jhb171achill

There's a story behind the railbus being here. These were not used on the Bundoran branch at this time, as might seem a possibility. Jhb171Senior used this yoke as his personal runabaout when conducting track and bridge inspections in the 1950s, when a spare loco and saloon 50 weren't available. In the case of the latter, he had a set of steps made for it so that when stopped in the middle of mowhere he was able to get up and down via the (open) end gangway..... Railbuses 1 & 2 were used by him for the same purpose. If this is June 1957, the reason this vehicle is parked here is due to a comprehensive survey he had to undertake to advise Amiens St of the likely quantities and quality of materials that would be recovered following closure of so much of the INWR.

Yes, I think three of them had - in the case of No. 4, on this side ONLY! The other side retained its UTA crest to the end. Quiz question: anyone know of any other locos (or coaches) running with the logo of one company on one side, and its predecessor on the other? I don't........ though in one of mine and Barry's books there's a diesel with a CIE logo on the end, and an IE "set-of-points" on the side!

Precisely. An excellent quality photo, showing very clearl;y how the dark grey livery (in which this example is still clad) got dirty and weathered. But look to the right; that's a very interesting wagon! An old two-plank with mismatching extra sides? I don't know! I think he gave a talk* to the IRRS some years ago on the nitty-gritty of this modernisation scheme, but I do not have his notes (that's if he made any!).... (.....or, in the curiously antediluvian archaic IRRS-speak, "gave a paper"!)

All in all, Ken - the loco and the (MUCH needed) horse boxes - this is absolutely stunning craftsmanship. Top class stuff. Hope the treatment is going well. Best wishes.

Looks a bit haphazard. I thought the new passenger emntrance on that side included complerte road access.... if so, that suggests the above is a bay platform facing Mallow? If it goes the whole way round, then the tracks will cut across the current new entrance, will they not?

All steam.......

No, no, no - it was when Adam was a boy! That's long before the GSWR............. they had silver spoons then, and the dining car bogies were made of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

STUNNING!!!!! The very very subtly faded look of the paintwork is just about as 100% photo-perfect as it's possible to get. The detailing is exquisite.....

I reckon that one's plausible at least, yes.... I'm just off now to meet Prince Hajjjid al-Bazrah bin-Allahhabaji now to get my inheritance he emailed me about. I'll be richer than Bezos, Musk and Suckerberg together, he told me. Nice man, and all it cost me was the price of my modest house and car!

No, genuinely- I wasn’t even aware of the “community map” until maybe 18 months ago!

OK, Mr Prince, I’ve emailed it off. Can you send me the $15,000,000? That would be an ecumenical matter.

Most interesting! Yet, a more utterly ridiculous “livery”, I’ve never seen on anything but modern British privatised locos which look like smartie tubes on wheels!

LOVE the dinosaur!

In looking up the location of a member on here, to whom I am thinking of selling something, I noticed that I was absent from the map of where all of our community live. So I clicked on my own profile to see where I lived; a portent, perhaps, of an early loss of my marbles, as I sit in a home gibbering at a bluebottle on the wall about the correct style of lining on Clogher Valley coaches, as the smell of custard and disinfectant wafts in from the hall..... and here's young Wyzckysnona with my new incontinence knickers......... to find that I live in MALI. In central Africa. Now, I have just worked out how to relocate myself to north County Dublin, but the thing is, I never remember going to Mali at all, nor do I remember how I got there or back. (Maybe IRM deported me for not buying Taras...) So, dear reader, if you live in Mali, and wonder how I disappeared from The Crescent Moon Institution for the Distracted and Bewildered, there's your answer.

That's a totally new one to me! Throughout history there have always been one-off livery variations, like a single grey locomotive in GSR times which had "G. S. R." in cream on its tank sides - one of the C&L tanks. Again, short-lived. I was asked many times about a book on liveries. A nice idea, but the number of one-offs and oddball short-lived things - such as the above - would make such a book simply impossible to be all-encompassing. Include one oddball one, like an NIR Hunslet in tartan for one afternoon, or a Muskerry tank in fluorescent day glow yellow for one hour, or a green CIE carriage with a WHITE flying snail (!) for one minute - and you'll have a clamour of complaint that you didn't include the DART which was painted in invisible paint for two days, or the bright blue Donegal 2.6.4T with white chimney! So, you stick to main "official" liveries instead. But then, the book is actually not complete........... If anyone else wants to undertake a publication like that, I'de be delighted to share a large amount of info I've collected over the years, but I wouldn'y have the time now at my state of vintage............!

Sadly not, Thomas! You’re thinking of the old 24XX series dining cars or the one on the 1970 “Enterpriae”. Long gone, along with ALL train catering, even trollies, on all services bar the Dublin - Belfast line. On this, there’s a trolley in standard class and table service in 1st, with a limited but adequate microwave menu.

Yes, Ballybrophy-Limerick was always the "Nenagh Branch" even when it was operated, to all intents and purposes, as a main line. This dates from its origins - it was originally to be just a branch of the GSWR from Ballybrophy to Nenagh. Then the Waterford & Limerick set forth from Limerick to Birdhill and Killaloe - its own branch. Then the two were joined at Birdhill and it was Killaloe that became a backwater branch. We could veer also into nicknames, though this theme has been done to death on posts here before - the "Dirty, Slow & Easy" (DSER), "Slow, Late & Never Comfortable" (SLNC) and so on. Some years ago a book about the Lough Swilly referred to a name of "That Old Sinner" for that line. It is not a term I ever heard of in railway circles - maybe some cold-faced damnation-loving pulpit-screamer somewhere up in Dunfanaghy called it that for daring to propose trains on the "Sobboth"!

Lost in the mists, Roger, but I’ll try to dig it up! Dark green was, in any event, a common manufacturers colour for industrials. Some fifty years ago, during a refurb at Whitehead, traces of green were found under the blue of the Guinness engine…..

"...............the western rail corridor was actually limerick to ballina/colooney while claremorris to coloony was most the most famous “Burma road”........." Not quite. The "western rail corridor" is a long post-railway construct - the term was never heard of until maybe a decade after the line closed! Definitely not a "railway" name - though, as mentioned above, "Burma Road" was used for the section of it north of Claremorris. The MGWR referred to the Galway route as the "main line"; no surprises there - but they referred to the Sligo line as the "Principal Line". (Good title for a book)... The "Kerry Road" is certainly in use a long time, probably since the 1960s when passenger services were withdrawn between Tralee & Limerick. But prior to that, the Limerick route from Tralee was the "North Kerry", while the Mallow line was the "South Kerry". Similarly, after 1906, the Waterford - New Ross - Macmine Junction line was the "North Wexford" while the Waterford - Wellington Bridge - Rosslare Strand line was the "South Wexford". The Kenmare & Valentia lines didn't come under this "title". On the NCC, we also had the "Derry Central" - Antrim - Magherafelt - Kilrea - Macfin. And on the GNR, to locals the Fintona branch was known by the thing that a horse dragged along it - "The Tram".

Static. Much as Irish railway preservation is expanding modern image and further back into history, I'd be pretty well 100% certain that a DART is not going to end up at Whitehead, Downpatrick or Cultra. It's about time the government funded something like the NRM in brexitsan; maybe recently retired Darts, 26 class railcars and 071s would be suitable initial targets for such a thing. Stick them under the roof at Westland Row by digging out one of the old bay platforms.

I remember that "biscuity brown" livery well - reminds me of mis-spent teen times......! (I think i am the solitary person on the planet who actually liked that livery). One of those yokes with the number "10 Belfield" would bring back a lot of memories for me..... Mind you, I remember seeing a GNR crest on a Dublin city bus too, and flying snails.............!

A fantastic and highly informative thread. I'll be looking for a couple of these things laden with turf on my own layout. Little details like these carts really make a scene in a rural area, like a little grey Fordson tractor (who remembers them?) or a 1960s Massey 135............. plus the inevitable Morris Traveller (I have one of those as well). Talking of "travellers", and without starting ma predictable conversation, a common childhood memory was of driving on holiday to the west and seeing the old horse-drawn vans they lived in alongside country roads, along with the above carts or a batterd old Commer van. Tarpaulins aganist hedges for the men to sleep under, and washing all over the hedge. I wonder is there any sort of horse drawn vehicle which could be made to look like one of those - I had considered having a traveller encampment near Castletown West station once I get around to the scenic part of it!

The WTT was (is) the employee's timetable. As well as public passenger trains, it provides details of ALL train movements, be they goods, light engine or empty stock. In addition, paths are shown for trains which can or might run, but do not do so regularly. At the start of this thread I posted a few examples for West Cork. If you wish, I can post you copies I have, or you're welcom to call with me by arrangement any time you're up Dublin way. I have a full set, as far as the former CBSCR is concerned, from 1926 until closure, with just a couple in the 1950s missing - tho9ugh - the particular missing ones would tell you nothing that the years either side of them didn't. Ping me privately if interested.

If you mean whether a 1927 WTT looks like a CIE one, while it’s a different page size & design, the origin of the CIE ones up to pretty much the 1970s goes back to the GSWR in the 1870s! The GSR copied that, and in turn copied it after 1945. I’ve never actually seen a CBSCR WTT.

I can lend you a 1927 or 1926 one.