ERNIE's Irish Railway Archive, photos from ca 1900 to the 2000's

[Mol_PMB]

Although it is partially dismantled, the wooden-framed tank container is fascinating.

It appears to be resting on the underframe of a more conventional tank wagon.

I found a few more photos of similar things, including the other side of the same one with different lettering:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54252949956/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54252053167/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511272051/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/53511702435/

 

I wonder what else these were carried on? Standard gauge wagons or road vehicles?

[Andy Cundick]

343 was a Shell tank wagon purchased from the Swilly in 1954 as a chassis The tank being owned by Shell as is usual didn't form part of the deal.The same setup is shown in"County Donegal Remembered" p130,in much better condition supposedly Sept 1960 though i have my doubts.oddly A2103 is lettered up as Shell  I wonder if that is all to do with the joint trading agreement between Shell and BP at the time and as the tank wasn,t big enough to have both companies on each side they each had their own side.Food for thought.Andy 

[jhb171achill]

 

10 hours ago, Irishswissernie said:

CBSC 1958-06-04 Baltimore C232 train from Drimoleague. PFF073.

 

   

 

That Baltimore view is classic. A smoky old Crossley, an ex-MGWR six wheel third a LONG way from home (at that time, there were quite a few of these based in Cork, both at Albert Quayand glanmire), another six-wheel third of indeterminate parentage but probably also Midland, a brand new tin van (essential on ALL diesel trains if they wanted heat or light!) and a 1920s-era GSWR main line composite....

 

Edited Sunday at 16:54 by jhb171achill

[airfixfan]

Some of the CDR tank wagons used for water for locos on the lifting train

[jhb171achill]

On 10/6/2025 at 10:38 AM, Galteemore said:

Lovely pic of Ballintogher Ernie, but I think it’s printed back to front….

Maybe it was just going in the other direction.................................

 

[Mayner]

On 30/6/2025 at 4:52 AM, jhb171achill said:

 

That Baltimore view is classic. A smoky old Crossley, an ex-MGWR six wheel third a LONG way from home (at that time, there were quite a few of these based in Cork, both at Albert Quayand glanmire), another six-wheel third of indeterminate parentage but probably also Midland, a brand new tin van (essential on ALL diesel trains if they wanted heat or light!) and a 1920s-era GSWR main line composite....

 

No heating on this particular train the brand new Tin Van is actually a Luggage Van no boiler for steam heating and notoriously rough riding that guard would seldom ride in if anything else was available. 

CIE converted a number of 20s era GSR Comp coaches into "Self Heating Coaches" (electric heating powered by an underfloor generator) for C Class haulage on Clonakilty & Skibereen/Baltimore branches.

[mfjoc]

10 hours ago, Mayner said:

CIE converted a number of 20s era GSR Comp coaches into "Self Heating Coaches" (electric heating powered by an underfloor generator) for C Class haulage on Clonakilty & Skibereen/Baltimore branches.

Wow

This is a new one on me. Never heard this before. Were they used anywhere else? You would need a decent sized genset to heat a carriage. I always thought that the first electrically heated coaches were the mk2s, apart from the Laminates fitted with storage heaters for the Loughrea branch. In the 1970's the bogie steam heating vans, the 3200 brake standards and the push pull railcar conversions were all fitted with either a lister or italian genset but only for trainlighting. Heating was always by steam from oil fired boilers. The Italian ones fitted to the push pulls had a tendency to self combust and extensive fire proofing was added in the 80's just to keep a few sets running. Also in the 1980s there was a discussion about converting the Cravens to electric heating but it didn't proceed.

[jhb171achill]

39 minutes ago, mfjoc said:

Wow

This is a new one on me. Never heard this before. Were they used anywhere else? You would need a decent sized genset to heat a carriage. I always thought that the first electrically heated coaches were the mk2s, apart from the Laminates fitted with storage heaters for the Loughrea branch. In the 1970's the bogie steam heating vans, the 3200 brake standards and the push pull railcar conversions were all fitted with either a lister or italian genset but only for trainlighting. Heating was always by steam from oil fired boilers. The Italian ones fitted to the push pulls had a tendency to self combust and extensive fire proofing was added in the 80's just to keep a few sets running. Also in the 1980s there was a discussion about converting the Cravens to electric heating but it didn't proceed.

I hadn’t heard of this either

[Mayner]

1 hour ago, mfjoc said:

Wow

This is a new one on me. Never heard this before. Were they used anywhere else? You would need a decent sized genset to heat a carriage. I always thought that the first electrically heated coaches were the mk2s, apart from the Laminates fitted with storage heaters for the Loughrea branch. In the 1970's the bogie steam heating vans, the 3200 brake standards and the push pull railcar conversions were all fitted with either a lister or italian genset but only for trainlighting. Heating was always by steam from oil fired boilers. The Italian ones fitted to the push pulls had a tendency to self combust and extensive fire proofing was added in the 80's just to keep a few sets running. Also in the 1980s there was a discussion about converting the Cravens to electric heating but it didn't proceed.

Info originally appeared in "Irish Railfans News" during the 50s, IRN Archive posted on the RPSI website about 12 years ago, but no longer accessible!

As far as I recall the 'self heating' carriages were fitted with an underfloor proprietary petrol-electric genset, apparently the gensets were unreliable in service and a number of C Class fitted with jumper sockets fir electric train heating.

There is a 1968 picture in "Irish Metrovick Diesels: of a recently outshopped C203 in Black with yellow warning panel & buffer, with a silver power socket mounted vertically on the buffer beam. Ironic CIEs 1st exprements with electric train heating was with 30 year old coaches hauled by C Class diesels on West Cork branches.

IRN article included coach numbers and info on gen-set

I downloaded the articles at the time, possibly on some back up drive/archive the computer I used in 2013 gave up the ghost several years ago.

[Mol_PMB]

46 minutes ago, Mayner said:

Info originally appeared in "Irish Railfans News" during the 50s, IRN Archive posted on the RPSI website about 12 years ago, but no longer accessible!

As far as I recall the 'self heating' carriages were fitted with an underfloor proprietary petrol-electric genset, apparently the gensets were unreliable in service and a number of C Class fitted with jumper sockets fir electric train heating.

There is a 1968 picture in "Irish Metrovick Diesels: of a recently outshopped C203 in Black with yellow warning panel & buffer, with a silver power socket mounted vertically on the buffer beam. Ironic CIEs 1st exprements with electric train heating was with 30 year old coaches hauled by C Class diesels on West Cork branches.

IRN article included coach numbers and info on gen-set

I downloaded the articles at the time, possibly on some back up drive/archive the computer I used in 2013 gave up the ghost several years ago.

IRRS Journal No.90 (feb 1983) includes the first of a 2-part article by D Renehan on CIE's Crossley Diesels. He notes:

"An interesting development was the fitting of equipment to supply electric train-lighting for use on branch line services; 203, 213, 215, 218, 223 and 231 were among the ten so fitted. A jumper box was provided on the buffer beam, and a cable carried current from the generator to specially-equipped carriages. The experiment was, however, short-lived - the reason for it ceased to exist when the branch lines were closed."

A study of photos might identify the other 4 locos fitted, and the dates when the equipment was fitted and removed. An interesting variant for IRM to consider on their (hopefully) forthcoming C class model.

 

Edit: from looking at a few photos it seems they were installed around 1960, and retained until the locos were rebuilt with EMD engines. Their place on the bufferbeam was then taken up by multi-working jumpers.

Edited 21 hours ago by Mol_PMB

[Mol_PMB]

Here are photos from Ernie's archive of C203 and C218 (twice) with electric lighting jumpers:

 

 

 

 

Edit: a search on Flickr found the following extra locos with the jumpers:

C208: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishrailwayarchive/54251291146/

C217: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/50995050488/

C226: https://www.flickr.com/photos/holycorner/6749912153/

In addition to D Renehan's six: 203, 213, 215, 218, 223 and 231 all of which can be confirmed from photos.

There ought to be one more, for the total of 10. As yet I haven't been able to disprove C228, which was rather camera-shy in the period of interest.

Edited 17 hours ago by Mol_PMB
Final para and links added.

[Mayner]

I managed to dig-up some more info. on the "self-heating coaches" 5 ex-GSWR Composite coaches 2089.2094,2096,2097 & 2098 were fitted with "Victor" diesel generators and initially considered 'moderately reliable", but generators removed by Jan 1960.

Two were in use on the Clonakilty & Skibereen/Baltimore Branches.

Its possible the other "self-heating coaches" may have been used on the Birr and Ballina branches with a C pottering around with a single passenger coach, Valencia passenger appears to have loaded up to 4 coaches behind a C,  Galway-Tuam & Cork-Youghal appear to have been heavier A Class workings

https://irishrailwaymodeller.com/topic/5693-characteristics-of-cie-metrovick-c-class-locomotives/

While I referred to Jan 56 and Jan 60 Irish Railfans News in the original post,  the info on the "self-heating coaches" is likely to have appeared in the Jan 28 IRN or possibly later!

While I haven't been able to track down 2089 the remaining "self-heating coaches" /fitted for electric train heating were all withdrawn by 1964. 2094 introduced as a 57'   1st/2nd/3rd in 1915 was withdrawn in 1964, 2096-8 were introduced as 57' 1st/2nd with GSWR later more spartan style of panneling between 1920-21 were withdrawn between 1962-3.

There are diagrams of these coaches in the TRA reprint of the GSWR diagram book, but the diagrams are of limited use for modelling purposes as they show only one side of coaches which had different window and panneling arangements on the corridor and compartment sides.