jhb171achill

Yes, it was indeed the only double track line on the Irish narrow gauge; fully so, signalled as such, etc., despite being singled shortly after the GSR took over. It was also the fastest, and the only narrow gauge commuter railway; three "unique" qualities on this short, and short-lived line. Perfect site for a CLUAS these days.

Next it'll be bloooo passports, and sunny uplands.............

Fastest narrow gauge engines in Ireland, even beating the NCC ones. I understand they could reach 50mph. They certainly LOOK as though they could!

Those interiors are superb. Inspiring me to get on with my own buildings - if I can find where I have all the bits and pieces after last house move 2 years ago! After all, there has to be an office at Dugort Harbour to deal with the paperwork related to incoming GNR vans from Brookhall in the north, with linen consignments!

".................who first asked the GSR to take him on at Dugort Harbour..................." The GSR declined the invitation; just as well, he'd have got bored listening to seagulls!

Certainly a bit later; in 1960 all locos were green or dirty silver. C's were initially black and tan, the all-black is probably about 1965.

The topic got me thinking about what among these schemes might make a nice layout; our resident experts on mini-layouts, such as David Holman, Galteemore and others, have shown how "what might have been" can make a very absorbing layout. While researching the railways of Mayo many moons ago, I perused the roughest of shetches about what might have been in terms of the Inishlyre one mentioned above. It would have left the Achill branch just north of Westport, and south of Barley Hill, heading west to a small pier which, based on the impression given, would have been devbeloped to something similar to that at Burtonport. On that basis, I had drawn a rough sketch of how this might inspire the simplest of shunting layouts, perhaps in "0" gauge. A J26 ("E" class) 0.6.0T or a G class diesel and half a dozen goods vans would be all that would be needed. Based on this, I've put together a rough sketch of what this place might have looked like, based on maps, my knowledge of the area, and the plans suggested to the MGWR (who rejected them instantly). Call it a "Westport Quay Lite", which in effect it would have been, or a "Valentia Harbour Junior". I can picture Mr. Holman's beautiful D16 shoving an empty fish van down to the pier. The inclusion of a grain store could equally be a fish store, like at Achill station. This is added with a nod to Hall's Mill at Westport Quay for a layout operator's interest. The proposed name of the station was "Inishlyre Roads" (in the plural; the reason being obscure; but might as well have been Rosmoney. There was a coastguard station nearby - another possible point of interest in a model.

Perhaps a “no-brainer” for 3D printing is the standard GSR concrete buffer stop. Many are still about, and they were widespread throughout the GSR system from the late 1920s.

391 has the goods tonight. Well, this night in 1960, perhaps….

Ah! I see….

How come so many of these things are ending up in Spain?

On the subject of cattle wagons, and Provincial's products again........ The GNR cattle trucks that Leslie does would have made up the vast majority of the Enniskillen "Shipper" from there to Belfast's Maysfields cattle sidings, where Belfast Uncentral, or whatever wacko name they call it now, was eventually situated. On the CIE system they would have been seen really only on ex-GN territory; Inchicore were churning out Provincial's CIE equivalents as quick as they could. However, the GNR vans lasted into UTA days on the Derry Road for a bit, and could conceivably have wandered after the GNR sections in the south became part of CIE. While such meanderings would have been short-lived, nonetheless they happened. Again, years ago and somewhere in the IRRS, I saw a picture of several in a CIE consist coming in off the Midland, probably off the Dublin & Meath branch via Clonsilla.

Yes, cattle will feature more and more on “Dugort Harbour”. I think I’ve about fifteen cattle wagons now, all Provincial; maybe a few more unmade. The GNR goods vans that Leslie mentioned lasted into CIE & UTA days; one or two into NIR times but only on ballast trains. However, their post-GNR lives were very different. On the UTA, they dominated goods trains on the Derry Road and Warrenpoint branch until the closure in 1965 of both. They were seldom if ever seen on the former NCC lines, except in NIR times on ballast trains only. Several went to CIE. However, unlike the UTA, CIE was heavily investing in new goods rolling stock, with the H vans and (after 1965) the palvan rapidly displacing older GNR goods stock, and standard CIE goods vans even more quickly replacing older GNR and GSWR goods brakes. Nonetheless, ex-GNR goods vans would have made sporadic appearances on cross-birder goods trains for a few years between 1958 and the early to mid 60s; after that, cross-birder stuff had standard cue vans, either planked (like the JM Design one) or sheeted like the SSM one. With the UTA ending all internal goods trains in 1965 too, the only future for the two remaining GNR vans in the north was occasional use on ballast trains. Similarly, two old NCC ones. It looks as if, due to displacement by more modern new CIE vans, the last in use on CIE were set aside some time between 1963 and 1965; one, at least, got a fresh coat of light grey paint and stencilled “flying snails” with, of course, an “N” after its original number. It was spotted on at least one occasion “down the country”; can’t remember details of the image, which is in the IRRS somewhere, but either on the Cork or Midland main lines. Thus, there’s scope for a broad interpretation of Rule 1 there!

I’ll go with the whiskey, Leslie; anything’s possible after a few, including a 60mph non stop by the horse, with tram and Saloon 50 attached, straight to Amiens Street…

Yes, there were lots, and everywhere. To take a few random examples; Loughrea was to be reached by any one of four different routes, while Clifden even had a narrow gauge line planned as late as 1909 - heading to GREENORE via no one place over a few hundred people!!! The Ulster & Connaught Railway, with a desperately meandering route, if built, would have been the most utterly downright stupid waste of public money in history, very much akin to the tunnel or bridge over the Irish Sea proposed by a revolting man in England with yellow carpet on his head! The journey time would have been some 12 hours, via the Cavan & Leitrim and even a part of the 12mph roadside Clogher Valley…. Yet - ye know what? Had it been built, today there would be a clamour of houses about how it should never have been closed, and how vital a piece of infrastructure it would be to the west of Ireland, and how much profit it would make with huge tonnages of freight to an international hub at Tynan, Cong or Shrule, and how many tens of thousands of tourists would travel on it…. I digress! While Co Antrim was the cradle of narrow gauge, more lines than were built were proposed. Another line would have connected Downpatrick or thereabouts with the GNR main line near Scarva. The CDR Killybegs line would have continued west towards Glencolombkille. The Macroom branch would have ended in Kenmare. Picturesque Enniskerry, south of Dublin, could have had two routes, at least one narrow gauge. As other mentioned, the Midland wouldn’t have stopped at Kingscourt (it’s built as a through station) but gone on north as far as (sit down for this one) Coleraine! No less than three serious proposals were made to bring a railway to Belmullet, also Crossmolina (hence the “Crossmolina Siding” in Ballina. There were literally hundreds more. A fascinating study in itself, and one with endless scope for modellers.

The whole lot look amazing, Dr.Pan. I love the 009 stuff.

Correct - and there was another early proposal to have the main line north from Dublin heading out through Dunshaughlin, Navan, Monaghan, Armagh and up the Lagan Valley. From memory, according to old papers I read through many years ago dating from that period, the terminus was to have been somewhere around the Stranmillis area of Belfast, or close to the present Queen's University. In this early survey, the suburban area of south Belfast, Dunmurry, now a halt on the KLisburn - Belfast commuter route, was desecribed as "....a modest village of some thatched hovels...."

To expand on the above, to take the Achill branch as an example, at one time a branch off it to Inishlyre was proposed. This was to service a fishing pier the size of a plank of wood in an area with no village and few people about, even today. It was about 2 miles to the west of the line - the junction would have been about two miles out of Westport. Another extension of similar size was proposed from Achill to Gubbardletter, just north of Achill station. This involved a line crossing a bog without even a road, to the end of a completely uninhabited peninsula, where a pier MIGHT be built. Utter nonsense! Another possibility was an extension across Achill Sound onto the island, necessitating a very substantial several-span steel viaduct, á la Cahirciveen. The line would continue through the iskand to come to an end at the backwater village of Dugort, population maybe just over 100! Finally, and most bizarrely, from a point near Owenduff, halfway between Achill and Mallaranny, an even longer viaduct would head north from a junction there (and inevitably a junction station; the area remains essentially unpopulated to this day). The line would strike north towards Ballycroy, Bangor Erris and Belmullet, these three places between them perhaps having somethign approaching 1000 people in TOTAL. Yet, they are spread out over some 40-odd miles or more, in between them being - nothing. Just stones, turf bog and lakes. Zero population, zero industry, zero likelihood of any developing.......! And there would need to be at least THREE Cahirciveen-sized viaducts, one crossing quite deep water......

If we go back to Railway Commission reports and plans of the 1830s, and right up to more wacko and downright delusional plans for various rural branch lines up to about 1920, we would have a network of railways never built, which probably was almost as much as what WAS built. When researching for the books on the Achill and Clifden lines, I found some seven or eight schemes in those two areas which were not built - and in the case of some of those proposed, requiring huge engineering features in virtually uninhabited country, whoever dreamed them up must be have been smokin' the funny stuff! I am currently almost finished a book on another MGWR branch, and in its formative years there were also several proposals which were stillborn. Equally, with the one I've just started recently. Not only that, but extensions to BUILT ones often were strange. There were four extensions once proposed to the Achill branch, each one more impractical than the last!

Pretty typically, a cross-border goods train (which I saw every day 1960-70) was 35-40 wagons, the vast majority covered vans. At the dawn of the decade, a handful were UTA, but of ex-GN origin; I don't recall ever seeing a NCC or BCDR type on the GN main line but it's hypothetically possible. Most were CIE, either wooden or "H" vans, as time went on these dominated. Palvans appeared from the mid 60s. Grey "bubbles" appeared then too, in ones and twos scattered through the train. Guard's vans were inevitably standard CIE. All wagons, of course, were grey - the brown ones only appeared in the early seventies, but which time containerisation and bogie wagons weren't far away. There were few open wagons and almost never flats; literally never "ordinary" tank wagons. If you're going to go for a 20-wagon consist, may I recommend a typical formation might be one SSM CIE guards' van, ten Provoncial "H" vans, five Provincial GNR vans, one in GN livery, one UTA, and three with CIE logos. Very occasionally, for parcels, a CIE "Tin Van" was included. Also, two Provincial "Bullied" opens, one wooden open (anything repainted) and two grey bubbles.

I really need to get on with the scenery. Thanks to my Learned Friend who was here today, all of the trackwork bar one siding, a turntable road, and the fiddle yard are complete, with wiring well under way. The area in the foreground in the last picture of B141 will be a boggy area, as found adjacent to many a railway (and everything else!) in the souih-west and west. I'm reading up on online tutorials about scenery at the moment to see how best to tackle this; I will omit, of course, the clouds of midges which ate my arms the other day in Co Mayo. They're a bit fiddly to model anyway. I was able to get a very realistic bag of turf sods on fleabay, made by a German manufacturer, and I need to get to grips with grass-making machines..... and varnish for the ditches and pools to masquerade as boggy stagnant water.

Passing the same spot in the other direction two years later, B141 has the 11:40 goods for Cork as it slows to enter Castletown West.

That is MIGHTY stuff - well done.

Yes, it is. More DAS clay needed, then ballast, undergrowth, bushes, buildings etc etc.

A42 trundles away from Castletown West on the last leg of its journey with the goods from Cork. Having dropped off 34 wagons at Castletown, this is what’s left for Dugort Harbour. One goods van with soap powder, gas cylinders, bags of flour and a few parcels, and a couple of open wagons to bring turf back, and a couple of empty cattle trucks to take some sheep up to the midlands. It’s 1962.