minister_for_hardship

A replica loco etc. would be pie-in-the-sky stuff.

Or built heritage in general, 100's of towns and villages up and down the country have historic great houses, castles etc. etc. simply crumbling away and falling down. Clearly everything can't be preserved, but people here are far more interested in other things.

The Harry Potter "Best Concealed Platform" Award?

(no, not the Vauxhall car) https://i0.wp.com/briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Irish_Rail_Colbert_Station_Limerick_P1580994.jpg?resize=474%2C710 This cast metal Wyvern (heraldic dragon type thing) is attached to the wall at Colbert. But what is it doing there? It's very like to old pre-grouping Midland Railway of England device but there's no connection there. And iirc the Midland one didn't have any legs. From the looks of the holes at the bottom, it might have held a plaque that's now missing. Anyone any ideas?

Carrigaline, presumably also filled in but still down there?

I have a GSR appendix to the wtt which has every crossing listed from back then but obvs. no modern codes or post 1935 LCs

Nothing much standard, apart from examples like the polychrome GNR brick. Large companies like the GS&W made up of a hodge podge of smaller companies of varying means, constructing buildings at different times and going to different contractors and architects. Some GSWR branches do have buildings, not really identical, but variations on a theme, say on the Kerry Road. The GSR did do a line of signal cabins with a family resemblance though.

This might have a good chance of success if it could milk the sentiments of the Irish American community, but much like the Irish themselves it may be all well meaning idle chatter with little opening of purse strings. Basically the "someone should do something" attitude. If it was GAA or Tidy Towns there would be no shortage of volunteers and people willing to roll up sleeves or throw money in the pot. ..but railways...not so much. As an aside, one of the main locations in the movie, the cottage, is still in a ruined state after years of attempts at restoration and (typically) a legal squabble over ownership, all the while sightseers have been helping themselves to stones and other materials from it.

Think white painted lamps were only carried for enthusiasts' specials and publicity photos.

Isn't 184 carrying plates up in Whitehead? Assume there were recast and not the 1880 originals?

It's NCC 90, not GS&WR 90. Red background. No 'GS&WR' or 'Inchicore Works' wording. But even the plate GS&W 90 wore in Mallow was not the original, a re-casting by Inchicore before she was 'stuffed and mounted' I would wager. 90 went for a long time in black/grey and painted-on numerals so the original plate would have been tipped into the melting pot along with the others.

Auctioneers are a bit clueless; something painted on steel described as 'enamel', wagon plates as 'loco number plates', one loco plate appears to have been photographed and described upside down...

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.