Brown Vans

[Mike 84C]

Would the Brown Vans, 4&6 wheeled versions have run on CIE or were they NCC/UTA only?

On page 26 of Irish Broadgauge Carriages there is a photo of a Cronin 34ft 6in all first 6whl coach No15d. Was this a one off vehicle or was it one of a series and where can I find photos of others? I have scoured my library but I have nothing DSER specifc.

[leslie10646]

Two questions here:

 

1 Brown vans were almost entirely used on the NCC. I have seen one photo of a couple at GV St in mid sixties. So, I'm pretty sure the answer is that they would not have run on CIE metals. Of course, who klnows what might have happened on a pigeon special, if "NCC" pigeon fanciers ever sent their birds so far away?

2 No.15D was a Type F10, built at Grand Canal Street and was one of SIX (Source Shepherd, DSER History). 15 appears to have been the only one to remain a first.

 

As for more photos - scour the photos in EVERY book covering Dublin - using a good magnifying glass.

 

Good luck!

 

Leslie

[Mike 84C]

Thanks Leslie, good job I was given a magnifying glass at Christmas!

Mike

[leslie10646]

You can't live without one when you're my age, especially under these modern low wattage bulbs.

 

Now, when I was a young man, the lights actually lit up the room .............

[jhb171achill]

I'm completely with you, Leslie; I, too, am now the proud owner of a magnified slide viewer, glasses, and a magnifying glass!

 

I agree, a visit south of Belfast in ncc days, or portadown in UTA days, by a "brown van" is highly unlikely, and certainly not south or west of Dublin.

[jhb171achill]

DSER stock seems to have been much less successful at surviving than GSWR or MGWR stuff...

[Broithe]

I'm completely with you, Leslie; I, too, am now the proud owner of a magnified slide viewer, glasses, and a magnifying glass!

 

Always remembering the warnings about magnifying glasses and sunlight.....

 

http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/showthread.php/3672-Sunlight-and-magnifying-lamps?highlight=magnifying

[minister_for_hardship]

DSER stock seems to have been much less successful at surviving than GSWR or MGWR stuff...

 

Far far fewer DSE items of rolling stock and I suspect some may not have been in tip-top condition and got withdrawn in GSR days.

[jhb171achill]

jhb171 Senior recalled quite a few GSWR six wheelers on the Harcourt Street line as early as the late 1920s, which would certainly fit well with the idea of the "native" coaches not being in the best order. One might guess that the GSR withdrew some DSER coaches more or less straight away.

[minister_for_hardship]

Hmm, sounds like cascaded hand-me-downs to keep the Cinderella South Eastern going.

 

The DSE got a fair bashing during the unpleasantness of '22-'23 losing locos and stock in the process, no doubt there were arrears in maintenance as well.

Many rolling stock items could be described as near clapped out antiques when the GSR took over.

[leslie10646]

Far far fewer DSE items of rolling stock and I suspect some may not have been in tip-top condition and got withdrawn in GSR days.

Just to complete the DSER Coach Type F10 story - according to Shepherd - Nos.5 and 6 were withdrawn in 1926 and 1925 respectively, but Nos 8 and 9 with down-graded to thirds in 1928 and 1931 (no withdrawal dates); No.15 appears to have remained a first until withdrawal in 1959 and No.16 was demoted to third in 1929 - again no withdrawal date stated.

 

A glance down the withdrawal dates stated in Shepherd's book suggested that few DSER six wheelers made it to the 1950s.

 

Leslie

[jhb171achill]

Yes...... look at photographs of a train in CIE days on a former MGWR or GSWR route, and you'll see more than a few carriages of the original companies, interspersed with Park Royal, laminates and Bredins. But on the DSER, the older stock is as likely to be GSWR origin as anything. And, of course, it was a smaller company than the Midland or GSW in the first place.

[jhb171achill]

To go back to the original post, it's theoretically possible, of course, that a brown van might have ended up somewhere unusual, but it would be an exception, a one-off. Immediately after the GNR was split up in 1958, a GNR coach, still in brown, ended up for a very short time on - of all places - the West Cork system.

 

I have a photo of a DSER goods van in a siding at Achill, and I saw a pic once of a CIE wagon in a train on the Larne line in the early 1960s.

[minister_for_hardship]

Wouldn't it be possible, if a once off, that goods could be loaded into a Brown Van in say, Belfast for consignment to somewhere on CIE's network?

 

Would such goods stay in the Van all the way through and the Van returned when empty?

[josefstadt]

Yes Minister, it would be, as JHB says, theoretically possible. However, it would have been far more likely that the goods would have been loaded into a CIÉ wagon in Belfast.

[jhb171achill]

I've seen pics taken in the Harcourt Street area in the early fifties showing a siding of spare stock for the line - all Midland six wheelers and a GSWR bogie, as far as I could make out. Even in the late fifties, I've seen a photo of an AEC set with one of these Midland six wheelers tagged onto the end. A photo of a suburban train at Killiney in the 50s shows a mix of just about everything, but as far as I could see only one vehicle was a "native".

 

This is interesting for anyone modelling the Dublin area in this period.

[jhb171achill]

Indeed, josefstadt. The brown vans in those days weren't even common sights on the former GNR lines - they stayed mostly on home territory. I remember the goods trains in the Belfast / Lisburn area very well, but I personally never once saw one of these vans in a goods train.

[Mike 84C]

Thanks for all the info, the DSER F10 coach, its amazing that one made it into the 1950"s for definate and the others got scrapped after quite a short life. I did find what looks like another photo of one in Donal Murray Great Southern Railway on page 85 the lower photo second vehicle.

I had a feeling the brown vans did not stray much but its my railway and I like them.

[jhb171achill]

Well, that's always the best reason of the lot to run them, Mike! They were a very individual type of wagon.

[Eiretrains]

I know this might be an example of unearthing a dormant thread, but while researching the CBSCR system recently, I observed a picture in one of Colm Creedon's notebooks (viewable on Cork County Library site) depicting a rake of UTA stock in Albert Quay station, Cork, consisting of one of the 4-wheel UTA brown vans + two ex GNR(I) carriages.

 

Their appearance in Albert Quay, dated September 1959, seems to have been in connection with Chipperfields Circus visiting Cork. On seeing the picture I was reminded of this thread, so just thought I'd mention it considering the interesting discussion above on the travels of the brown vans and the aspect of depicting them prototypically on model layouts.

[Garfield]

That's quite a find, Ciaran... nice one!

[Mike 84C]

Thanks for posting Eiretrains now I have a real reason for Brown vans on CIE! that site is quite a find.

[Eiretrains]

Thanks for posting Eiretrains now I have a real reason for Brown vans on CIE! that site is quite a find.

No problem Mike, Patrick, that's why I thought it might be a good idea to let you know, so you can now run the brown van next to CIÉ stock. It's interesting to think that no only did such a van come all the way down to Dublin and then Cork, that on its final part of the journey it traversed the Cork City Railway to Albert Quay, if only we had a time machine to witness it