jhb171achill

Call me an oul cynic; but I'll believe ANY reopening when I see it. They've been prattling on about all manner of reopenings, and freight hubs and the like for decades. Successive governments, of ALL political parties north and south have not looked forward to plan anything for their grandchildren probably ever. It's all about what gets them the next election; and idle talk and soundbites do that just fine.

Quiet...ER? A Tara Mines train with loose wheels, clanking 071 bits, and carrying marbles, while tumbling down a tin staircase in an echo chamber fitted with Electric Picnic amplifiers, while the driver is roaring his head off into a karaoke machine turned up full, would be quieter than many carriage on some trains..... Try a Howth Dart on a sunny Saturday, or a stag-from-drimnagh and hens-from-rathkeale express to Killarney on a Saturday....... So, "quieter" than WHAT, exactly?

I've half a dozen covering that period that i'll post to you. 1955-63.

And no chinchillas were harmed in the making of this post, no doubt.............

Best option for photos might be the IRRS archive - but oakwood did a book on the line many years ago. From memory, some nice carriage photos in there. As far as good was concerned, they didn't carry much - alone among Irish narrow gauge lines, this was primarily a commuter railway (which, as an aside, also was the only Irish narrow gauge line with any double track). If it's for models, loco livery lined black, carriages dark green. After GSR takeover, locos unlined all-grey, carriages dark maroon.

Note the "G S" still (barely) visible on that old GSW brake van in Galway......

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.