jhb171achill

That's a work of art, Ken! The fallen leaves look very convincing too.....

There were no more than three or four of those full brakes which ended up in black'n'tan - no passenger-carrying ones ever did, as the very last ones in use were being withdrawn even as the new BnT livery was only first appearing. (This is why only the full brake is being offered in that livery). About 7 (from memory) full brakes lasted a bit longer. At least two remained green until withdrawn 18 months to 3 years later. The remaining few, all ex-GSWR, seem 9from photos) to have ended their days on the Galway mail trains, where as late as 1967/8 they can be seen. The last two were officially withdrawn in 1969/70 but I believe hadn't been used much in recent times - one certainly hadn't. The very last was No. 69, which is now at Downpatrick, partly converted into a brake first saloon, though it never ran like that. It has been structurally repaired, and I believe its chassis likewise; I'd love to see it in traffic. It needs little more at this stage, I think, than painting and decorating and loose furniture put into it. Anyone free at weekends?

The middle "laminate" is actually not a laminate; it looks lime one of the older early 1950s CIE coaches, with solid timber frame rather than laminated timber. As seen elsewhere, always, mixtures were the norm. the six-wheel "tin van" is one of the last batch of these built - 1965 I think.

That would be an ecumenical matter.

Absolutely. From Day 1, ALL new CIE coaches just got mixed in with everything else. Today, many different types of trains have their own type of couplings or gangways - a massively retrograde step. It should be remembered that in the past, all couplings on everything, and almost all gangways, were compatible. The arrival of fixed-rake Mk 2s on the Enterprise in 1970, and the "Supertrains" in 1972, changed all that, and since then we get uniform rakes of exactly the same type of vehicle. As an aside, this is what gets grumpy oul wans like me waxing lyrical about how dull the railway scene seems today compared with the past, but imagine if on a busy bank holiday, you turned up at Midleton to get a local into Caaark, boy; and the set consisted of an ICR driving car, a 2600 driving car, and a De Deitrich coach in the middle; and hauled behind it was an 1886-built six-wheeler and an ex-Belmond Mk 3, now fitted with bus seats. THAT is what it was like in the past. Therefore, the Park Royal model has absolutely ENDLESS realistic permutations. In reality, every single solitary type of coaching vehicle, from Cravens to very early 1880s 6-wheelers, is theoretically compatible with one, and they're even suitable as AEC railcar intermediates. Indeed, a single one was converted tio an AEC driving trailer in the late 1950s for the Tramore line, and fitted with bus seats to increase seating capacity. They did this by converting one end vestible into a cab, and putting a window in the end. In terms of haulage, anything at all from the oldest steam locos (late 1870s!) still at work in 1955, to 071s; and everything in between. Rarely has anything come on the market with such a wide range of realistic and prototypical uses. I am sure this will sell like hot-cakes; it certainly ought to. I've mentioned this before - I must try to fish out a photo I have somewhere, which shows a mid-day train passing Port Laoise some time about the mid 1970s. It's not a great photo, but you can make out that of some 11 coaches or so, there are scarcely two exactly the same - and yes, Park Royals are represented in among several types of laminate, Cravens, you name it.

I have to agree with you 100% on that! He's like a bagful of monkeys at 13 months old - but give him time - he'll soon have his first train journey and he's already got Thomas the Tank toys (in the correct livery, of course...............................!)

Well deserved

Sadly not...babysitting all weekend! Looks like I missed an excellent one.........

Correct. Until CIE became IE, they had the 6 inch upper black line like other stock did, and no lower one. All waistline white stripes on both PRs and Cravens dated from after 1987, when IE started. However it was many years before all had them - long after the last PRs were withdrawn, quite a few cravens still didn't have the "tippex-ified" variant. Only a few PRs got this, but unlike the Cravens they didn't have an orange line under the cantrail. Just the white line added at waist level.

Absolutely fantastic news. This is a major item of importance for Irish modellers. Very well done to IRM. I look forward to seeing and getting a few! Like most other coaches the sides tended to be kept pretty clean. Expect roofs to be somewhat tatty, and ends, bogies and chassis caked in a patina of brake dust. It was mentioned somewhere that this pretty much amounted to a "livery" for the ends! The first ones painted in green had green ends, but later ones had the standard black ends, continued into the black and tan livery.

It’s worth adding that you’d get them in the middle of AEC railcar sets too…. So what locomotives and liveries? A B101 B121 B141 B181 071 C E shunting! Liveries: Silver Green Black’n’tan Black Black, yellow ends Original brownish-orange 071 livery Supertrain And for the last few, 141s with “tippex” stripes.

For a green or silver Park Royal, all the passenger-carrying six-wheelers will too! Just stick a silver or green IRM “A”in front, and you’ve a perfect 1955-63 train.

Very much so. Throughout the lives of these coaches, they’re a modellers dream because they ran with, and among, ALL types of genny vans, mail coaches, diners and parcels brakes, with the exception of air-con stock from 1972 onwards. Therefore they are compatible with all of the following, until the last of them were withdrawn (dates in brackets): Six-wheelers (until 1963) Six-wheel full passenger brake (1969) Bredins (mid 1970s) ALL types of laminates (1986) Cravens Wooden-bodied bogie stock (c. 1972) Ex-GNR stock taken into CIE stock (c. 1970 I think) ALL genny vans; both the 4 & 6 wheeled tin vans, Dundalk and BR types.

That late - a set of two on Waterford - Limerick. One of them - I think - was Downpatrick’s No. 1944.

“Let’s get the rest of these loaded an’ then get the kettle on…..” ”Did ye get the Rich Teas?” ”Paddy’s got Mikado biscuits - ever tasted those?”

When you’ve a fair day and a large consignment of wagons for the mill, an “A” is yer only man. Here, one very busy day in 1964, A55 is doing honours. There hasn’t been a goods this long on the branch for years. Here, A55 slows from a breakneck 20 mph to little more than walking pace as it comes into Castletown off Carrowmore Bog. IMG_7209.mov

“Ye hear all that stuff about Dan?” ”Ah, listen. He’s the biggest bluffer in Kerry. Not one word of it’s true” ”Well Patsy Mike says he heard him in O’Donoghues…..” ”Sure don’t ye know he’s an even BIGGER bluffer….”

Absolutely stunning workmanship. That weathering (a favourite theme of mine!) is just outstanding.

Or you could have said "Yes, please!"...........

MIGHTY stuff there, Owen. I'll be looking for a few!

Wow! I remember those.............! Very much a relic of the "Troubles" - you'd get onto a bus with hard plastic seats and a "civilian searcher" might get on and go through your stuff..... or the RUC or British troops...... and Horslips were playing in the Ulster Hall, or the Undertones in the Pound.............

Could be - several old 4.4.0s were banished there too!

Was thinking that, yes - though after the Jeeps were delivered, these locos were apparently much less seen anywhere other than the Larne line. According to the late Harold Houston of the NCC, they "couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding", so by 1950 (according to the late Nelson Poots plus jhb171Snr) were primarily found between York Road and Larne. So while I'd agree it's Ballymena, it begs the question what the loco is doing there.......probably a local passenger from Belfast. The Midland TPO is an interesting one too. I would agree that it's possibly a "cripple" normally used on the up Sligo Day Mail (as suggested above) en route to Limerick for attention. It's tempting to guess it's run a hot box and been shunted off there, As per Mayner's opinion too, I can't see one of those in use on the Sligo - Limerick line - in fact I'd lay money on it that they didn't. None of the stations had snatchers for one thing. When I travelled over that line (albeit from Ballina to Limerick, not from Sligo), mail bags were being loaded and unloaded by hand into and from the tin van on the train at Claremorris.

Correct. The UTA painted some in a light grey, dark green and (bits of) red between the GNR takeover and the mid-60s; mostly on the Derry Road, plus a few on the NCC (Antrim and Ballymoney, in particular, surviving well into NIR times). CIE, for their part, either left stations unpainted, as they had been in GNR days, on lines they had no future for, such as Oldcastle and the Dundalk - Clones - Cavan section. In other cases, they got the then-standard scheme of green (their green) and cream if repainted between 1958 and the very early 60s, but after the modernisation plan from the mid-60s they got the quite attractive and generally well-kept scheme which many of us will recall, of several shades of grey, white and black. I'm guessing, by the green, that this one might possibly be CIE.......... but who's to say it's not faded UTA! As always, this will be a fascinating thread as the story unfolds.

One of the components is not called a "crank" pin for nothing.................