exciecoachbuilder

Hi Murph, the oil train ran daily from Inchicore to the north wall. The Inchicore shunters would take turns at doing guard duty on the oil train, some of the shunters who I knew at the time, said it was a handy number. Also the big storage tanks seen in the photographs were used to supply the bus depots in Dublin as well. I remember the road oil tankers would do numerous runs from the works, to the depots every day. Yes the buildings you refer to facing onto Jamestown road was some kind of private metal / steel fabrication company. But at one stage it must have been C.I.E property, because you could still see the old railway line that ran in that direction. there was also an old level crossing gate there too. Paul....

Thank you, it was a pleasure..... Paul. Thank you Jonathan... Paul.

Hi, the paint on the loco body was painted with ICI multistripe paint. Multistripe, which meant it had a 40 minute drying time ( flash off) when baked. This meant that you could mask up quickly, and continue on spraying more colours etc. Then, when all the colours where finished, the multistripe painted part of the loco would be given two coats of laquer. The unerframe/ bogies, on the other hand were painted with ICI turbo plus paint. Turbo plus is a gloss finish paint, but it takes hours to dry, even after being baked, which meant that you could only do one colour, maybe two a day, which wasn't practical when doing multi coloured liveries. Irish rail were not going to use the much more expensive multistripe paint on bogies and underframes. When the new paint shop in Inchicore opened 1999/ 2000, the Cravens, MK 2's , MK3's , loco's, the whole lot, were painted with Turbo plus. It wasn't until they decided to do multi coloured liveries , that they needed to use a paint that would bascially speed up the job, hence the multistripe. I hope this answers some questions. Paul..

I only remember C.I.E police in Inchicore works. I worked in Connolly, Pearse and Heuston depots, and I don't recall seeing C.I. E police in any of those places.

Yes, you're right Citygold was introduced in 1993.

That's interesting, never heard that before, or never heard any of the fitters mention that? , The notch on the end of the key was a kind of release mechanism for safety reasons. Maybe the piece of timber worked? If I see some of the oul drivers that I knew, I will ask them. Paul....

Hi, these were a later version, the original handles of these keys were made from a type of resin or plastic. I'm not 100% sure, but some of these brass replacement keys could have been manufactured in the foundry in the works?? I can't remember to be honest. Paul..

Yeah, you are right. There certainly was a ' slam door ' at that end of the coach.

Here is a 141 class manual.

Is this the one that you are referring to?

Hi guys, this is the 'owners manual' that came with the loco's when they were delivered. The photograph in the manual is interesting, because the loco is longer than the CIE version and the cab is about a foot lower than the CIE version. No double windows at the back of the cab, also only four steps up into the cab instead of five on the Irish version. The six wheel bogies are different too.

Very true irishrailwayman. I will leave it at that.

Hi John, Yes the Park Royal programme initially was to re skin the coaches. But after stripping back one coach, the ' powers that be ' decided that the work would be too costly and time consuming. So they decided to fit the new steel panels over the existing old panels, much to the astonishment of the staff, especially the older generation coachbuilders. The original vestibule ends porthole windows or side lights as we called them , were done away with, and the replacement was just a steel panel with no window. All the new panels both outside, and the timber panels on the inside were pop- riveted on. Pop rivets or blind rivets as they are known , were the order of the day. The Park Royal programme was not one of the carriage shops finest moments, but these were the cash strapped days of C.I.E. Also John , Apart from the Park Royals, i really don't recall seeing asbestos on the other types of coaches that i had worked on, and I worked on a lot of heavy repair / crash / casualty jobs over the years. I do remember fitting sheets of black or brown ? asbestos in the new half heating van / half passenger conversions that C.I.E were doing in mid / late 70's. The whole new framework and access doors to the new boiler section , had fibreglass insulation/ sound proof, then asbestos sheeting which was then all sheeted out with steel paneling, which was all screwed into place. Interesting times in Inchicore during the ' poverty' era...

Hi lads, I don't recall any insulation on those type of coaches. I remember that the body side panels were just a thin sheet of timber with an aluminium outer skin glued onto the thin timber panel, and a veneered panel on the inside. There was no framing as such on the sides, instead there was a timber pillar from the cant rail ( top rail) to the bottom side (bottom section) each side of the windows. The only framing that I can remember was around the toilet section, and the end gangway sections of the coach.Also, they were the only coaches that were ever referred to as ( by coachbuilders in Inchicore works anyway. ) laminates. The new sides were done in a cheaper ' hurried up' way of traditional coachbuilding. The timber used for these rebuilds was iroko , which is a cheaper version of the more traditional teak that was used in previous times. Iroko is not a good timber to work with as the grain 'runs' in every direction, especially if you are notching out with a chisel for hinges etc or planing by hand. There was no asbestos on these carriages, the Park Royal coaches were literally stuffed with controversial blue asbestos. The asbestos was removed from each coach by contractors before work began on the Park Royal re- skinning , and interior re - fit programme 1981 / 83.

Hi guys, just a quick comment on the coach 1465. That coach was part of the ' rebuild ' program done in the carriage shop in Inchicore works between 1978/ 79. The only original (1950's) parts that you can see in the photograph , is the roof and the gangway ends of the coach. A lot of the doors were replaced too. The sawmill which was at the time , located within the carriage shop was very very busy in those days.

Just in reply to Mayner, it wasn't just a few laminates that were re -skinned. It was most , if not all the laminate fleet were ' rebuilt' in the late 70's and into the early eighties. They actually became known as Re-builds and never referred to as laminates again. Quiet a lot of work was done on them , not just re - skinning. New cant rails ( top rail ) were fitted along with whole new side frame sections. Then followed along with aluminium panels on the outside and awful plastic veneered panels on the interior. Complete new toilets were fitted too along with equally awful false tile pattern panels. No welding , no plastic , no fibreglass and no fumes. Nice clean work as we used to say.

Fantastic , I had forgotten about this film. I remember them filming in the Inchicore carriage shop during the NCB days ( new carriage building )of the Mk 3 building program. Some of the faces I recognize there are sadly no longer with us , including Vincent Connaghan the lifting shop senior foreman. Great memories..

That's exactly what they sounded like. I remember when I started as an apprentice in Inchicore back in 1977, one of the Sulzers was ticking over on the line just across from the carriage shop. The fitters working on it would rev it every now and again. Over the next few days, that loco and other Sulzers were shunted into a siding were they remained for many years to just rust away..