minister_for_hardship

The Irish college in Ballingeary had 3 or 4 grounded six wheeler bodies as dorms, two were GS&WR origin iirc, they were incinerated in the 1990s. Internal partitions were partly cut away to access the length of each coach, fitted out with bunk beds and a wash hand basin at the end. The GS&WR ones still retained luggage racks with 'GSWR' cast into the brackets and one had a window with 'SMOKING' etched into it.

As you can see the Act had a lot in it... http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1933/act/11/enacted/en/html

It's a licence plate from a road vehicle, not necessarily one owned by GSR/CIE. Like a private coach... I have seen one on a lorry before, so probably licenced hauliers had them as well at one time. Private buses still carry an alloy oval plate along the same lines, without referencing the Act. Don't think CIE buses have had to carry them for some time, think they got an exemption way back. Taxis have them too...http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6064/6031102942_dd70aba833.jpg

Isn't that a coach in Departmental grey with just the board clapped up on it? One of those boards hung around Mallow for a long time after the GSRPS imploded, don't know where it went, landfill perhaps. Think it had a dark green background with eau de nil letters. An attempt to copy what BR were doing in around the same time, not sure if it was all that successful. Iirc saw a pic of a number of them at the then recently closed Tramore station, maybe they were stabled at other seaside type locations as well? Youghal maybe?

A flying snail is not an insect, it's actually an avian variety of mollusc.

Not entirely unknown for things of British origin, esp something as portable as a container, to end up stranded over here. Maybe even acquired by CIE?

Could be something that could have been bogging around an airport or wholly road transport-related, but less likely. Get your briar hook out and uncover the other end.

It looked more like a roundel from further away! In the close-up, it looks like it's infilled with white as well... The spring loaded label holder would be an almost sure sign it is of railway origin.

Perish the thought!

Think I spotted what looked like a furniture container a while back? Didn't take a pic, so Google Maps.

They would have mouldered and become overgrown like the New Ross branch, Foynes, Youghal etc. There may have been partial Cork-Midleton type revivals and perhaps a few more greenways/cycleways for the clearly uneconomic portions. Perhaps some efforts at preservation? Who knows? I see the South Kerry cycleway proposal is facing some local opposition, although I see the press article stating that CIE 'gave away' the land...thought they sold it to adjacent landowners?

There's two, perhaps 3 ex Cork and Muskerry coaches in use as holiday homes near Youghal and in pretty good shape too. There were lots of coaches, wagons and even buses up around Crosshaven, pretty much all of these have either rotted away or have been demolished. One ng wagon, either C&MLR or CB&PR origin survives as a garden shed. Spotted what looked like one half of a parcels, brake or postal van cut in two a few years ago, but covered in cladding on three sides with one side backed onto a high wall so impossible to tell what exactly it was.

90 also got decked out in a similar or maybe identical, lined green before being plinthed at Fermoy. Thought the J15 lined green was applied before CIE finished with them? Seem to recall a pic of a green J15 shunting goods wagons in Irish Railways in Colour.

The new battleship grey and discarding of the colourful pre-1925 liveries and evocative nameplates lent the GSR a dowdy public image, but they weren't slow to experiment with things that might be advantageous, various steam loco performance enhancing gimcracks, steam railcars, Drumm battery trains. If they only cottoned on to diesel railcars sooner, like the GWR, but the money wasn't there I'd imagine. Steam railcars fell out of fashion quickly, but don't understand the Sentinel shunters having such short lives, they being pretty standard-ish items (apart from gauge) Presume there were plenty elderly locos which could do the same work.

Both are lacking. Companies like IE slap up the signage simply to comply with regulations and the bulk of the public couldn't care less what is in the bit they don't read.

The (unfinished) Mallow-Lombardstown canal wasn't killed off by the railway...it expired due to the fact that road transport was seen as being more economical...in the 1780s(!)

The sort of people who suggest you are somehow 'less Irish'...whatever that might mean, if you are unable to speak it or simply choose not to speak it doesn't win any popularity contests.

How did CIE get lumbered with the canals? I assume they weren't really crazy about taking them over?

That's what I thought, we saw this sort of thing not so long ago.... Without funding, would the GS&WR (and others) have scraped by, perhaps the closures of the 1960's may have happened in the 1930's instead?

Just recalling a snippet from the McNeill/Murray history of the GS&WR, that the board of the GS&W approached the new Irish govt for aid in the aftermath of the Civil War, giving more or less an ultimatum that they were prepared to close down the entire system such were the losses incurred. Wonder how serious they were about that?

That would have been originally topped with an enormous cast iron ball and spike that was either removed or had broken off.

Some Irish signals did have fancy finials, but would have been replaced most everywhere by the Suoertrain era. Think they may have been a Railway Signal Co design manufactured by Courtney & Stephens. One double armed example with a square timber post with a ball and spike finial survived up until the end at Lixnaw.

The Fintona tram being either taken away for repairs after the horse bolted or heading into preservation??

Correct, Weshty just ordered a pint and a packet of pork scratchings in Burmese.

Spot the difference? Despite all the use of the Irish language to conform to their obligations, they still manage to get it wrong. I'm sure other signage is probably riddled with errors, though I wouldn't notice, as I'm just about able to ask permission to use the toilet in 'the medium' after the years of schooling in it.