Style/Era preference?

[Chevron]

I always thought myself as a steam era fan with the likes of the flying scotsman but the more i look at weathered Irish diesels on here and diesels on ehattons. my preference is really changing

 

Did any of you have a first preference in era/style that changed dramatically?

If so from what style/era to what style/era?

[Irishrailwayman]

The Irish railway liveries from the late 1960's to early 2000s were based on a design by the artist Patrick Scott consisting of variations of "matt brown/orange and black" (seemingly he had a cat of similar hue). In this era also most trains were loco hauled (running around trains was common) and semaphore (lower quadrant) signals ruled. Beyond this date modernisation has introduced new corporate liveries, colour light signals, DMUs, push-pull operations etc ie a lot less romantic. Breaking down the eras these range from CIE roundal logo with more black in the liveries, to Supertrain liveries through to the more recent IR and IE logo/livery variations. These have all been well represented in Murphy Models 141/181, 071 and upcoming 121 series. Silver Fox also have complementary liveries in their A and C Class locomotive series. So it is a question of choosing an era/sub-era and get modelling! I developed Ballybeg as a layout to display all of these eras including late steam/early diesels (Flaying Snail logo) - see IRM.com Layouts section under Ballybeg plus assorted posted videos on UTube.

[minister_for_hardship]

I'm planning a steam-to-diesel era layout at the moment, not that I remember it or anything, just for variety. However I do think the uk 'death of steam' layout has been flogged, well...to death, in modelling circles.

I take my hat off to folks who go pre-CIE/GSR or uk pre Grouping or go with making broad gauge trackwork. Would never have the patience for that.

[Riversuir226]

I tend to model post 2000 but if I like something from a different era id run it too!!!. I started off modelling the IR era but kept most of the stock " as preserved" and I ll run this stock on mainline specials and have the locos around a shed scene.

I also have a bit of BR stock which was part of quite a big Br collection that I used to have .

[Weshty]

Mid 60's to early 90's pretty much covers it for me. Black and tan, Supertrain golden Brown and modern, capturing pre and post intermodal stock.

[Glenderg]

Yeah, I did start off strictly from 121 onwards, particularly with the huge range of freight modelling possibilities around the later eighties/early nineties. The further I go down the rabbithole of this hobby though, the more I'm attracted to the late 30's era of State Coaches, Maroon and Gold lined carraiges north and south, and the bizarre range of and age of some of the wagons hauled by steam. I do have a blind spot for Metroviks for some reason, but perhaps that will change.

 

The longevity of rolling stock and locos generally mean it's acceptable to have a thirty odd year lifespan on a layout without looking odd. R

[201bhoy]

I used to prefer SNCF modern but like you, after seeing the stunning array of weathered Irish locos I quickly changed to modern Irish!

[UP6936]

When i first started I was obsessed by Mallard, but once i got a hornby class 25, it all changed, and i have been a diesel fan since

[Broithe]

Orange trains for me.

[Chevron]

Any love for American trains at all ?

 

there are a few that i really like.. haven't a clue of the names of them lol only know them to see lol.

[dave182]

I'm greatly drawn to the Irish Rail era 80's into the 90's. My Grandparents lived in Eastwall opposite the old signal box on West Road. I loved visiting on a weekday when there used to be so much to see back then! A's struggling up the incline from the North wall yards with a variety of different freights, NIR stock, and the various other passenger trains of the time. I realise now that this greatly influenced my choice of era! I never though I'd see the day that we would have so much choice in terms of rtr and kits relating to the Irish scene.

[108]

My early years were spent watching the trains go by at Harmonstown in the 70's so that's when my layout is set. If only I could get decent versions of 201's and PR push pull sets. But if its Irish and 70/80 ish that'll do.

[Chevron]

The closest i ever got to living near a station is living in citywest beside the luas

[irishthump]

Late 70's to early 80's is my main period of interest. I've vivid memories of supertrain liveried locos deafening me as a child. I've heard it said that most people model what they remember from there childhood, and I'm no exception!

 

I've thrown in a couple of black and tan liveried locos as they were still pottering about at that time. No interest in steam whatsoever.

[Warbonnet]

Has to be either late 60s/early 70s black and tan for me and IR/IE transitions in the early to mid 90s before the A's went and they started painting 201s sill colours. As I said before my kingdom for a pukka A and C class and some proper 4 wheeled vans and opens from the period. Looks like Leslie is coming through with the open soon!

 

Any love for American trains at all ?

 

there are a few that i really like.. haven't a clue of the names of them lol only know them to see lol.

 

Hell yes! Check out the yankee forum and some of my youtube videos and feel free to ask any questions!

[jhb171achill]

Glenderg wrote,

 

The further I go down the rabbithole of this hobby though, the more I'm attracted to the late 30's era of State Coaches, Maroon and Gold lined carraiges north and south,

 

This would be NCC, presumably? Their carriage livery was the same as the LMS in England overall, though with some differences in lettering, fonts and numerals. Some older carriages were unlined, and there would have been more instances of carriages with no LMS crests than in Britain.

 

Not sure what "State coaches" would be? The GSR had a maroon (for post 1935 builds only at first, but later repaints of wooden stock) much the same as LMS, and identical lining - a yellow line below cantrail, another above windows, and yellow-black-yellow below windows.For a while they started painting main loine stock chocolate and cream with black lining, then reverted to maroon. Much older stock remained the very dark crimson lake (as seen on Downpatrick's 836 and 1097) until CIE. Thus a GS era layout would have much variation in carriages, despite (apart from 800-2) the absolutely universal sheep dip grey on engines.

 

The GSR painted stations dark green and cream. The MGWR used red and white (or possibly cream or light grey) on station buildings.

 

In this same era, GNR coaching stock was brown or scumbled, no lining, with most engines black, but a few old ones probably still in lined green, and the iconic blue livery appearing gradually after 1932.

[StevieB]

My original idea was to model the period late 80s/90s just after the creation of Irish Rail. Then there would have been a mixture of original and re-engined 121/141/181 classes in a mix of CIE and IR liveries, with some in CIE livery but carrying IR branding. This was carried through onto the Cravens with some carrying the two white stripes but of different widths! But then I was given Rails Through The West for my birthday earlier this year and my ideas went out the window. Going back a decade to the 70s/80s, I've got a mixture of black and tan and supertrain liveries, together with unfitted pick-up freights and the beginnings of the 'new' railway - liner trains!

Stephen

[enniscorthyman]

For me,the CIE super train livery to the IR livery has a big

effect on me.you have all the locos 001,201-MV,121,141/181

071,not to mention the nice array of coaches.

Can there be anything nicer than a 141, one craven,one park

Royal and BR van on a branch line to look at.

[jhb171achill]

But then I was given Rails Through The West for my birthday earlier this year and my ideas went out the window.

 

I love that! My favourite period too, and that book has a follow up in preparation.... ;-)

[heirflick]

i love the steam, early diesel and the good old black and tan era. but then i love the supertrain and the modern era too, not to metion the permenant way stuff.....so that means i love the lot with one exception - hate the 22000 class railcars

[Broithe]

i hate the 22000 class railcars

 

I have to admit that I do like them rather more than I would like to admit..

[moogle]

When I got into N gauge I ran pretty much anything. BR blue diesels with SR coaches and GWR wagons.

Did I care? No. I was only 12 though! Your tastes change over time.

I'm now modelling CIE 1950's steam, an Edwardian Tramway and at the club I belong to BR late steam/early diesel.

So nothing I grew up with or can remember!

[jhb171achill]

I started with Hornby stuff, and with no Mark's Models in the 70's, I pasted paper black'n'tan sides over Hornby Mk 1s, hauled by BR class 31 and 35's! That went to the wall when I discovered the things that 17 year olds do, including working with 12 inches to the foot models... which self-weathered themselves after every outing! A dabble in 009 and a Spanish-based garden railway followed. I am now "between layouts" but hoping at some stage to resurrect my collection of Austrian narrow gauge, something which has always interested me, but never had anything black and tan, or that carried a "flying snail"!

[josefstadt]

... but hoping at some stage to resurrect my collection of Austrian narrow gauge, something which has always interested me, but never had anything black and tan, or that carried a "flying snail"!

 

The only flying snail that would have been seen on the Austrian narrow gauge would have been a mollusc dropped by a passing bird!

[Dave]

For me it's Irish late 70's to 90's

[jhb171achill]

Indeed, josefstadt... but modelling a narrow gauge snail in 4mm would be beyond most modellers! Especially a working one..... :-)

[josefstadt]

Maybe one could use a T scale motor bogie to provide movement ......!

[David Holman]

There is a school of thought which suggests we often model what we saw in our formative years. Hence BR steam-diesel overlap worked for me & I still prefer green diesels to blue ones & Brunswick green to apple or malachite on steamers. GNRI blue is just fabulous.

However, given the availability of off the shelf stuff these days, then the opportunity to model almost anything that takes our fancy is there for the taking. Personally, I have always tended to look for something different and being a builder rather than an operator, increasingly find the Irish scene, in all its forms, increasingly interesting. Only the ultra modern leaves me cold with its DMUs and other railcars, plus little variety in the way of freight. Early railbuses and DMUs are a completely different matter for reasons I cannot explain!

[jhb171achill]

The unusual is always interesting! Me too...

[patrick]

Definitely the late sixties to the mid seventies. After the closures of the fifties and sixties there was a sense of optimism about the rail system with new rolling stock and traffic. On the freight side there was the advent of unit trains hauling ore, cement, beer and containers. Along with this the loose coupled goods trains still ran with a wide variety of wagons some which dated well back into the steam era. Most stations had not changed in decades and much steam era infrastructure still remained. As for locomotives, A class, C class, 141's, 181's, 121's, both Sulzer classes, E class and Deutz. If you were in the right place at the right time it was possible to see AEC railcars D class shunters and maybe even the ex GN K class 801. The rolling stock and stations were clean. There was also the introduction of the Mk2 "Supertrain" in 1973 and the new livery making things even more colorful.

Of course I did grow up in Tralee during this time. A short walk across a field from our house led to an elevated area (a grass covered cinder pile) by the headshunt with a view of the goods yard loco shed and turntable, still used at the time for the 121 class. I spent many happy hours on this perch from the late sixties until the modernization of the station in the late seventies watching the comings and goings and shunting. It was during this time I got to know some of the CIE staff and was lucky to have experienced footplate and guards van trips to Castleisland Fenit and Listowel on both the regular goods trains and beet specials.

Also during this period my family took several vacations to Butlins Mosney where the big attraction for me was the Dublin Belfast mainlin where the cement trains the Guiness liner and of course the GN Enteprise in maroon livery were a special treat for me.

So there you have it, no question about what my favourite era is.

Edited September 22, 2013 by patrick
grammer

[Maitland]

David Holman has a good point about formative experiences. In 1962 I was 10 going on 11, head full of Biggles and biplanes. Then we went on a holiday in the Isle of Man. I'd never heard the words "narrow gauge" up till then, and I was simply knocked over by my first sight, after the rather forbidding entrance to Douglas station, of the wooden- carriage train and the dark red loco with big brass dome. We stayed near Colby, and the trek to the station started every day's outing. The wait at cinder- ballasted track level, head down to the rails to get an early warning of the train's approach, climbing on the footboards into the compartment with its bare wooden seats, always as near to the loco as we could get. It only takes that combination of coal smoke and hot oil to take me straight back there. The locos most used on the Port Erin line in August that year were G.H.Wood, Hutchinson and Maitland, and I even got a little footplate ride on that last one as she ran round the train at Port Erin one time. Two weeks later when we returned home to Manchester the half built Keil Kraft biplane kit remained unfinished.

 

We visited Ireland four years later, staying at Bray, sadly too late for steam but fascinated by the silver or black and tan single- cab diesels, the balloon- like carriages with their recessed doors, and the strange little four- wheeled vans whose purpose we didn't know for many years after.

 

At the time my elder brother and all my friends who were into trainspotting kept firmly to ticking off the numbers in Ian Allen, but I raided the library and read about the Lynton and Barnstaple, the Lough Swilly and anything else offbeat or curious that I could find. And long chimneys and slightly dubious trackwork have been my preferred style ever since.

[murrayec]

Hi

 

Great to see peoples preferences

 

I just love trains and all things mechanical

 

I started into model trains very young, my dad had a small set which fit on an 8x4 with a metal station, metal signal box, signals and some card houses. (I still have the controller that I use for powering a phosphorus acid bath to clean rust from metal- it's still going) The trains were all British steam class, big green ones, and small black ones! As I got a little older we started to extend the layout and I got a BR Class 08 for a birthday which I immediately painted orange and black, a few more were added and later the British coaches were painted orange and I got some wagons going. My brother went for continental stuff with double pantographs and the like. We dreamed of a bigger layout but it never happened.

 

Gliders, control line planes, remote control planes and motor bikes n cars took over. Sadly the whole thing was given away to someone's child and I only found out years later.

 

Though I still kept an eye on trains. I love all the early steam in the 1830's, also McDonnell, Ivatt, Aspinall and Coey designs out of Inchicore later, and all the diesels. I must admit I did not like the DART when it was introduced and it made a mess of the seafront with all the cables and posts, but I remember it was badly needed.

 

I got back into the models about 10 years ago, but started into live steam large gauge. I'm currently working on a 3&1/2" gauge 'Northumberan' as test bench to hone the model engineer skills to build a live steam 'Hibernia'.

 

I also started collecting the Murphy Models range and a lot of British steam locos that can be modified to be Irish, though not started into that yet!

 

murrayec

[Georgeconna]

Great post, If you aint been to the Isle of Man go, Its a great place, Load of Railway stuff and 100 of other things to see as well!!

[jhb171achill]

I agree... The IOM is stunning! My first visit was 1975, but my only other one a year ago. The island and Douglas station were different, but the railway a beautiful time warp, very interesting. Steam plus old carriages.

 

Last Sunday I was in a similar wooden-coached steam world on an island - the Isle of Wight Railway steam gala. Excellent stuff, unless you're unfortunate enough to get one of their 0.6.0 saddle tank Austerities..... The 02 and "terriers" are worth seeing!

[murrayec]

Hi Guys

 

Yes IOM is on my extensive list of things to do. Time and money has pulled the throttle back!

 

murrayec