minister_for_hardship

No hard and fast rule. Animals aren't that heavy and you get big/small ones (obligatory Fr Ted reference) so it would be at the discretion of the people loading them up although you would need to allow space for them to lie down if they were going to be there for an extended time. The GSR appendix had notes about feeding/watering animals and looking after their welfare if they had been in transit over extended periods and cleaning/disinfection of wagons.

I think it may be grass, there would be a big rush around fair days and markets with animals taking up the entire loading bank and pens (perhaps when they got full you would have drovers standing around minding animals waiting to be penned in the goods yards/station approaches) and the rest of the time there may only be single animals or small groups travelling occasionally taking up only a single pen giving grass time to grow. I'm assuming on fair days something like an ancient 6 wheeler would be hooked on for drovers and dealers.

More loading, this time at Killorglin interestingly there seems to be a chalked destination to the right of the doors.

Not all places could handle livestock, though most could. Locations in suburbia, very small halts or stations that were not road connected generally wouldn't have a cattle bank. The GSR Appendix listed the exclusions and the MASSIVE 'Handbook' Of Railway Stations had a glossary of what stations could handle which traffic, crane max loads etc.

Criss cross patterns in the concrete surface of the bank (to stop cattle from slipping in the wet) and signage like this were usually in the environs of a cattle bank. Here's a clip from the 1970's with Friesians (for the cow gricers) being loaded...

Are Leprechaun hunts part of the tour itinerary for our American friends?

The ESB were users, iirc Latil trucks were imported by Thompsons of Carlow.

Cattle Market Dublin 50's/1960's. All appear to be either completely or largely black or red, white-ish or mottled red/white. No clearly defined black/white Friesians at all. Believe they only started appearing in numbers from 70's onwards. So Kerrys/Dexters/Shorthorns would be the main breeds at the time with Shorthorns probably being the more numerous. Here we go... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthorn#/media/File:Light_Roan_Shorthorn_Heifer_DSCN1872b.jpg Lots of horned cattle can be seen which is almost unknown now, horn buds are destroyed in calves to stop them growing for safety when handling and to stop them getting caught in feeders etc.

The railway modeller equivalent of property speculation.

That explains a nickname for the 121s I heard a while back and didn't get at first, the "High Nellies"!

More than just a matt undercoat, yes alright. But still looks ad hoc and not quite fitting in with the rest of what they had. A pic here of a brand new 121 being craned off the boat, minus bogies and already carrying snails, numerals and wasp stripes. Perhaps sets of transfers were either sent over or sourced and made up Stateside. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/GM_diesel_locomotive_B124_being_unloaded_from_a_ship_at_the_North_Wall_in_Dublin.jpg (bit hard to see, needs a little enlargement and they can be made out) Don't know about if the rail side of CIE took cues from the bus side, apart from the outset where the first CIE logo and livery was a variation of the DUTC scheme.

I wonder was the grey that was applied to the 121's a sort of generic factory finish, as GM (or CIE themselves) might not have been sure of what they wanted? Why didn't they get the then standard(-ish) green? It is very much an odd man out in the loco livery scheme of things. The silver was proven to be a disaster from a point of view of showing dirt, why would they choose another light colour to get similarly filthy? Or is it too much to apply logic to what CIE did?

Perhaps more and better quality coal getting shipped in, instead of the coal dust and rubbish that the GSR had to make do with. Station nameboards being taken down/painted over and blackout restrictions in line with the uk. Greater risk of attack, passenger traffic might include children from larger centres getting evacuated to the countryside. Valuable items being removed from galleries and museums being shipped out to safety outside of Dublin. Military equipment/troop trains and perhaps a portion of Inchicore and/or Broadstone turned over to munitions production.

Have seen somewhere the theory that if the West Cork had lasted a little bit longer to coincide with the opening of Whiddy Island oil terminal, it just might have provided a lifeline for it.

I was assuming that the Civil War didn't happen, that for sake of argument an amicable outcome happened in '22. One could assume that resources that went into repairing destroyed infrastructure went towards bettering the position of the railway companies, although they would still have to contend with mass motor transport. Outside investment might not have been scared away and economic growth stunted during '22/'23...lines like the Listowel and Ballyb would still have gone to the wall (perhaps acquired and relaunched as 5'3'' by the GSR?) but maybe limped into the 1930s or expired on the outbreak of WW2 and coal shortages. If it weren't for the likes of the Lawrence Studio and Fayle (with a tiny cohort of others) there would be a very poor record of Irish Railways pre WW1.

With matchboarded coaches it would be difficult to apply a decal, unless you did what the West Clare did in pre-GSR days, mount it on a flat board fixed to the coach sides.

What if...what if the Civil War (and the destruction that came with it) never happened? Would the minor lines that were badly affected have lasted a little longer than they did?

Why couldn't they schedule more frequent services with shorter trains instead of building three monsters just to carry out this one task?

I vaguely recall IR checkers using portable ticket machines on a shoulder strap that looked rather heavy and boxy and didn't seem to work properly all of the time, when the credit card-sized tickets came out. Didn't seem to last long in service not surprisingly.

Try this site for lots of pics (links on RHS of page), but the vast majority of these handheld machines were for buses although the Almex type machine pictured in the second post superceded the Edmondson ticket press and were used in CIE/IR booking offices from about the 1960s to 1990s iirc albeit fixed to the counter rather than hand held. T.I.M. machines with the phone-like dial was used by the bus services of the DUTC and CIE and nicknamed 'Flintstones' because they were so primitive! I believe trams used the 'Bell Punch' type tickets and equipment. http://www.ticketmachinewebsite.com/

Off top of my head, may suit then again may required a hell of a lot of cut & shut.. LNER Sentinel-GSR Sentinel railcar http://www.mremag.com/index.php/news/342-lnerrailcarreintro LBSCR terrier-GSWR 90 or sister locos. L&YR 2-4-2T-WL&WR/GS&WR/C&MDR 2-4-2T Wainwright C - WL&WR or MGWR 0-6-0? GWR Star - 400 class? New Hornby Peckett-Allman's/GSR/CIE Peckett

The broad gauge sidings out of Kingsbridge indeed appear to be crossed by the Guinness tramways in a number of places. One BG siding seems to transform into narrow gauge, must be the place where the NG locos were lifted into BG convertor yokes to shunt BG stock. http://www.irsociety.co.uk/Archives/22/Guinness_17.jpg

Ennis had mixed gauge as well.

Who was it that did the pre-recorded layout self-guided tour voiceover? Some former RTE presenter putting on a stagey Irish brogue? It was streets ahead of an imitation like Clonakilty in terms of genuine Irish models, even though from a child's point of view the operators were a bit on the grouchy side and a fair trek to come up the country to see it.

'Supposedly', would doubt the Irish locos had that nickname applied. Perhaps the railway industry technical press or enthusiasts called them that, there is a marked near-absense of nicknames used to describe loco classes in Ireland compared to Britain.