vast array of photos of beet operations a few years ago while selecting images for our last book, it was amazing to see what could still be witnessed even in the early years of this century - and that was but a tiny fraction of what was hauled in the 1950s and 60s.

Many thanks for that. With an existing mix of Provincial Leslie’s Bullieds, and various wooden-bodied opens, as also seen in beet trains up to about 1971/2, and forthcoming IRM Bullieds, I will need this stuff! At some stage I want to replicate the busiest of days at Dugort Harbour with the place choked with beet wagons, loaders, ramps for trucks, and the one-coach passenger train barely able to get in…. It isn’t so convincing with “laden” trains consisting of trucks as empty as the “empty” ones!

Only seeing this now. Fantastic and highly original detail. It’s things like that which make layouts of any size, big or small, fascinating to study.

Ehh, mister, can I get a single to Dundalk?

Bit like us with England!

VERY nice!

Help! I can access IRM on this iPhone as it’s always logged in. However, my desktop won’t accept a log-in now, and won’t let me change my password. Any ideas?

That's a very good point! My understanding is that we don't have to do anything, but I've an order in for one example of each type of coach and each number, so I certainly don't want to lose it (Dempsey; that'll be another light weathering job!). Plus, on Hattons site, it says (or said) that all in this range are "sold out on pre-order".

I'd say that's right.

The CIE green used was the standard lighter shade used on any coaches painted after 1955, and any green diesels after the D class. The Phoenix Donegal red as shown in that ad is definitely not quite right - it was very slightly darker. Probably it's their advertisement rather than the paint - I hope so!