jhb171achill

Vehicles at Dugort Harbour, expertly weathered by Dempsey, of our community.

I’d be looking for GSR crests and coach door numerals at some stage…..

I had contacted Railtec several times in the past with specific enquiries - no answer. Now I know why!!

Got ya! Then the little small one underneath is by a country mile the best. An extremely slight fading of that would serve a weathered look, but no blue tint. Even when badly faded, they never looked whiteish.

Further comment - you say ERPW would look well on grey or black (steam engines, obviously); but also green - and steam loco tender "snails" got more abuse than any others! I saw a pic where despite an engine being as clean (or as least dirty!) as any steam loco was in CIE times, the only but you could see of any snail at all was the pointy bit top left corner!

Further to this coach, you'll notice lead weights in the end compartments. Ken recommended I use these, but it runs OK without them. I have since amended things and taken them out, and just put one in the middle compartment. Anyone any idea where I might get a set of suitable door handles?

ERPW version - you mention that this would be no good on a silver background - 100% correct! YET - that's exactly what was sometimes to be seen! Look at some pics of A & C class locos, or the less well kept coaching stock (yes, tin vans - I'm looking straight at you...!) and you can barely see a shadow of that is supposed to be on it. Whoever dreamed up the idea of the silver livery needed their head felt, as a former teacher of mine would have said - but whoever decided to put PALE green numerals on it too, was even more so! Now; important point; no rillin stock or locos in silver ever had any sort of logo on them. ONLY numbers. But ther's an exception to every rule: the "A" class had a cut-out metal "snail", painted pale green! I have a vague idea that one "C" might have had too, but that may not be correct. In all reality, I must say, though, that I absolutely applaud your diligence in getting this JUST right, and with the proper lining too, often considered too small and insignificant on a scale as small as 00 (0 gauge would be a different matter). However, ERPW, blotchy as it looks, is in colour terms as "un-green" as it would ever have been, and even then, it would want to be aganist a very badly worn green background. The small logo underneath ERPW, in reality was by a country mile the best match. Old colour slides have a habit of gaining a bluish tint; the others shown are far, far too "blue". The snail was a transfer. The basic pale green colour didn't fade as badly as a primary colour like blue or red would do. The worst I ever saw was on an old bus at Broadstone about 1970 or so. The background dark green had badly deteriorated, but the snail on the side, while paler, was not so to the point of approaching white, or wnything like it, plus, even then it hadn't turned blue even slightly.

This is his DSER 3rd class coach. It’s an absolutely well designed one, very solid, excellent runner. The chassis was his own design, 3D printed too. He had a composite in design stage and a brake 3rd too. I had my name set own for those too! Heres the first one I got from him. He painted it GSR maroon. I was going to paint it CIE green but might leave it. Needs glazing and door handles. A rare colour picture of the GSR era - ex-CBSCR 472 and ex-DSER third 23D at Castletown West, 1944! (Shows what GSR times might look like!)

Life in 1968…. “Well, I tell ye, lads, the same grade as us on British Rail are getting fifteen pounds ten shillings a week. We should be asking for fourteen pounds anyway, maybe fourteen pounds ten”…. “How much tax outta that?” ”I don’t know….” ”Well, how much do they have to pay for things like rent?….”

Des told me the entire details of how this was done years ago, but swore me to secrecy, as he feared that the Circle Line would put 4ft 81/2 London tube trains on the Bangor line.... So I'm sayin' nathin', so ah'm not. An absolutely mighty piece of work! Can't wait to see the carriages!

Yes, it needs to be more green-tinted, even in a badly weathered version. I saw these things in real life and the apparent greyish-blue that appears to be in photos is just poorer colour in old slides. They weathered to a slightly paler version of broadly the same pale green. The dull gold lining just got more brownish. Top right is closest, but in reality all those aren't really like the real thing at all, and the white one is of course not accurate either. I would stick with the small pale green one in the moddle, to the left of the white one. Even for faded, this is by far the most realistic.

In 1962 C231 was a regular on the branch. On several consecutive days one week in July, it labours up to “town” with the midday local.

I thought I had five, so I delved; here’s the fifth, a “proper”-roofed version of the van. It’s two more of those I had been looking for. For our 3D friends, quite a few of the GSWR equivalents of these were still active until about 1960. Any takers to make some?

These are the four vans I got from Ken. I had ordered another vent van and two goods vans with “smooth” roof instead of corrugated. Never got round to lettering….. yet!

One spring morning in 1965, A55 prepares to depart from Castletown with the 08:30. It’s rare to see a new Craven on this service.

From an old colour slide dated July 1958….. ”It’s broken down. They’re sending a steam engine. They’ll hold the connection at the junction for Tralee….”

Whole area redeveloped now without any sign there was ever any railway near it!

In August 1975, with weeks to go before withdrawal of passenger trains, 149 hurries across Carrowmore Bog with the 14:30 local from Castletown.

Early January 1974 at Dugort Harbour. “Is that the last of the beet for this year?” ”Yeah, these for here and another three or four up at Castletown….” ”Gimme a shout when you’re back in town, it’s gonna bucket down any minute!”

Yes, but it tarnished, often looking almost black as a result. I saw numerals on carriage doors ("1" or "2" - 12 ins high, incidentally) where the outline looked a sort of greyish-brownish from wear and weathering. But dull gold originally. Always a dullish gold, not bright ever.

A point on the use of this yoke on steam locos and carriages. While snails were painted (originally) and stencilled (late 50s onwards) onto goods stock, carriages and steam locos ALWAY had this transfer applied. This is why despite numerals on steam engines being pale yellow, the "flying snail" on the tender was ALWAYS pale green, edged gold - or else no snail at all. The transfers were not made in any other colour. Thus, without exception, yellow, gold or white (or pink, tartan, pale blue or rainbow) coloured snails on tenders of locos are always as incorrect as a bright red double-arrow BR logo would be on a BR blue diesel.

Mention must be made of a large batch of weathering on most of the above by (of course) Dempsey of this community. Absolutely excellent, as always. The intention is to show things as my earliest memories are; wagons in varying stages of light weathering to absolute worn-out rust and filth. When I was a person of limited stature, many H vans and corrugated opens were new, so quite clean (maybe for their first week in service with steam locos and rain in the vicinity); palvans had yet to be built so they’d be quite clean too when I saw them. On the other hand there were still a good many older wooden wagons about, and thus in older, darker grey, often having seen heavy use but no paintbrushes in a decade or more, with markings barely visible. Hence the mix. Shown here is probably about a third of the wagon stock I have. And I’m getting three of Enda CK’s superb Ranks wagons tomorrow!

I think it’s overall in very good condition and could be “fast-tracked” back into traffic without much fuss.

Yes, I have. Will post when I dig out the details. I spent the first 25 years of my life seeing an original hung in the hall on a board painted at Inchicore….