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Irish railway lamps

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Wexford70

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1 hour ago, Wexford70 said:

Hi folks,

Looking for a reliable source of info on locomotive / wagon lamps as well as others used on level crossings etc. 

Were lamps on the Irish network substantially different to the those used in the UK?

Where were these lamps made?

They were much the same, Wexford70. The only real difference was that usually they had company initials stamped or stencilled on them. The GNR tended to paint locomotive numbers on them too - they presumably tried to keep a set with each loco.

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3 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

They were much the same, Wexford70. The only real difference was that usually they had company initials stamped or stencilled on them. The GNR tended to paint locomotive numbers on them too - they presumably tried to keep a set with each loco.

Great to know. What is the difference between a guard's van lamp and a loco lamp?

Did they burn paraffin?

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59 minutes ago, Wexford70 said:

Great to know. What is the difference between a guard's van lamp and a loco lamp?

Did they burn paraffin?

Depends what you mean by guards van lamp, the handlamp carried by the guard or the lamp fitted to or carried by the van.

If it's the former, the loco lamp is similar to a handlamp only a lot bigger with a fitting to slip over a lamp iron rather than a handle at the rear. Yes they burned paraffin, but very early lamps would have burned colza oil, a form of vegetable oil, before the large scale extraction of petroleum oil. EDIT a minority of railways here used acetylene loco headlamps; Tralee and Dingle, Schull & Skibbereen, possibly others.

6 hours ago, Wexford70 said:

Hi folks,

Looking for a reliable source of info on locomotive / wagon lamps as well as others used on level crossings etc. 

Were lamps on the Irish network substantially different to the those used in the UK?

Where were these lamps made?

Lamps were either bought in from a specialist contractor or made in-house in the railways own workshops. Inchicore would have had a sheet metal shop and would have made most of the loco and handlamps from scratch themselves.

The outer cast iron lamp cases for LC lamps and signal lamps were cast in Inchicore, the lamps that went inside these were a bought in product as far as I know. LM&RS (Lamp Manuf & Railway Supplies) London were a big supplier of these.

Edited by minister_for_hardship
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5 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

Thank you. Much simpler than the GB system. I’ve just been installing lamp irons on the F6 I’m building and did wonder why it only had four in total! 

As an aside, the DW&WR and WL&WR had systems of loco carried discs with symbols for different types of train or perhaps destinations that fell out of use before the Deluge.

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First pic, brake van lamp with removable red filter. Side mounted on van and you place the filter behind whichever lens you want to show red.

Second, red tail lamp for rear of train. 

Both of these are British, although CIE bought in some of the British style tail lamps latterly, they didn't use the brake van lamp. CIE brake vans had the lamp housings built into them, the oil burners and red filters were changed around within the van.

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A few pics. In order of appearance.

CIE Loco headlamp, CIE handlamp x 2, GSR gauge glass lamp (illuminating loco water gauge glasses), Duck lamp (inspection), Bardic (successor to oil handlamp), CIE brake van lamp reservoir and burner, oil tail lamp, pot lamp (pre elect and gas coach lighting), signal and LC gate lamp interior.

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

The other type of CIE headlamp with the piecrust top goes back to GS&WR days......

  images.jpeg    The RPSI made two 'Genuine Antique' lamps similar to this for No.461 during a previous overhaul.  

                                                                      DSERetc    

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  • 1 year later...
  • 1 year later...

Hi, We moved into a new house and started insulating the attic and came across this beauty. Base on the newspaper it was wrapped in its been up there since 1976.

I was hoping you all could help with:

A) telling me what it is exactly and what it was used for (Irish?)

B) recommend where I can get it restored with a view to putting it back into use (electrical rather than gas!).

https://imgur.com/4LreLoG
https://imgur.com/TykDqkF
https://imgur.com/3oYIkcS
https://imgur.com/kspvuKp

 

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1 hour ago, bt_ie said:

Hi, We moved into a new house and started insulating the attic and came across this beauty. Base on the newspaper it was wrapped in its been up there since 1976.

I was hoping you all could help with:

A) telling me what it is exactly and what it was used for (Irish?)

B) recommend where I can get it restored with a view to putting it back into use (electrical rather than gas!).

https://imgur.com/4LreLoG
https://imgur.com/TykDqkF
https://imgur.com/3oYIkcS
https://imgur.com/kspvuKp

 

Not railway at all. It's for a horse drawn vehicle. Candles went into them.

Screenshot_20231212-102655_Chrome.jpg

Edited by minister_for_hardship
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