NIR 70 Class DEMU

[Dunluce Castle]

Absolutely beautiful, well done, the paint finish is just stunning.

[heirflick]

class work - well done sir=D

[jhb171achill]

That is seriously excellent!!!

[Kirley]

Great to see it at this stage, and still more to come!

[Hunslet 102]

Nice work Ivor,the 70 class is looking good

[Mayner]

Amazing stuff 33Lima hard to believe what can be achieved kit bashing plastic body shells. Impressed with the standard of finish and detailing especially the ends complete with jumper cables.

 

Takes me back to one of my first journey on NIR an IRRS tour in a 70 Class set from York Road to Larne & Whitehead, lunch with the NIR driver and guard, reversed on the main line at Bleach Green and over the viaduct to a tightly timed connection with an 80 Class set on a Belfast bound train at Antrim connect into the Enterprise at Lisburn a great day out.

[David Holman]

A very challenging project, beautifully done!

[33lima]

Nearly done now. Power car roof needs a second coat, a lost buffer or two need found or replaced, a proper test run made and any final adjustments sorted.

 

I couldn't find any decal film for the cab front crest so used four little cuts (one for the shield, three for the banner) from a white sheet intended for PC printing of transfers, which is self-adhesive. The red detail was applied with a thin, pointed sliver of plasticard; not very precise but like the last one, but it captures the look, at normal viewing distances.

 

The lack of flush-glazing is a bit noticeable in the power car due to the thick sides and lots of non-standard windows but less so in the passenger window area and the cab front as the glazing strips in those areas are inset, sitting in a recess. Not a big issue with the trailers as these are relatively thin-sided Hornby Staniers; the usual flushglaze sets weren't usable as I opted to reproduce the wider (BR Mk2-width?) windows fitted to the 70 Class.

 

Seats in the centre car and power car are red, blue in the driving trailer which is right according to the Midland Irish Broad Gauge Carriages book by Desmond Coackham. Modified RTR seating units were used in the trailers, scratchbuilt for the power car, but with a gap at the inner end because of the room needed for the wiring to the trailing bogie.

 

Wipers are just little bits of strip plasticard glued at an angle, painted silver and stuck to the sides of the window with Clearfix, which doesn't damage paintwork. All vehicles were ballasted with fire cement, pushed into voids.

 

I ended up leaving the Hornby HST bogie frames alone; they're not too bad for a 70 Class power car and that soft plastic is easy to mess up once you start hacking it (and not the easiest to fit replacement bogie frames to either).

 

Handrails are thin florist's wire, painted white which I think is right. Similar stuff painted black serves as the jumper cables; I fitted these only to the outer ends, having fitted steps which left no room to the inner ends before I found a photo (in that Midland book) which showed that the inner jumper cables were fitted high on these ends, not at buffer beam level as I had assumed.

 

I have a sheet of waterslide gold numbers somewhere and if I can find that again, I'll number the fronts of power car and driving trailer, at any rate. I'll post some better pics before despatch, in better light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[heirflick]

absolutely gobsmacking work! take a well deserved bow Sir!

[Dunluce Castle]

Absolutely beautiful, well done sir, I love that crest.

[Hunslet 102]

Superb work Ivor,that is one class 70 class set,well done.

[UP6936]

That really is fantastic, and the livery is well applied aswell. Never knew the DVT drivers window was so tiny!

[Hunslet 102]

That really is fantastic, and the livery is well applied aswell. Never knew the DVT drivers window was so tiny!

 

There were 2 driving trailers with the small windows,the others were more normal size.

[33lima]

There were 2 driving trailers with the small windows,the others were more normal size.

 

From the pics I've seen, the two original trailers (711, 712, the type I have modelled) and the other two added 1968-9 (713, 714) all had these small windows. So did 701 (part of the Sealink-liveried set) and 703, the trailers converted to driving trailers in the 1970s. Don't think I've ever seen a 70 Class driving trailer with anything but a single, small window, apart from 714 (and I think also 713) which had an even smaller window on the other side of the corridor connection, in the maroon and grey era anyway. A hard target for stone throwers but not the nicest feature of the 70 Class, on power cars or trailers.

 

[Dunluce Castle]

Fantastic pictures, am I the only one who thinks the sealink livery would make a very nice unique model

[Hunslet 102]

From the pics I've seen, the two original trailers (711, 712, the type I have modelled) and the other two added 1968-9 (713, 714) all had these small windows. So did 701 (part of the Sealink-liveried set) and 703, the trailers converted to driving trailers in the 1970s. Don't think I've ever seen a 70 Class driving trailer with anything but a single, small window, apart from 714 (and I think also 713) which had an even smaller window on the other side of the corridor connection, in the maroon and grey era anyway. A hard target for stone throwers but not the nicest feature of the 70 Class, on power cars or trailers.

 

You are right Ivor.I knew which original your model was based on but thought their windows were slightly smaller than the others.great photo's of another unique homemade class,thanks for sharing.

Nelson-the Sealink livery would be a unique one to model,it was quite striking in its day.

[WRENNEIRE]

Lima did some Sealink coaches

They also did a BSK & SK

 

[Kirley]

Another superb job Ivor.

 

From your extensive knowledge what was the usual formation of a Class 70 Set? Am I correct in saying the original Set had two Power Cars and it was not until the 70's that Driving Trailers came into use? Any clarification is welcome please.

[33lima]

Another superb job Ivor.

 

From your extensive knowledge what was the usual formation of a Class 70 Set? Am I correct in saying the original Set had two Power Cars and it was not until the 70's that Driving Trailers came into use? Any clarification is welcome please.

 

Hi Kirley

 

The first two driving trailers (711 + 712) were completed very early on, and the colour pics of the first 70 Class's unit's trial run from York Road in 1966 that are featured in 'Diesel Dawn' and 'UTA in Colour' (taken by Derek Young I believe) show this is a three-car set with a driving trailer at one end. So in that sense, 'the original set' was a 3-car one. While a 6-car set, with a power car at either end, was intended to be the normal consist for main-line work from York Road to Waterside, 3-car sets were used from the beginning too - the latter book has a pic of a 3-car set on a Larne line service in 1967.

 

Colm Flanagan in 'Diesel Dawn' says that the original plan was for two 6-car sets and two 3-car sets with the rest in reserve but with the addition of an 8th power car and the realisation that 3-car sets were often more useful, more driving trailers were built or converted from trailers, two in 1968-69 (713 & 714) then two more in 1976-77 (701 & 703).

 

A nice colour pic in MHC Barker's 'Irish Railways Past & Present Vol 1' [was there ever a Vol.2?] shows what appears to be a 7-car set (possibly including some ex-GNR trailer conversions) led by NIR-badged 77, leaving Dublin on the Enterprise in August 1969.

[Kirley]

An instant answer, thanks Ivor, if only I could remember details such as these.

[33lima]

Right nearly done now! Test run went ok after cleaning wheels and track. Just needed to cut back one of the corridor connection arms which I hadn't noticed was sitting way out and caught the next coach on turns. I've found the gold waterslide transfers (Mabex bus numbers) in a box in the loft and if they are still usable after about 20 years I'll number the fronts of the power car and driving trailer.

 

I had already repainted the roofs before these last pics were taken, using a matt black spray as brushing produced a rather poor effect. I suppose the roofs should be mid-grey to go with the general ex-works finish but to me, a sooty and/or greasy black just looks right, with UTA or NIR railcars, and is how I remember them anyway. Conversely, I don't know if they ever painted the driving trailer's corridor connection cover maroon, but to me it looks better like this than sooty black or brown. This was, after all, the UTA's last railcar and it deserved a nice finish even if the roofs got dirty

 

Just need to fit the transfers (if they work!) and trim and re-fit the over-long corridor connection bracket then we're done.

 

 

 

 

 

Not exactly my favourite UTA/NIR railcar. And to be honest, as a kid I didn't even identify them as a distinct type from the MPDs, for all I saw of them in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But they have a certain presence and their engines, passed on to the 450 Class, have (assuming they weren't replaced) only just retired, over forty years after the 70 Class was introduced. At least they survive in model form, Colm Flanagan's original version being justly well-known ( http://newirishlines.org/2009/09/27/the-utas-finest-train/ ) and others can be seen made from Worsley Works etches, like a new set from Colm and another from David Orr:

 

http://www.worsleyworks.co.uk/Image-Pages/Image_4mm_Class70.htm

 

Here's to another class gone, but not forgotten!

Edited July 27, 2014 by 33lima

[Hunslet 102]

Superb job with the 70 class Ivor,you have captured the prototype very accurately,as you say,gone but not forgotten.

[33lima]

OK final set of pics before the set takes to the rails...sorry, the post, for Galway. Only work done since the previous pics is numbering cab fronts, flush-glazing the non-passenger windows in the power car and painting all buffers a dark metallic colour.

 

As with the 80 Class's farewell photos, the set is posed with my previous effort (far side) which dates from about 1995 and was powered with a Tri-ang Hornby Hymek power bogie, as that was about all that I could readily get my hands on at a modest price, back then. The new model, having a Hornby Ringfield job with a 5-pole motor and trailing bogie pick-up, should perform rather better.

 

The pics illustrate the difference between the Hornby LMS-style windows, un-modified, on the original set's trailers, and the correct, wider, BR Mk-2 width (?) windows on the new trailers, the lack of flush glazing the price paid for greater accuracy.

 

Last pic is a 5-car set, with the new set leading and two cars from the original set at the rear. All pics I won't be able to take again!

 

[heirflick]

poetry in motion - stunning just dosent describe it!

[Dave]

Wow, amazing work.

Fantastic

[jhb171achill]

Unbelievably good!

 

My recollections of early ones certainly had a power car at each end, but as others have mentioned, not for long.

 

Driving Trailer 713 ended up at Downpatrick but was destroyed by scumbag vandals in the Boxing Day fire about 10 years ago. It had most recently been in use as a "Santa's Grotto", but was burned completely. Driving trailer 728 survives, though, and is currently in traffic in its earlier version as a UTA coach.