Irish Cement Bubble - "Concrete" Answer Required....

[Glenderg]

Gents,

 

Posting this on behalf of IRM as production is far more advanced on the wagon than expected.

 

I've been through hundreds of photo's but have yet to see one where the bubble was branded with the "Irish Cement" logo as seen on the curtain sides and bogied variant. Up until 2008 I know a lot of them still had the broken wheel and "BULK CEMENT" branding.

 

The question I have, and I need photographic proof, is - "Were the Cement Bubbles ever actually branded with "Irish Cement"?"

 

Rich.

[Kirley]

Great picture Dave, looks like the middle one is No. 23112

 

[DiveController]

The wagon in the Derry photo may have been from the original batch of Bubbles, the chassis with the handbrake wheels is most likely to have evolved from an earlier design as opposed to a donor chassis from a 20' Flat.

Indeed, 25062 is from the very first batch of bulk cement bubbles.

 

Only pics I could find after a couple of days trawling

My old stomping ground, Upper Grangegorman

Lovely shot, Dave,. Really like the blue/grey livery

[jhb171achill]

 

Lovely shot, Dave,. Really like the blue/grey livery

 

This was the standard wagon grey of the day - the bluish tint is just from the photo ageing. It's always important to point out that the "H" vans and "palvans" were a lighter shade. The shade used on bubbles and their chassis would be the same as that used on open wagons, and almost all CIE wagons prior to about 1957. It's not unlike what the GNR used too.

[DiveController]

Anticipated your post being the next one as soon as I wrote blue there, JB. You're right in the sense that the top of the tank is a much lighter color. Why were the H & Palvans a lighter shade if this (formerly) was the order of the day?

 

Great picture Dave, looks like the middle one is No. 23112

Hard to work out the number in the shadows of old photos. It would be 25112 as they were numbered 25050 onwards

Edited April 11, 2016 by DiveController

[Glenderg]

it's 25112 and the wagon to the right is 25097

[Glenderg]

I colour corrected Wrenn's slides, here's one worthy of posting.

 

[Mayner]

Nice shot at Cabra Bank probably late 60s still in use for cattle traffic, platform on the left was probably for washing cattle wagons, villas on thee Cabra Road in the distance

[jhb171achill]

Anticipated your post being the next one as soon as I wrote blue there, JB. You're right in the sense that the top of the tank is a much lighter color. Why were the H & Palvans a lighter shade if this (formerly) was the order of the day?

 

 

Hard to work out the number in the shadows of old photos. It would be 25112 as they were numbered 25050 onwards

 

I don't know, Dive. They had a standard grey - very common among most railway companies probably because it was cheaper mass produced stuff for what were workhorses; no need for varnished ginish and attractive lining on a vehicle designed to carry stones, hay, parcels, cattle or cement.... The early H vans were this "normal" grey too (and at least one fitted one was standard green!). Colour photos (and memories) after about 1961 or thereabouts show H vans, palvans, and I'm nearly sure cattle vans, plus of course the then-new goods brake vans, all appearing in a light shade, still to be seen at the end of loose coupled traffic on quite a few wagons which had yet to be repainted brown.

 

The cement bubbles simply had this standard grey all over - in reality (and I remember it extremely well as I saw it every weekday) you might use LMS wagon grey. The chassis was grey too, and remained so when they were repainted orange. Once they became cream, the chassis became black.

 

The tops of those do look lighter in the photos, but they're taken on a dull day. There was no variation in the grey from couplings to chassis to tank top.

 

The roundel had a tan surround in these photos, with white lettering. It was the same transfer as used on H vans and palvans. Interestingly, any cattle trucks painted at this time, plus various other types of wagons, had an all-White roundel. I must check this, but from vague memory, newer guards vans had all-White.

 

Talking of guards vans, we see many variations (including in the UFTM) of the wasp stripes on CIE guards vans. There is one version that CIE used, thus if one wishes to have accuracy, all else is incorrect! That is, yellow and black stripes (not white and black); and the stripes were only on the protruding part. The section of bodyside above and below the protruding part was plain black. No older wooden ones ever had these stripes. Like earlier CIE guards vans, they were just plain grey.

 

By the start of the "brown" period, all repainted vans had wasp stripes, with none having a plain brown ducket.

[Jimbo325ci]

I expect you've seen this, but about 4 pictures down there's a bubble with Irish cement markings.....

 

http://www.steamtrainsireland.com/locomotives/loco102.htm