Irish Royalty - Park Royal Coach Next For IRM

[west_clare_wanderer]

As a dedicated 'goods only' fella, I've not been drawn into these, but they do look wonderful. However, I must admit the temptation is growing to'just order one' for my rural branch line project...... 

[jhb171achill]

On 13/4/2026 at 6:36 PM, mphoey said:

Just thinking re ambulance park royals order of malta did most of the knock runs and they may have pictures

Worth looking into, as if so, they are less likely to have been published where railway enthusiasts might see them - if at all.

[jhb171achill]

9 hours ago, west_clare_wanderer said:

As a dedicated 'goods only' fella, I've not been drawn into these, but they do look wonderful. However, I must admit the temptation is growing to'just order one' for my rural branch line project...... 

There were many lines in the past that had extremely sparse passenger services - one or two a day - but carried heavy and varied goods traffic. Twenty or thirty years ago, ballina hasd heavy goods traffic, but the passenger service was one Park Royal and a van wandering down to Claremorris only a couple of times a day. West Cork and Limerick - Claremorris (the latter in the 1970s) had lots of gopods going up and down - more in the beet season - and little passenger traffic beyond Limerick - Ennis, and a look at that timetable pre-1976 shows but a single daily passenger each way, but lots of goods. So, a prototype for everything!

Going back further, the North Kerry and Mallow - Waterford in their later days had one goods and one passenger each way per day. And guess what - the goods was a lot busier than the passenger! 

[Horsetan]

10 hours ago, west_clare_wanderer said:

...I must admit the temptation is growing to'just order one' for my rural branch line project...... 

I took the same approach. Twice.

[Mol_PMB]

And on those sparse branch passenger services, Park Royals were surprisingly common, right from the mid 1950s through to the 1990s. 

There are plenty of photos of them running in AEC railcar sets in the late 1950s and 1960s, on the West Cork, Western Rail Corridor, and other secondary/branch lines. The summer Sunday excursions to Fenit in the 1960s and 1970 (otherwise a freight-only branch) often included a Park Royal or two in the set. And of course they were a staple of the local services around Limerick in the 1980s and 1990s.

So you can surely justify one, two, or more...

Edited 22 hours ago by Mol_PMB
typo