Garfield

I have that copy of IRN but have been quite skeptical of the assertion that a number of locos were turned out in the same dark green livery as A46. As it was written a few years later, and as reference photos were most likely to have been black & white, I think there's a possibility that the writer misremembered or was mislead by the quality of some images and that they were actually looking at locos in the lighter green livery with waistband (with added coatings of dirt and Crossley engine oil)? There's a B&W photo in the George Mahon collection on the IRRS Flickr archive (link here for those who are members) which shows A11 - one of the locos supposedly turned out in dark green - in 1960, wearing a lined green livery. It's impossible to say for certain, of course, but the paint appears 'lighter' than the shade used on the 800s, which appears much darker in B&W images taken around the same time... Happy to be proven wrong, though!

We know that A46 had been repainted by 1967, thanks to this J. P. O'Dea image (via the NLI's Flickr account). There's also another A Class loco in the frame (possibly A22), which is wearing the pre-rebuild B&T livery.

Hi Patrick, The pre-rebuild Black & Tan livery lived alongside the all-over black livery. Some locos got B&T, most got black, and a small number got black with the yellow nose panels. As for the green livery - the lighter shade was by far the most common. The dark green livery on A46 was most likely unique, although there are rumblings another loco may have received the same shade for a short period - it's the same shade of green that was applied to the 800s in the Flying Snail era. Some locos with the lighter green livery also received an eau-de-nil waistband (a variation we may produce in the future if there is demand).

Well there's already a bid on it, so...

It was a station, although I don't know a lot about it. There are some images in the NLI's O'Dea collection: http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000305774 http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000305773 It's interesting to see that passengers had to use a barrow crossing to get from one platform to the other as there was no footbridge...

Pretty sure it didn't reach Bantry, but not sure about Baltimore. I'll have to see if I can dig out some notes...

That's the plan.

Looks good. Technically speaking, the container yard/per way siding would need to be protected by a set of catch points or a headshunt as it leads straight to a running line. The loco storage road acts as the headshunt for the oil storage siding...

It's really a completely separate hobby to modelling, which just happens to revolve around the same products. We're viewing these as 'tat' purely from a modeller's standpoint, as our primary concern in most cases is overall quality and accuracy to the prototype, whereas their value to collectors relies on them ticking an entirely different set of boxes - brand, time frame, numbers produced, etc. From a collector's standing, the Jouef HDI products have a number of characteristics which may make them attractive - the novelty of the liveries applied to the locos and rolling stock, the uniqueness of the HDI operation as the only industrial-scale producer of model railway equipment to have a factory in Ireland, the short length of the operation's existence, the relatively small quantities produced - and even smaller quantities which survive today, the part the company played in the Shannon Development story, etc. etc. etc.

It wouldn't be viable to supply lids by themselves, I'm afraid.

Yep, the lid on the right is the second lid type. Seems they were introduced slowly as the originals expired - similar to how the newer 'peaked' type of lid is being rolled out over time. The difference between the two bogies is most noticeable at the ends - over the springs.

Looks like remnants of the blue livery with some brown patch-painting to me? CIE/IR weren't as fussy about maintaining the exteriors of these wagons back then, and the ore took its toll on the paintwork so at that point the majority may have been bare metal with quite a bit of road dirt, ore dust and general grime. The corrosive nature of the ore is also the reason why the lids have been replaced over time... Also of interest - this wagon has had a set of shale/cement wagon bogies fitted instead of the regular Y33s. Wonder if it was a test or if they were fitted while its regular set received attention?

If I recall correctly, the change in colour occurred around the turn of the millennium and the 'second gen' lids were added around the same time. A third type of lid is gradually replacing that type (and has been for at least the past five years) as they wear out. It's the second lid style that's present on the IRM Tara wagons. The last B&T locos received the Supertrain livery around 1975 so unfortunately none were around to power Tara traffic in its early days.

That news item is from March 2018 and the DMU refurbishment programme mooted in it (for the stored 2700s) has not gone ahead. The stories in the first post relating to the Kildare line and Luas expansions are from 2020...

Hi Bumble Bee, Would the best place to discuss these topics not be this very forum, as Bosko suggests above? Facebook is littered with countless groups which means conversations get diluted and lost rather quickly. And here on the forum you already have the facility to host a neutral/non-biased discussion while also having a direct line to a manufacturer.

This might come in useful, too...

Looks like you might have yourself the cover of a turntable's central pivot point...

It's a standard EMD loco key, so would work with all those types. Like carriage keys, you need a good reason to be entrusted with one so they're not easy to get hold of.

I was getting a distinct feeling of deja vu reading that, then I checked the date on the story and realised it's over four years old!

The Great Southern Railway converted quite a few locomotives to burn oil during 'The Emergency', but they were converted back to coal afterwards. You can identify these locomotives in photographs as they had rectangular oil tanks fitted onto the tenders and a white/pale yellow circle on the side of the tender to identify them as oil-burners. Here's a public domain pic (via Wikipedia) of a K4 converted to burn oil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GS%26WR_Class_368#/media/File:CIE_no._360_(32520107288).jpg

It's quite likely they would have had to visit Dundalk for the loco to run around if ballasting south of Newry. Just a note on the wagons themselves - they were Walruses, not Sealions/Seacows.

Not sure about Mallow, but I think most were sidelined upon the introduction of the vacuum-braked 'double decker' beet wagons and the arrival of ex-CIÉ G Class locos to CSE sites in the late 1970s.

Warehouse collection = click & collect, JB...

The Cravens would usually be placed on the far side of the generator van from the main set. They'd be locked to prevent access, and obviously couldn't draw light or heat.