GSR 800

Just now, DJ Dangerous said:

So, fitted and unfitted could be mixed, provided there was a brakevan, and unfitted could ONLY run with a brakevan?

AFAIK yes.

4 minutes ago, DJ Dangerous said:

1970’s they would have gone brown.

What’s the difference between fitted and un-fitted from an operational aspect?

Did it determine what loco could haul them and what other stock they could run with?

Fitted vans could be used as part of passenger and mail consists to carry mail and other such items. They were also just used as regular H vans as a part of an unfitted freight consist IIRC.

22 minutes ago, James Regan said:

Indeed… meantime your Chinese friends are building warships and nuclear missiles…whatever for? We’ll see what ‘sensible’ leaders in Europe do then? 
https://www.cfr.org/blog/six-takeaways-pentagons-report-chinas-military

Change is coming…

Taiwan, primarily, along with power projection in the Asia region, protecting maritime trade (Mahan). Nuclear missiles for the same reason every superpower worth its salt builds a nuclear arsenal. 

The only constant is change.

Any dealing with China must come with the understanding they will work in their own interest, as all nations do. If the US tries cutting them out of global trade, the consequences will be incredibly destructive. Give them nothing to lose, see what happens. Likewise if they rolled over and let China do whatever they like it would be very negative. China heavily subsidised its industries, effectively bought and shipped the entire German solar panel industry over to China. Chinese domestic demand is suppressed through currency manipulation of the RMB to make exports more competitive.

Something akin to the Plaza Accords of the 1980s could go some way to rebalancing trade, a revaluation of the RMB would increase domestic Chinese consumption considerably. This would not solve all issues regarding trade or geopolitical issues regarding the US, EU and China but it would be a step. 

19 minutes ago, Georgeconna said:

Interesting must take a look into it.  handy to have the ol 36 trillion debt hanging about then. No wonder they are trying to tackle that.

The problem the US has is the catch-22 of a high debt and the way out of it being to raise interest rates. Doing so causes the repayments on the interest on the debt to, obviously, increase, but to not increasing interest rates means more money printing, more debt, and on it goes

17 minutes ago, josh_ said:

Caught this out iswell after the day out at the forty foot

Rpsi weren’t doing anything so wonder why it was at platform 3, any ideas?

its also the 3rd time I’ve spotted it running light engine

Vid took a while to send but I’ll send the first time I saw it at Drumcondra and first at north wall doing a HOBS train

IMG_5527.mov

I'd say driver training. If she was on 3, she was probably waiting for a road. 1 or 2, and she could've refuelled either.

33 minutes ago, Darragh said:

Thanks, you've cured the curiosity. God, thats mad, in Mountmellick!

She made it as far South as Cork, visited Maedbh in Thurles too!

22 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

Fair enough Harry. Have had a similar inner monologue myself when finishing the PP last week. Some pics show a gleaming smokebox, others don’t! You can certainly take pride in her 

It's one of those things I consider myself, whether to go matt or more satin for the smokebox. Usually it's more matted than the rest, but locos being cleaned, especially with oily rags, would show some shine. I've given a bit of matting at the top for soot around the chimney.

Recently I've seen a br shed layout with locomotives kept glossy clean, but with smokeboxes matted and almost grey! 

I note modern cleaning practices at Connolly, which focus on keeping the "front" of the locomotive/railcar clean. The rest is less of a concern!

20 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

Terrific job. Subtle but effective. For a lot of my own work now all I do is a MiG dark wash with a few powders. Seems to do just enough. Might you consider a soupçon of dark powder on the smokebox? 

Many thanks. Funny enough for Macha's last tour they had the smokebox shining! It has a bit of grime on top nonetheless, don't wish to overdo it.

Maedbh has gotten a bit of weathering. There's not a great many photos of Maedbh in colour during her working life in CIE. The vast majority I've seen are taken after she was earmarked for preservation and received a fresh coat of paint. It's unlikely she did almost any work after 1958.

There's two colour photos of her at work in later years. One is of her at Limerick Junction in 1955, the other at Thurles hauling a train of horsebox vans. These show her relatively clean but with some black grime in certain areas. In their earlier years they were kept almost spotlessly clean, but I intend to model the end of steam. Macha was utterly filthy toward the end.

For reference I also looked primarily at the VS class in the 60s. Still kept quite clean, but far from spotless. The domes and corners of the belpaire firebox were almost always blackened!

A mix of black and umber wash was used, with excess removed using a cotton bud.

One of the first books on Irish railways I read as a young lad gave me a solid impression that the Woolwich moguls and the turfburner were painted in a pale blue!

Copyright 1995 Tom Ferris

21 minutes ago, Darius43 said:

 

Finished 

Cheers

Darius

We're going to need a bigger shed!

Another wonderful model!

1 hour ago, josh_ said:

Ur exactly on point, as the area in working with is too small to do connolly with 4 tracks and the the coal yard it is also the most nostalgic with me seeing it over the years

Unless you plan on compressing the gable, 3 tracks or 4 will make no difference, the width of the shed hasn't changed.

2 hours ago, fishplate7 said:

Josh, there was always 4 running roads/tracks to match the 4 sets of brick arches on the gable end 

I think he's referring to Connolly shed in modern times, with the roller shutter and 3 running roads (IIRC only two are used, the other, closest to the wash road, being red flagged)

12 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

Green wheels & frames…. en route?

When I'm feeling especially brave

A bit of work done to Maedbh over the last week or so. The Royal Scot has many similarities to the 800s, but the 800s have a much longer front end and bogie, along with smaller bogie wheels. 

Changing to smaller wheels meant a large air space was left between the wheel and chassis. This became a bit of a knawling bug for me

To sort the issue, I fabricated some fau frames from plasticard, painted them black, then applied them to the sides 

I then karate chopped the bogie and placed a plasticard spacer to increase its length.

I think this improves the overall appearance of the front end considerably.

1 hour ago, Galteemore said:

Probably 2 Compounds for an SG3! CIE seem to have found the 0-6-0s reasonably useful and of the passenger locos only the Us and Qs seem to have strayed much onto the wider CIE system 

GNRI action at Mullingar

Broadstone also saw a great collection of former GNRI, MGWR, and GSWR locomotives between the closure of Inchicore's shed to steam in 1958(?) and Broadstone itself in 1961. Everything from the 400s to the GNRI's JT tanks made it to Broadstone.

IIRC the MGWR had a specific sleeping carriage for crews. It was avoided at all costs due to an infestation of lice! 

Don't let the bed bugs bite indeed...

Aside from the obvious answer of political lobbying, this one has me puzzled. 

Ballina is pretty well situated, don't get me wrong, but it's not the biggest town, it's not a major seaport, and yet it is the only major railfreight terminal left other than Dublin and Waterford (Though the Foynes is coming back online).

Back in the 70s and 80s rail container terminals were dotted across the country. I'm well aware of the rundown of railfreight, its virtual elimination by 2008, but why has Ballina alone stood the test of time? What makes it any more viable? Especially compared to the likes of the Foynes, Sligo, Cork, and Galway?

It is noted Ballina has (and had) major industries and MNCs and punches above its weight in that category, but its far from the only town with such?

37 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

Question: have IRM / AS ever produced a model of a loco class that no longer exists? 
I’m thinking in relation to which steam prototypes might be tackled in future. 
My impression, maybe wrong, is that scanning locos and close inspection of small details is part of their process, along with studying drawings and photos. 
I suppose there are some variants (e.g. some Buckjumpers, and the Class 30s) that don’t survive and must have been based on other sources. 

One of the Buckjumpers survives, there are dozens of surviving 31s (which are the reengined 30s iirc?)

Nothing in terms of motive power on the Midland survives!

3 hours ago, Patrick Davey said:

Despite my constant hints imploring IRM to produce a steam loco, the 800s are not quite in my area of interest although I am certainly following this thread with enthusiasm.

It was very encouraging to hear that early sales have been so good, it would be interesting to see an updated diagram of how sales are progressing, like IRM did for the A class - that was very skilled promotion I thought!

Some wild out there speculation here...look away if that's offends..

Accurascale started off steam with a 4-6-0 in the form of a Manor. Now we've an 800 en route on the IRM side

Considering the Buckjumpers and Panniers, one wonders if that will translate to an Irish tank engine?

One would assume the WT would be the go-to for tank engines, but then you have the ubiquitous T2s and J26s, too.

The latter I think has a very good case for itself, they were very widely travelled indeed! There's no midland bias going on at all...

The green question is a difficult one indeed.

The AEC railcars received the dark green livery initially iirc before being repainted with the rest of the fleet in the mid-50s into the lighter shade.

One needs look no further than various IRRS photos of the 800s to see how varied green can look. Maedbh has been in the same livery since the inception of CIE, however, the various photos of her after preservation have her green looking darker and lighter depending on the specific photo in question.

For a long time I was under the impression Macha had received the light green treatment with Tailte, but apparently this is not the case.

Initially I was sure the photo evidence of her in the early 60s was proof, but then I came across this..

42, nice as she is, is not what I'm looking at. The 400 behind her, presumably laid up as a sound barrier for Inchicore, and painted in the dark green, has been thoroughly sun bleached indeed!

Sorry to hear this John, best wishes to you and the family.

On 14/3/2025 at 4:33 PM, Galteemore said:

The average punter on a heritage railway will not care what is up front. What they will care about, quite reasonably, is -

can I park easily?

are the toilets clean ?

is the food of acceptable quality for the price ?

Did the staff treat me as a guest or as an inconvenience?

Whether there's good food and booze on the train is the main thing I've heard from the average Joe.

Steam specifically is probably better at attracting younger audiences and enthusiasts.

39 minutes ago, Niles said:

There's a report from the early 50s(?) which actually advocated the building of new steam locos, tied in with a proposal to cull a lot of the numerically-weak classes in an attempt at standardisation. Interestingly, the usefulness of the 2 K2 class locos (461 and 462) was noted and they would have been spared from the 'cull small classes' plan, had it come to pass. I must dig it out, but it suggests not all in CIÉ where necessarily committed to full dieselisation at that point.

That was the Milne report of 1948, as mentioned by John. It advocated for mass standardisation of the steam fleet (and maintenance practices) down to 2-6-0 and 0-6-0 types to cover all work.

11 minutes ago, Westcorkrailway said:

Oh my god I need to see this

Also, since I genuinly don’t know/can’t tell. CIE livery on steam loco. Was the lining white or cream/straw coloured as the IRM diagrams show? 

From what I can tell, its a creamy white 

It has a warm tone, and so often shows up as outright yellow in photos, but it is a creamy white.