minister_for_hardship

Try placing an ad on the 'Exchange Sidings' here. https://www.signalbox.org/

I have a notion the other might be in that Tales of the Permanent Way book.

I've seen 2 photos of the GSR broad gauge ones, one in the Locomotives of the GSR book, and another of one at somewhere like Sallins or Monasterevin...brain may kick in as to what book that was in...

Are stocks of parts still available for them? In steam locos most wearing parts can be renewed with fairly basic technology so you don't have to rely on the original builders for bits who in any case may have ceased to be decades ago.

Bantry didn't change all that much over the years so could slip back into the GSR era just as well.

Depended on what part of the country they served. Lines like the Schull & Skibb had very homely structures. If you've even been inside an old station before modernisation, the lion's share of space was given over to first class passengers, and they usually had a separate Ladies' Waiting Room, sometimes those rooms were divided into classes depending on overall size of station. The SM's family had rather poky living spaces, but nothing compared to the 2 roomed cottages that LC keepers (and the then customary large families) had to inhabit. Still, they were better than the thatched mud-walled hovels that the majority of the population lived in.

A Hornby starter set even now is like a museum piece, compared to what other manufacturers are putting out.

I think we've had quite enough half-assed 'Irish' Hymeks and cheap and cheerful offerings from the likes of Hornby. I wouldn't care for a re-release, things have moved on in detail and quality.

I thought the grey stonework could have been improved by a more inspired paint scheme other than grey. Probably the cheapest colour they could find...other than black. The GS&WR rarely entertained red brick, except the odd place like Emly or Drumcondra and for constructing SM's houses on the West Kerry branches. The West Cork had a mixed bag of stone, red brick and corrugated iron buildings possibly reflecting the mixed bag of companies that eventually made up the CB&CSR and the D&SE had farm shed style station buildings and signal cabins.

To be fair, this was probably one of a *very* small number of cabins officially called 'boxes'. A few cabins carried bi-lingual enamel signs, that at Mallow (South) appears to have been in place up until recently until replaced by what looks like a replica. Claremorris and Birr might have had bilingual enamels on the cabins there, but can't confirm. Others carried painted on tin versions of the enamel bilinguals (Bantry, Killeagh, Midleton, Youghal & Cherryville Juct, and possibly Mogeely/Limerick Check/Limerick Station come to mind) The MGWR cabin at Ferns Lock seems to carry an off-standard MGWR enamel nameboard in the O'Dea collection photos. Re the GSR era bilingual signs, at a few locations these were painted over in white and the letters picked out in black (the opposite way round to the enamelled colours) to match the newer signage. Mallow is one place that that happened.

Can't say I was a fan of the grey scheme, made my own local station look rather dowdy and depressing, esp. coupled with the semi dereliction which was the norm at the time. Of course we have gone to the opposite extreme now, traditional station architecture marred with needless galvanised cattle mart fencing and gates, palisade fences better suited to prisons or industrial estates, ugly galv lamp standards and plastic Lidl-esque light fixtures, etc.

Yes. Only the face and wooden surround are original survivors, the rest had to be sourced and rebuilt. Makers were Tameside Clock Co. Have only seen marked GNRI clocks and know that marked GS&WR clocks existed, know of one that was saved...never saw it in the flesh. Examining the O'Dea collection of signal cabin interiors, it seems that the GS&W marked some of their clocks, the Midland looked like they used unmarked domestic-looking drop dial clocks with an octagonal surround rather than the usual fusée type.

It's a 'rebuild' plate, a scarcer category I imagine?

Did it have a caption? It looks to me like a road-hauled tar tanker or oil/water bowser on a wagon for carriages/motor cars?

They look like an ad hoc measure for a very short lived traffic flow. The tanks look as if they were adapted static tanks or had come from scrapped lorries. EDIT might not havebeen for milk...maybe fuel oil for CIE road trucks/forklifts? But tanks would have been originally built for holding/carrying milk.

As genuine as a €3 note. There are some really stupid ones out there...saw one headed 'M.C.W.R.' and another 'C.I.E.R.' (sic.) for sale in various markets. As long as people keep buying this rubbish there will be a market. It's fine if you pay a little over scrap metal value for a novelty for your garden, but there will always be people trying to pass them off as the real thing to the unsuspecting. British railwayana is a minefield, signs with simulated rust and railway clocks made in India that only experts (and not general antiques trade) can tell fake from original.

Any variant of the rectangular gate notice of the format 'NOTICE Any person leaving this gate open is liable to a penalty of forty shillings' that isn't headed either GS&WR/GSR/WD&LR is 100% a fake. It should be reasonably easy to find genuine GSWR gate notices, since so many were made. The GSR ones were probably replacements for broken/missing ones or for new sets of farm crossing gates installed post '25 so hen's teeth numbers survived. WD&LR ones only on the former Waterford Dungarvan and Lismore so very small quantities cast and also harder to find, font was a bit different to the GSWR type so that's one way of telling a WD&LR fake. Irregular fonts and crappy casting with air holes and inclusions are indicators a sign may have originated from the Orient rather than closer to home...although I have seen genuine wagon plates badly cast or with letters/numbers the wrong way round or upside down as they would be less particular about those as opposed to a notice intended for the public. The DN&GR trespass notice fail above carries the name of the GS&WR secretary and references the 1903 GS&WR Act.

Looks a bit rough and ready. Am I seeing things or is it tied down with nylon rope??

Re the milk churns: at a vintage rally there was a guy with a restored vintage pick up truck with churns on the back, most if not all of them marked near the rim with things like (paraphrasing here as I neglected to get a pic) 'Return to Rathkeale GSR station' or some such. The ones that had markings were for stations mainly on the North Kerry. Found one marked for Banteer Station in a disused creamery, wanted to retrieve it but as was on the second floor plus almost full to the top with hardened concrete I had to dismiss that idea.

They're on the passing lorry using the level crossing, there was/is a creamery adjacent to the railway.

There's a few brake vans still hanging around, if you had a closed wagon and maybe a cattle wagon (did any survive?) you could have a demo pick up goods.

The lower bit says 'vehicle plate'. The modern version of this now carried by private buses is an oval alloy plate with just 'Public Service Vehicle' in Irish and an ID number usually fixed up front inside the bus. I have one somewhere with the reg numbers of previous buses that carried it scratched into the backside of it, so as well as going through several owners the plate could have been carried by more than one vehicle. I believe CIE buses had to carry them at one point but not any more. CIE Conductors used wear an oval badge headed 'F.S.P.' (Public Service Vehicle abbreviated in Irish), a central number and 'Fear Stiurtha' (lit. Steering Man, not to be confused with Driver 'Tiomanai') underneath from a time when it couldn't be imagined there would be such a thing as a female bus conductor. Can be seen here worn by Albert Finney in A Man Of No Importance.