Loading ballast at Lisduff

[Garfield]

 

This excellent photo of the loading point at Lisduff in 1961 by James O'Dea was posted to the National Library of Ireland's Flickr account this morning. It looks more like something you'd expect to see on an American railroad, rather than in County Laois! Note the aerial ropeway for delivering stone to the silo from the quarry...

[Broithe]

I'm "sure" that I remember a conveyor over the road there not that many years ago, but Street View only goes back to 2009.

[Broithe]

OSI aerial pictures show the conveyor still there in 2005.

[leslie10646]

Ah, sure the Yanks were probably copying us?

Aerial ropeways feature on a number of Irish railways - Ballinhassig on the CB&SCR (to a brickworks) and on  the Ariana valley extension of the C&L - at Derreenavoggy  - it ran up to the Laydens mine.   John Langford took some fascinating photos of it.  We should persuade Andy Cundick to extend his line and include a working ropeway?

Of course there was also that "bucket way" over the GN main line North of the Boyne Viaduct running to the cement works.

No doubt JHB will provide a longer list!!!!  Come on John!

I should have said that a photo stop at Lisduff was a feature of that memorable day when No.4 called there with the May RPSI tour and then ran off 35 miles without going below 70mph - mind you that was a while ago!

[Mayner]

7 hours ago, Garfield said:

 

This excellent photo of the loading point at Lisduff in 1961 by James O'Dea was posted to the National Library of Ireland's Flickr account this morning. It looks more like something you'd expect to see on an American railroad, rather than in County Laois! Note the aerial ropeway for delivering stone to the silo from the quarry...

There were a similar loading bunkers at Lecarrow on the Mayo Road and Goraghwood on the GNR (I) which were probably built in the early 1900s when the three companies introduced steel ballast hoppers and plough vans.. Timber would have been the most economic way of building a bunker, before the use of reinforced concrete and later structural steelwork became cost effective.

I wonder what became of the massive timber posts and beams when the structure was demolished, it would have been a crying shame to burn all that good structural timber.

[DiveController]

On 10/1/2018 at 7:47 AM, Garfield said:

 

This excellent photo of the loading point at Lisduff in 1961 by James O'Dea was posted to the National Library of Ireland's Flickr account this morning. It looks more like something you'd expect to see on an American railroad, rather than in County Laois! Note the aerial ropeway for delivering stone to the silo from the quarry...

Ah, sure that's a fantastic shot. There seem to be few shots on how ballast (or more importantly coal) was loaded onto wagons or tenders. Love those old ballast wagons. They look like the GNR ones but apparently not. So it that a GSWR/GSR/CIE brake wagon or does it have a plough?

 Thanks for posting that, Patrick.

Edited October 5, 2018 by DiveController
typo

[Garfield]

1 minute ago, DiveController said:

Ah, sure that's a fantastic shot. There seem to be few shots on how ballast (or more importantly coal) was loaded onto wagons or tenders. Love those old ballast wagons. They look like the GNR ones but apparently not. So it that a GSWR/GSR/CIE ballast wagon or does it have a plough?

 Thanks for posting that, Patrick.

The plough van and hoppers all appear to be of GSWR origin...

[Mayner]

The GNR(I), GSWR, MGWR & DSER appear to have had broadly similar trains of ballast hopper and plough vans by the 1925 Amalgamation. Apparently the GNR, MGWR & GSWR started to modernise their p.w. departments in the early 1900s using cut stone ballast from a central quarry on each system and ballast trains with steel hopper wagons and plough vans. The MGWR p.w. dept went through a further re-organisation with the introduction of the Bretland Track Re-laying Machine in the 1920s and sold a surplus ballast train to the DSER. The ballast wagons and plough vans were bought from suppliers in the UK, the GNR & GSWR hoppers were similar in appearance, the MGWR were more low sided and fitted with hungry boards by CIE/GSR to increase capacity.

[DiveController]

Are there any models of the British hoppers for conversion I wonder?

[Mayner]

1 hour ago, DiveController said:

Are there any models of the British hoppers for conversion I wonder?

Nothing that I know of in rtr form, most of earlier British hoppers were replaced by BR designs which were larger/quite different to the eariler wagons. Falcon Brass which had a reputation of being difficult to build produced an etched kit of an LNER hopper,  Cambrian produced, produces? a GWR Herring http://cambrianmodels.co.uk/wagon_kits_4mm.html looks similar to the wagons used by the GSWR/MGWR  wagons, there was an article and drawing of the GNR(I) ballsat and gypsum hoppers and plough van in New Irish Lines.