Grand Tour 1963

[patrick]

Incredible views of Irish Railways in 1963. 

[leslie10646]

Thanks for highlighting this. Some interesting snatches.

I hope cover some of the 1961 Grand Tour in my next Lance King show (in 2023, DV).

 

[StevieB]

Lovely stuff. Just out of interest, what was 152 doing parked in the sidings at Warrenpoint?

Stephen

[Rush and Lusk]

Fantastic video - great glimpses of so much from 1963 - the wonderfully formal dress code of men, the now quaint car models on the street, relatively undeveloped towns & countryside etc.

Thanks Patrick

[Lambeg man]

Many thanks for posting Patrick. Do we know who the photographer was?

The actual footage of the 1964 Steam Railtour does not start until 04.28. The prior footage may date from later as that of Newry at 01.03 appears to be post 1965 closure.

The main tour started on Saturday 6th June 1964, but the early scenes were recorded on a preliminary outing the previous day to Ardee, & Howth. The station at 05.15 is Rush & Lusk. The grey GM at 06.19 is arriving with the 08.15 Belfast-Dublin service (UTA coaching stock). The locomotive took over the train at Dundalk. Station at 06.50 is Dromin Junction. 07.50 shows arrival of the special at Ardee. 08.20 returning to Drogheda passing under the "buckets" (arial ropeway) used by the Cement Factory.

10.28 to 16.30 approx is all Saturday 6th June 1964.

16.30 to  24.10 approx is all Sunday 7th - obviously a Sunday judging with the children's attire at 23.54!

24.10 to  26.34 - Monday "The Kerry Circuit"

26.35 to...

Sorry I have to give up here. 32.00 is Fenit which was visited on the 8th, but the preceding and following footage was shot on later days, so the footage does not appear to be in chronological order.

37.48 onwards was taken Thursday 11th. 57.44 shows the ex-GNR 'Q' class No. 131 (which is now preserved by the RPSI) which on this date was dragged out of storage at Mullingar by CIE purely for the benefit of photographers on the tour.

WOW! At 41.47 look at the departing BUT set. The date is 11th June 1964 and the Brake/2nd in the set is still in full GNR 'Railcar' livery!!! 

53.24 onwards was taken on Friday 12th June. 

57.44 onwards was taken the following day.

On 8/2/2022 at 5:33 PM, StevieB said:

Lovely stuff. Just out of interest, what was 152 doing parked in the sidings at Warrenpoint?

Being a Saturday, B152 was on an excursion from the south. Warrenpoint for some unexplained reason was a favored destination for CIE excursions. Therefore if modelling Warrenpoint in the 1960's, 141 GM's, CIE liveried 'AEC' & 'BUT' Railcar sets, etc. (not to mention CIE Goods vehicles) would not be out of place.

 

Edited March 29, 2022 by Lambeg man

[Niles]

Some nice little details in there, for whatever reason you don't often come across shots showing Macmine Junction's context in relation to the Slaney.

[Horsetan]

On 8/2/2022 at 7:54 PM, Rush and Lusk said:

Fantastic video - great glimpses of so much from 1963 - the wonderfully formal dress code of men, the now quaint car models on the street, relatively undeveloped towns & countryside etc.

It occurs to me that 1963 was probably the last time we saw the Irish network at anything like full strength in terms of track layout before the system began to be run down / shut down / mothballed / lifted.

I'm particularly interested in the miniature "pointer" colour light signal shown at 49.43/45. Belfast York Road famously had a number of these miniature signals, mostly on the entry/exit gantry, but very few photos have ever been published of them close up. Hardly anywhere else was equipped with them.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Horsetan

[jhb171achill]

1950, really. In that year the UTA closed a large mileage of railway completely and withdrew passenger services on mother parts. However, a number of branches with services "temporarily" suspended during the fuel shortages of the 1940s never saw regular trains again either.

1957 saw the massive GNR closures.

On CIE, a spate of branch line closures took place during 1958-63, though the bigger mileages were 1967 and 1975.

[Galteemore]

Know what you mean about 63 - still lots of stuff like Derry Road and Mallow-Waterford, Burma Road etc…but if you were to offer me a week in history to go exploring around, I’d pick 1950 - lots of mileage but also lots of variety, both steam and I/c, not to mention 3’ gauge. Mind you, 1910 also has its attractions - imagine the rainbow parade of trains through Ballysodare……

[jhb171achill]

The overall mileage was at its height between 1913 and 1923; after the Keady-Castleblayney line had opened, but before it and the Listowel & Ballybunion had closed. 

Edited October 17, 2022 by jhb171achill