Meet Filthy Blue Tara, The Model of Your Dreams

[Warbonnet]

Hi everyone,

Check out the weathering job our warranty man Tony did on one of our lovely blue Tara Mines wagons. It really captures the look of these wagons as they were in service during the 1980s and 1990s and brings out all the detail. behind the bright blue paint finish of the prototypes. 

Many of us would love a filthy blue Tara in our lives, and you can enjoy this excitement to your life by picking up some packs of our blue Taras via our website and get the weathering materials out. These Taras are quite cheap too, making them an even more enticing prospect of just €63.96 per twin pack, and 10% off when you buy two packs or more! 

This limited time offer ends very soon, so make sure you grab them now: https://irishrailwaymodels.com/collections/tara-mines/availability_in-stock

Cheers!

Fran 

[DJ Dangerous]

Just wonderful!

Reminds me of this photo in an older Tara thread:

 

On 16/4/2021 at 1:54 PM, murphaph said:

 

 

 

[John-r]

That's brilliant,  have to admit the blue is my favourite livery, and this weathering really makes every detail stand out, superb job.

[Bob229]

Fantastic weathering, like the real Taras

[murphaph]

Does anyone have any more pics of dirty blue Taras?

[popeye]

Just found this one on Geograph by Albert Bridge.

I think if you spray a lot of grey paint over them you will be close enough.

[DJ Dangerous]

11 hours ago, popeye said:

Just found this one on Geograph by Albert Bridge.

I think if you spray a lot of grey paint over them you will be close enough.

 

That's the job! Enough grey and enough oxide so that the reds and blues are hard to tell apart!

 

13 hours ago, murphaph said:

Does anyone have any more pics of dirty blue Taras?

 

What are you planning???

Edited May 11, 2023 by DJ Dangerous

[murphaph]

Well I don't "need" Taras for my planned region/era but of course I bought some of the blues anyway to run down to Limerick wagon works because I like the more interesting corrugated lid profile on them. The intention was always to heavily weather them such as they would have appeared in 1994 or thereabouts, so virtually no blue left visible. That Albert Bridge image is tantalising as you can make out some repair patches and they seem to have continued using the blue or a shade of blue on those patches, but I wonder how late they were using blue paint on patch up jobs. I wonder did they start using bauxite on the blue wagons when patching them up at some stage. It seems highly likely that they would have, once they made the decision to repaint the fleet in bauxite. Some more pics would be great but they seem hard to find. Most people were only interested in photographing the loco back then as film was not free.

[DJ Dangerous]

How dare you? Everybody needs Taras!

[Warbonnet]

Nice photo here. If you zoom in you can see that they're blue

 

[DJ Dangerous]

Very recent-looking photo, relatively speaking. Early nineties?

[murphaph]

20 minutes ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Very recent-looking photo, relatively speaking. Early nineties?

Yep:

Quote

Taken on May 5, 1993

 

[Sean]

I was under the impression that they were only painted blue for a while and spent most of their life in brown.

happy to be wrong though, now having them on my layout actually fits the era.

[DJ Dangerous]

1 minute ago, Sean said:

I was under the impression that they were only painted blue for a while and spent most of their life in brown.

happy to be wrong though, now having them on my layout actually fits the era.

 

Nearly sure that it was mentioned here before that it was the late nineties or early two thousands before the whole fleet had transitioned from blue to red. I am open to correction on that.

[Warbonnet]

As above, there were blue taras running into the early-mid 1990s, just absolutely filthy under the grime. Some were patched with large amounts of red oxide paint and the wagons were gradually turned out in this livery. So, the blue ones give you an operating scope of about 15-20 years from mid-late 1970s to mid 1990s...

Cheers!

Fran 

[DJ Dangerous]

Might have even run a tiny bit later according to this post:

 

On 16/4/2021 at 10:54 AM, Garfield said:

If I recall correctly, the change in colour occurred around the turn of the millennium and the 'second gen' lids were added around the same time. A third type of lid is gradually replacing that type (and has been for at least the past five years) as they wear out. It's the second lid style that's present on the IRM Tara wagons.

 

It's not a claim, just a suggestion, but certainly possible.

[Sean]

 

Found this the other night and thought it was very intriguing. this photo is dated 2008 or 2009.

https://www.timdurham.ie/projects/650_1575-Images-Of-A-Mine

 

Edited June 11, 2023 by Sean

[DJ Dangerous]

Is that actually a blue Tara, or a red Tara with blue graffiti?

It's the lid that is throwing me off. It's definitely not a G1 lid, and the G2 lid change and red repainting probably happened at the same time.

[skinner75]

10 hours ago, DJ Dangerous said:

Is that actually a blue Tara, or a red Tara with blue graffiti?

It's the lid that is throwing me off. It's definitely not a G1 lid, and the G2 lid change and red repainting probably happened at the same time.

Dunno about lids, but looks like a red Tara with blue graffiti to me

[Sean]

I think yous are correct, i dont see a hint of blue in the handbrake wheel when i zoom in.

 

[skinner75]

Looks like the Taras may not be seen for a while...
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2023/0614/1389062-tara-mines/