Rails through Northern Parts; the potential

[jhb171achill]

Mulling over the latest offerings from IRM, and such items as Provincial Wagons' UTA spoil wagons and other GNR-related stuff, it recalls to mind what potential there is for very individual layout ideas or lines in the North.

Small though the system would become after the catastrophic policies of the Stormont government 1950-65, it is a case of small but interesting. Railcar trains with no two vehicles alike, trailing so much goods that they were to all intents and purposes main line mixed trains operated by railcar, a la CDRJC, anyone? Last steam in Ireland, north or south? Modern (brand new 80 class) railcars mixing and mingling with one of the only three Hunslet types ever built, hauling an excursion of de-engined railcars and ancient steam stock, again no two alike..... the lack of goods and lack of mileage is more than made up for with the above matters alone. Go back a little to the 1960s, and we have steam and huge goods traffic on the Derry Road, CIE excursions to Omagh sitting side by side with ex-GNR AEC / BUT railcars.

And the wagons. Just like CIE in the fifties had an eclectic mix of brand new goods stock and antique stock from its constituent companies, so the UTA had ex-GNR stuff, ex-NCC and ex-BCDR also. It had the very different designs of NCC goods brake van, among those of GNR origin (like Whitehead's "Ivan", but without those black stripes!), though i don't recall ever seeing any ex-BCDR brake vans.

Also the classic GNR Mills architecture (GVS - Dundalk, Newry, & Derry Londonroad), and the very picturesque and unique architecture of the BNCR and later NCC, with the iconic wide-roofed signal cabins and somersault signals. And scenery: Portadown to Finaghy may not inspire - but Castlerock, Downhill, the Warrenpoint branch, much of the Derry Road, and the dramatic coastal scenery of parts of the Larne line? By proportion, even the modern NIR probably has more scenic bits than IE! (N I Tourist Board, please send my payment cheque to the usual offshore account. It would be unfair to burden our tax authorities with even more work).

I will be known here for long ago banging on about "when will a Jeep be offered". I sense this may become a more viable issue in times to come - I certainly hope so. Over on RM Web, in between the awful pop-up ads, we see the very excellent Northern Ireland based layouts, not to mention railcar building skills, of the likes of Kirley and others. The interest, like that of CIE, is growing.

So what have we - how do we put together a layout based on the UTA / NIR? Let's look at it in two bits. First, pre-65, when you've steam and double the mileage; latterly, the post-1965 times, when the 80 class ruled.

1.  UTA

At the VERY start we still have the Ballycastle line open, so a layout based on a Ballymoney-style interchange would be interesting. But let's look at stock.

Carriages are EASY. Remember the Bachmann set of three "CIE" coaches with a Woolwich? These are standard early 1920s LMS stock in CIE livery In rality, while CIE never posessed a single coach even vaguely similar to these, they are perfect for UTA.The reason is this. We may thank a small Austrian gentleman with a Marx Brothers* moustache who was elected to high office in Germany in 1933, and went on to become famous in the early 1940s. He decided one day to drop bombs on Belfast. In doing so, he obliterated much of the carriages sidings at York Road, and a fair slice of the goods yard. This meant that the still LMS-owned NCC system there had a sudden stock shortage. Large numbers of old secondary, and in some cases withdrawn stock was hurriedly shipped in from England from the parent LMS. All of this was (English) MIdland Railway or LMS origin (no LNWR, funnily enough, as far as I'm aware), and hey presto! Actual LMS designs operating here, the very last of which lasted until the mid 1970s as excursion stock - hauled by none other than IRM's Hunslets. Since the NCC was owned outright by the LMS, their OWN designs built in York Road were built to standard LMS overall house design, albeit with very many local differences - a bit like some of the later Mk 2 BREL types that ran on NIR & CIE being of the same broad dimensions as British equivalents, but door spacings and other things specific to here.

Just as in CIE areas, ex-MGWR, ex-GSWR and other stock might be indiscrimately mixed in with their own modern builds, same with UTA. There are Worsley and SSM kits of GNR carriages available, ready to run LMS types, both wooden panelled and steel-sided, which are as near as dammit to what ran on the UTA and later NIR systems. In steam days, we'd still need to botch some sort of Fairburn 2.6.4T; hence my repeated plainmtive wailings for a RTR Jeep. For those lucky enough to have got one, the 00 Works GNR 4.4.0 and 0.6.0 RTR locos are necessary, especially if you're doing the GN section. I remember both types on local trains.

Wagons - Leslie's GNR vans - these will be essential. Leslie also does the GNR four wheel passenger van - wodely used for parcels traffic on the GN sections of the UTA. For the NCC the equivalent Brown Van. Model the GN section, and you've a possibility of a newspaper train hauled by steam or a CIE diesel, and with a truly eclectic parade of varied vans behind it: around 1963 it was possible to see, at least in theory, such a train consisting of a new black'n'tan "tin van", andother in green, another in filthy silver, a fitted ex-GN goods van, an ex-GN passenger van in brown and another in UTA green, and as many brown vans as you could shake broiwn van monster at - with perhaps a bogie brake third and a goods brake van. We won't go into fintona trams, but that yoke on the back of a consist like that would hardly raise an eyebrow.

While CIE goods stock was very distinct from British designs, and thus an irish layout with simply re-liveried British wagons and vans is really only suitable as a stop-gap measure until Leslie or IRM do a "proper" one, the convenient fact is that while the LMS shipped carriages into belfast in the 1940s rather than large amounts of wagons, the NCC themselves, being LMS-owned, built their own wagons to designs of the same type as the LMS! In several books, or online IRRS photos, the eagle-eyed will spot these "British"-looking designs a mile off. Therefore, certain types of ex-LMS off-the-shelf Hornby / Bachmann / Dapol etc designs will be fine. As with CIE of course, no black chassis; the NCC painted them body colour same as further south.

Just as with CIE, there are several MASSIVELY glaring omissions in the RTR - even kit - markets.

With CIE, the gaping voids are the lack of the absolutely essential 1950-70 AEC railcars, plus the equally necessary tin vans. I have several JM Design ones - wish i had got more. The Silverfox ones are very crude indeed, and like anything ordered from Silverfox in green, the colour is completely wrong, as is their obsession with light grey roofs.

With earlier UTA, it's hardly surprising that none of the railcars like MEDs and MPDs exist - scarcely two of the latter type were alike, and some were converted from 1920s carriages! But if we had the AEC sets, some could be in CIE liveries, of course, but others would be in GNR, UTA and later NIR liveries. But the gaping omissions are Jeeps and the AECs.

2. Late UTA and into NIR days

In the late 60s, you've no authentic goods wagons to worry about, as they are all gone. But ballast trains remain. Both in UTA and these later days, Leslie's GNR brake van is key to that. Any old British open wagons can be painted up to look like the old Courtaulds wagons in their unique reddish-brown livery, and the cut down versions hastily slopped over in thin pale grey paint by NIR. (Spare us the black "Ivan" metalwork, though; nothing was ever like this!). You can get away by now without a Jeep, but a couple of filthy ones hauling Leslie's spoil wagons is a great, and unique touch.

But as the UTA and CIE have their glaring omissions, the BIGGIE here is the 80 class railcar. Just as iconic as the AECs in the preceding 20 years, or the ICRs in the last 20, a 1980s / 1990s layout based anywhere in the North without 80 class sets simply isn't doable. We can improvise, though.

We now have the IRM Hunslet, plus IRM NIR Mk 2 coaches. Soon, it will be possible to have a 1970-early 80s Enterprise. Use a few ex-LMS coaches like the ones with the Woolwich, repainted in NIR's plain maroon, and you've Portrush summer excursions. A change for your maroon Hunslet to haul. We need the 80, but if you're post-1986, if you can get one there's the blue NIR 111, IRM Mk 2s in appropriate livery, and those yellow bopgie ballast wagons. But there are British railcars with sliding doors in 2 or 3 car sets - don't ask me what class - too modern to be of any interest to me - which look near enough like the "Castle" (or 450) class railcars of NIR.

Naturally, if modelling the GNR main line, we've the Dundalk goods. Enter, stage left, IRM's "H" vans, Leslies' also, and Leslie's GNR brake vans, JM Design's excellent-looking CIE brake vans - another essential on an all-Ireland basis, of course, the SSM kit of same; and for the later period IRM's bubbles, Guinness, ferts and container flats. And of course we have the 121s and 141s and A class of Messrs Murphy / IRM. None existed as the UTA was formed, so every livery that each of these appears in is appropriate to at least some period in the existence of UTA & NIR.

I am hearing noises about growing interest in pre-CIE in the south - will we see GSR carriages some day? It is not long ago that the idea of the grey'n'green era on CIE would have been considered a step too far for the commerical market, but IRM's silver and green "A"'s changed all that. Hatton's ex-GSWR six-wheelers helped, as did JM Design's and Provincial Wagons' earlier designs of brake vans. I am a great believer that if a small number of very high quality RTR models of something appear, there's a very good chance interest will follow.

IRM started by producing Mk 2 coaches. Murphy Models' 111 (which, according to Paddy Murphy at the show the other week, is due a re-run) and his 121s and 141s were a ground breaker too. Now we've Hunslets, and 1990s-type NIR ballast wagons can be had commercially and repainted, as they were BR imports of ex-Southern Railway origin, with a nickname of a shark, antelope, mollusc, or tree-eating skunk, as per BR nomenclature. We have Cravens, and a BR GSV van can be had or repainted from a BR Mk 1, so we've the Enterprise (bar its dining car). So we already have the beginnings of northern-based locos and rolling stock.

Hopefully a new extension of our interest range into earlier times (GSR) and northern climes (UTA / NIR) will develop. This will leave, as the only voids in the RTR world, the GNR and BCDR. But those are for another day.

I sense that such evolution is already beginning to take place. I hope so. Meantime, we may hope for 80 class and AEC railcars, tin vans and laminates.... and a Jeep and a RTR GNR loco.

 

 

(* Those youngsters born from 1970 onwards, look them up!)

Edited November 10 by jhb171achill

[Mayner]

The thing that impresses me about the RM Web Irish Railways Group is the strong focus on modelling together with the variety and quality of modelling. 

Group members do not appear to be deterred from modelling a particular loco or piece of rolling stock by the absence of a rtr model or a kit. Members appear to have persuaded Worsley Works and others to produce parts for several of the designs of railcars and rolling stock introduced by UTA and NIR incl. (a) UTA AEC cars 6&7, (b) MED, MPD, 70 Class railcars.

In certain respects the railways in Ulster are/were quite different in character and operation than the rest of Ireland, compact, with intensively worked passenger traffic and a technically innovative approach. 

A good example of the contrast was Cavan where the GN(i) treated the Cavan Branch as an extension of the Ulster Railway main line with 4 through Belfast-Cavan trains (made up of modern stock) daily to the ending of passenger services in 1957 while the CIE line from Inny Junction was a mouldering goods only branch with 1 train daily from Mullingar. Besides the loco hauled passenger and goods trains, the GN also regularly ran Railbuses on the branch and 'coal specials' from Belturbet to the Drogheda Cement Factory.

For those who like a challenge of modelling the GNR SSM produce suitable Loco and Rolling Stock kits ably backed up by Provincial Wagons while the Worsley Works NCC Mogul and WT can be assembled into fine models, Worsley also produce parts/sides for both GN and NCC/UTSA coaches and if someone likes to model 'something completly different' there is always the SLNCR, County Down and the various narrow gauge lines and tramways.

[Mol_PMB]

If my experiments with 21mm gauge work out OK, then I am formulating a plan to build a small shunting layout loosely based on the sidings at Lisburn, set in the late 1970s. Rolling stock would be mainly NIR engineers' stock (hence my interest in the former spoil wagons and courtaulds wagons) with an IRM Hunslet and perhaps a DH as motive power. The location allows CIE locos and rolling stock to visit. 

It would also be possible to include parts of Lisburn passenger station in the background, perhaps with a stationary passenger train. On the other hand, I could use the opposite viewpoint with just a grassy bank in the background, and then with a change of rolling stock it could become the goods yard at a rural CIE station somewhere else. 

I'm thinking of an overall size not much more than 4' x 1' to keep it manageable. However, I might come up with a different idea in due course!

[jhb171achill]

5 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

If my experiments with 21mm gauge work out OK, then I am formulating a plan to build a small shunting layout loosely based on the sidings at Lisburn, set in the late 1970s. Rolling stock would be mainly NIR engineers' stock (hence my interest in the former spoil wagons and courtaulds wagons) with an IRM Hunslet and perhaps a DH as motive power. The location allows CIE locos and rolling stock to visit. 

It would also be possible to include parts of Lisburn passenger station in the background, perhaps with a stationary passenger train. On the other hand, I could use the opposite viewpoint with just a grassy bank in the background, and then with a change of rolling stock it could become the goods yard at a rural CIE station somewhere else. 

I'm thinking of an overall size not much more than 4' x 1' to keep it manageable. However, I might come up with a different idea in due course!

The thing about a shunting layout like that is that it can be anything.

Switch to MGWR-livery 0.6.0s and it’s a goods yard in Mayo in 1915. Stick a few “supertrain”  livery 071s there, and IRM beet wagons, and it’s somewhere in South Wexford in 1997.

If you use ordinary Peco track, the world’s your oyster. Put the right locos and rolling stock on it, and if could literally be almost anywhere in Ireland or Britain, any time from 1890 to the 1990s. It could even pass for a location in certain other countries, maybe.

[Northroader]

I’m hanging on your every word for going North, JB, sounds good to me. I like doing the era 1880 -1900, you could get a much shorter train for a start. Now, question is, is there anywhere you get an idea of how BNCR locos were lined out? The dark/invisible green isn’t a worry, but William Scott’s book isn’t too clear about lining. Looking through your pictures of Cyril Fry’s locos at Malahide, and I haven’t found any BNCR there?

[Galteemore]

Russell Currie’s book perhaps ? Portstewart Tram in Hull museum (yes, it’s an odd one that!) is probably the closest you’ll get to that era in terms of anything preserved. I’m not an NCC expert by any means so don’t know how the livery changed from BNCR to NCC.

Edited 4 hours ago by Galteemore

[Northroader]

Thank you, David, that gives a very good idea, and as you say, not a place you’d think to look. Now, they had a Fairbairn 2-2-2T that lasted until 1898, last single driver on the BNCR. Just like the MGWR ones, excepting it was a well tank rather than a saddle, and I do happen to have a pair of 5’ drivers which I’ve taken the crank pin boss off, so….

Edited 4 hours ago by Northroader