Interesting Early Irish Railway photos

[Galteemore]

5 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

Locos might be a 101 piloting a 321 class? Just a guess - happy to be corrected.

Almost looks like an ex WLWR 2-4-0 as pilot 

[jhb171achill]

On 12/12/2025 at 3:32 PM, Killian Keane said:

Railmotor no.92, location unknown

Kingsbridge? 92 spent a large part of its life as the Inchicore "taxi", I believe.

[jhb171achill]

On 5/11/2025 at 3:34 PM, Westcorkrailway said:

Not going to unload the entire Colm creedon stuff here. But just a taster of what you can find within his archive regarding old interesting stuff. Again, I strongly encourage to go and browse yourself!

1890s CBSC mainline train 

1933 cashel service 

the following 2 locos are of pike and Carlisle. 2 original cork and youghal railway tank engines 

 Clayton railcar trials in the Newmarket and kanturk

 

and finally. A CMDR 4 wheel coach 

 

Not just an exceptionally rare picture, or an exceptionally rare vehicle - but an exceptionally rare TYPE of vehicle in Ireland. A four-wheeled anything of that style is almost unheard of here, though once relatively more common in the Neighbouring Island, but a two-compartment four-wheeled brake third would be little more than unique. Excellent find - and it has lasted into GSR days! 

[Mol_PMB]

21 hours ago, Galteemore said:

Almost looks like an ex WLWR 2-4-0 as pilot 

Like this? (Flickr image by Trainiac) 

 

[Mol_PMB]

12 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

Not just an exceptionally rare picture, or an exceptionally rare vehicle - but an exceptionally rare TYPE of vehicle in Ireland. A four-wheeled anything of that style is almost unheard of here, though once relatively more common in the Neighbouring Island, but a two-compartment four-wheeled brake third would be little more than unique. Excellent find - and it has lasted into GSR days! 

Another gem from Trainiac on Flickr on that theme.

From the same source, this one is almost as stubby as the Triang-Hornby 4-wheeler:

 

[jhb171achill]

1 hour ago, Mol_PMB said:

Like this? (Flickr image by Trainiac) 

 

They’ve captioned that wrongly - this was a GSWR 2.4.0….

1 hour ago, Mol_PMB said:

Another gem from Trainiac on Flickr on that theme.

From the same source, this one is almost as stubby as the Triang-Hornby 4-wheeler:

 

That lower one is Bishop’s Castle Railway in England rather than Belfast Central. Fior that line, and quite a few others in Britain, vehicles like this were not uncommon. The 3rd class compartments must have been cosy….

[Mol_PMB]

44 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

They’ve captioned that wrongly - this was a GSWR 2.4.0….

That lower one is Bishop’s Castle Railway in England rather than Belfast Central. Fior that line, and quite a few others in Britain, vehicles like this were not uncommon. The 3rd class compartments must have been cosy….

Thanks for setting me right, JHB. There's some great photos on that Flickr site but we obviously need to interpret the captions with more caution than I had done.

[2996 Victor]

3 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

This is a fascinating conveyance! Would it have been restricted in use to a specific service or branchline?

Cheers,

Mark

[Galteemore]

1 hour ago, 2996 Victor said:

This is a fascinating conveyance! Would it have been restricted in use to a specific service or branchline?

Cheers,

Mark

Looks tbh like a drovers van. Attached to cattle trains to accommodate the guard and also the ‘escorts’ for the cattle. SLNC was using them right up until closure. 

Edited Thursday at 16:21 by Galteemore

[2996 Victor]

34 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

Looks tbh like a drovers van. Attached to cattle trains to accommodate the guard and also the ‘escorts’ for the cattle. SLNC was using them right up until closure. 

Thanks! Presumably, then, it would have been finished in goods stock livery rather than passenger livery?

Thanks,

Mark

[jhb171achill]

8 hours ago, Galteemore said:

Looks tbh like a drovers van. Attached to cattle trains to accommodate the guard and also the ‘escorts’ for the cattle. SLNC was using them right up until closure. 

That's exactly what it is. They were used on cattle specials and tended to be found lurking in Athlone, Mullingar and Broadstone when not in use. You would think that they also might have seen use on branchlines, especially where cattle was a big thing (e.g. Loughrea) but seemingly not so much. Certainly not in GSR times.

Senior took a photo of a similar van but without passenger accommodation at Broadstone in the early 1930s. It was shabby looking and as he said, probably (but not certainly) out of use. It was still in MGWR livery like the above. The full brake versions of these were green, so the above may be too. Failing that, certainly standard dark wagon grey.

There is a Cyril Fry model of a yoke of this nature in the Malahide Model Railway Museum. It is a very dark green, not unlike UTA coach green or BCDR loco green. The van that Senior saw in the 1930s was a dulled mid-green, but since anything in Midland livery in 1931 or 1932 hadn't seen a paintbrush for at least seven years, the original colour could have been very much darker indeed. Fry's livery interpretations are generally exceptionally accurate and exceptionally detailed, though there are a few aberrations to the theme; he painted a model of a 500 class 4.6.0, and two other locos, which spent their entire working lives in dark grey, in "Maedb"-style blue-green!

Edited yesterday at 01:00 by jhb171achill

[Mayner]

Actually classed as a Goods Brake Van apparrenlly for general use. 

The H C Casserly photo was described in the IRRS paper as "11 ton brake van No50 built 1892, shown in rebuilt state with 'glasshouse: at Broadstone 1932

A raised guards lookout(s) and drovers compartment/(s) were almost a standard feature of MGW Brake Vans until a 'conventional' van with balconies at each end and no duckets were introduced during the early 1920s

Interestingly a pair of 6w 20T Brake Vans with guards compartments (with raised lookout) at each end and two passengers compartments were introduced in 1912. There is a photo of these vans in a decrepit condition in one of the collections in the IRRS Flickr Site.

P. O'Cuimin Feb 1970 IRRS paper Wagon Stock of the MGWR includes details of MGW Brake Vans.  Brake Vans listed "Generally brown" 1874 type mid-green as running circa 1923-4

Scratch built model of 1874 Brake (1stStandard Type) Brake Vans, plasticard/stripwood approx 30 years ago. My model of the 1874 van is based on a 1931 LGRP photo of No29 in MGW livery still with wooden brake blocks.

The HC Casserley photo of No 50 appears to be a re-built verison of a new type of van introduced 1892 for use on the "new Western Lines. O/Cuimin indicated that the van as built was quite different to the 1932 photograph, origonally the 2 passenger/drovers compartments were located at each end with the guards/luggage compartment in the middle, no balcony but retaining a birdcage look out, 56-61 introduced 1904 were listed with differning compartments and 'this design" used for 'renewal" (replacement) of 1874 vans with same leading dimensions as in the 1892 Class.

I suspect that these older 'caboose' style vans were withdrawn/taken out of use as more 'conventional" steel underframe Midland, GSWR/GS vans became available during the late 20s-early 30s. In his 'Enginemans Son" IRRS paper PJ Currivan wrote about playing 'cowboys & indians" in the long line of caboose brake vans stored in a siding in Athlone during early GSR days, his father was a former GSWR driver transferred to the Athlone Midland shed following the amalgamation and wrote about his adventures growing up on the railway. PJs two Engine Mans Son papers are a great read.

Basically looking at short 14' mainly GSW Cattle Wagons or 14' Convertibles for modelling the GSR/pre-Amalgamation period the longer KN Cattle Wagons only seem to have appeared in CIE days. The Midland mainly relied on Convertibles to handle the bulkof its cattle traffic with covered cattle wagons relatively rare and camera shy 430 Covered, 1613 Convertible still in service 1924

Edited yesterday at 02:27 by Mayner