minister_for_hardship

First class all the way to Dingle, no slumming it with the great unwashed!

The 'snail' came in 'left hand' and 'right hand' versions so that the upper 'wing' always pointed towards the front of the loco or cab of the bus/lorry. Once came across a poster in a derelict station building, still pasted onto the timber poster board. Had a big tear in it but thought it rather odd as it was headed with a large black snail printed the 'wrong' way round. Shortly afterwards the building it was in was torched by vandals.

IIRC it dates back as far as the late '30's when the DUTC introduced it for their trams and buses. The term 'flying snail' may pre-date CIE...Dubliners being renowned wits at nicknaming things humourously.

Westrail had a red 'E'. http://images.yuku.com.s3.amazonaws.com/image/pjpeg/2dc367171d18a4e8cbaedddbff208186d8697abf.pjpg http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=12453&d=1395315452

Some info on the floating stock (as opposed to rolling stock) of Guinness's. http://lugnad.ie/guinnessfleets/

There was rudimentary track system to go with those, not offered on cornflakes packet afaik. https://img0.etsystatic.com/022/0/6454105/il_570xN.478011210_70ga.jpg Also a GWR Pannier tank, diesel shunter and seem to remember a Wild West (-ish) loco. EDIT: the wild west loco was a Corgi item. http://globaldiecastdirect.com/20085-thickbox_default/corgi-juniors-wild-west-show-steam-locomotive.jpg

The Lough Swilly had 4-8-0s as well.

900 was built in 1915 and 901 in 1924. Withdrawn in 1928 and 1931 respectively. Used for shunting and banking goods trains between Kingsbridge and Inchicore. Both were prone to derailments and banned from certain sharply curved sidings. 901 was the only loco brought into traffic during the existence of the Great Southern Railway (in the singular)

Think that might have been the cheapest grey paint they could get simply to protect the woodwork, appearances didn't even come into it. Re painting the doors a different or contrasting colour. One wonders how on earth did emergency services manage to find doors when they were all the one colour?

The GSR had it tough, a triple whammy of WW1 and Civil War legacies and then worldwide depression from '29. They weren't slow to experiment...Sentinel shunters and railcars/Drumm battery train/various gimcracks for increasing steam efficiency, etc. I'm sorry for all the fanboys out there, but the 800s were rather unnecessary white (or is that green?) elephants. Pity they had to strip almost all pre-GSR locos of their sometimes evocative names, doubtless they found their way into the melting pot to make brass bearings or something. Think one of the biggest losses to preservation was the Tramore 2-2-2, word on the street had it that it might be an early candidate for preservation had it not come a cropper. NBL also tendered CIE with a centre cab loco, but they chose GM instead, have a drawing of it that might-have-been somewhere.

Stiff upper lip and all that chaps, what?

I know the ones, O scale-ish. Not 100% sure how authentic they are, the Garda insignia on the Model T looks enormous.

On Gregg Ryan's Inchicore 150 book, there's a pic of a worker with a flying snail tin stencil for marking goods wagons. The idea was that the bits that held the stencil together were supposed to be 'filled in' by whoever was painting them on, some pics of wagons you can see where the painter had neglected to do this!

Have an original transfer that I framed a number of years ago. Pale green, edged in gold. About a foot and a half long by 12'' high.

The scattergun approach to ebay selling, in the hopes that some mug will place a bid.

Would imagine it would be worth around a grand or so, don't think anything Fry made came on the open market (open to correction on this!) so nothing to go on. A million is moonshine talk. Seller is chancing his arm. If this was a 'normal' country, we would have a transport museum that would get in contact with the seller and check it out. It is a pretty unique item of our transport heritage, but our National Museum simply wouldn't be bothered.

A real 1:1 vintage bus wouldn't be worth a million! http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C557709 It still is CIE's property though...might not be worth a mil, but a fair wodge of cash all the same, even considering its condition....

According to Cyril Mc Intyre's CIE Buses book, it was exhibited in the Irish Pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in GSR ivory and black, photographed in 1952 used as a window display in the American Express Company's Travel Service. Repainted in 1954 to match U class coaches, Last time it was seen in public was a CIE display at the 1956 Cork Summer Show before 'disappearing without trace'. *cough*

One West Clare loco was reputed to have been dubbed "I'll Walk Beside You" after the Count John McCormack song because of its speed...or lack thereof.

Have heard the SL&NC rendered as 'The Slow, Late and Never Comes', the Cork & Muskerry as both 'The Muskerry Tram' and 'The Hook and Eye' and the Schull and Skibbereen as 'The Trameen'.

One uk enthusiast remarked to me that it was like something applied in wartime....so maybe we can call it the 'Austerity' livery...

Any one-off liveried pieces of rolling stock get nicknamed? Only one I can think of is the Civil War armoured car fitted with flanged wheels called the 'Grey Ghost' on account of its paint scheme and near silent progress on patrol.

DN&GR - same livery as the LNWR 'Blackberry Black' for locos and 'Plum and Spilt Milk' for coaches. B&NCR - 'Invisible Green' CDRJC - 'Geranium Red'

A few from the archives... Ah yes...they do have a wonderful sense of humour down under...

They were either cast alloy or painted timber, had two brackets at the back for hooking them on coaches. Each train had boards with the train 'name', Failte/Slainte/Cu na Mara/Deiseach/Seandun/Sarseal and separate origin-destination boards in Irish and English versions. Must have been a RPITA for someone to put them all up/taken them all down/change them but sure labour was cheap.