minister_for_hardship

The Lartigue boys were involved in a history podcast some time ago. Not enough distinction between GS&WR and GSR made, calling the GS&WR "The Great Southern" as shorthand but confusing to a non enthusiast listener if not made clear.

I always preferred the curt "Nächste Halt ...." (next stop) in Germany rather than a whole lot of chatter about what to do, where to sit, where not to smoke, reserved seats yadda yadda yadda in both languages.

They're paid by the word? Or maybe they're covering themselves in case some brain dead passenger turns up to wait for a train at Dundalk Bus Station or Dundalk Post Office and Twitters in on the Muskograph to complain.

It would be interesting to know how many court cases are won with freeman pseudo legal arguments. I'm guessing zero.

"Strange choice for a model, as they were short-lived, and never used as train engines." A straight paint job on an existing model, an easy and cheap choice.

Does not post to Free State.

Not unusual to see bridges built for a double road and enough space for a second line that never got built in the end, redundancy in case traffic was better than projected. Foynes branch was always single.

On small lines with not a lot of spending money, they stuck in painted timber mileposts at the outset to satify the Board of Trade inspection until taken over by a larger company which replaced them with something more permanent, usually in the larger company's standard design. On closure, fixtures and fittings would be removed for reuse elsewhere, put up for auction or sold for scrap. You'd still find large stone GSWR and CBSCR and concrete DWWR mileposts along trackbeds as they were more trouble than they were worth to remove.

Belfast & Northern Counties pattern milepost. Reasonably plentiful I would think.

Wonder what that tax office building is doing now? Only asking as I had a hand in the construction of part of that, my then boss was telling me he saw traces of the railway site digging the foundations for it.

Someone's unfinished project?

Scratching my head at some of the "letters to prescribed bodies", why on earth do the Arts Council and Failte Ireland need to be notified about closing level crossings? Yes but the world and his mother need to be able to make submissions and file objections now. Someone up in Donegal might object.

They used trains of old loco tenders to take water out to places where the local supplies weren't kind to boilers. Mend and make do.

Wonder if it was souvenired/robbed while sat at Thurles, Inchicore or Cultra? From what I remember of a visit to Cultra in the 90s, some signalling displays were easily accessible and presumably damaged by the public and the kids were using Blanche as a climbing frame.

800 in UFTM. I forgot where I read it, but an account of a cab ride of a UK visitor in steam days there was a mention that it was Irish practice to leave the backplate unlagged.

Noticed a brass built coach at the (closed) ticket hatch at Athlone. It's a bit high up but appears to be a presentation for best station or the like. Wonder if it's a specific prototype? Looks O scale-ish. Couldn't get a better shot with reflection.

A shortage of flats and a surplus of opens available? Should be lots of opens kicking around outside of beet season.

Four lines of bolt heads on the sides, these appear to have been captured on Leslie's version.

Seriously thinking of repainting my Provincial Wagons "H" to make a green "H" out of it for a little variety.

I got mine yesterday. Oil's well that ends well.

Or, cynical hat on, if there's an angle they can make money out of it.

With the UK there's a latent sense of pride that they practically invented them, here they're still looked upon in some quarters as being a bit foreign. I do think in some of the younger generation, when they see a well done exhibition model railway there's a "that's cool" respectful reaction rather than pointing and sniggering at "toy trains" and their operators (sic.)

An old furniture container of mine did sit nicely in a Shapeways Bulleid, but not the IRM version.