RTR Irish carriages

[DoctorPan]

Well I'd certainly want a rake or two. Was away from the hobby when they were first released and like hen's teeth nowadays.

[murphaph]

Same here. Missed the mkIId IE stock completely. Would welcome the opportunity to buy them at RRP. I saw one on eBay starting at 80GBP last week. Too much for me.

[NIRCLASS80]

7 hours ago, WRENNEIRE said:

On the subject of coaches, would there be much interest in Mk2d's in IR livery?
Asking for a friend!!!!!

Would love a rake of IR MK2d’s. Count me in for 7.

[WRENNEIRE]

3 hours ago, NIRCLASS80 said:

Would love a rake of IR MK2d’s. Count me in for 7.

IR people, stay with the programme

[Fiacra]

8 hours ago, WRENNEIRE said:

IR people, stay with the programme

IR Mk2D's - yes please! I would certainly take a rake of them.

[murphaph]

I'd take IR too of course. Even better in fact.

[WRENNEIRE]

Couple of questions:
The Mk 2d's as delivered would have been in Supertrain livery
When CIE turned their railway operation over to Irish Rail (IR) in 87 did they just add the 2  3" stripes to the coaches or was there a new orange colour added?
Inter City logos were added but not to the Genny 
Then the IE ones were painted in the Ral 2011 and given the IE logo but the InterCity logo remained the same
So what do we know about black and orange roofs?
Supertrain only seemed to have orange roofs, been looking for an IR coach with a black roof but have been unable to make one out due to most photos being of the coach side, roofs did not seem important back in the day. Various pics of IE's with black roofs, someone suggested to me that the black roofs were mineral felt applied over the existing roof due to leakage? Any truth in this men?

[hexagon789]

1 hour ago, WRENNEIRE said:

Couple of questions:
The Mk 2d's as delivered would have been in Supertrain livery
When CIE turned their railway operation over to Irish Rail (IR) in 87 did they just add the 2  3" stripes to the coaches or was there a new orange colour added?
Inter City logos were added but not to the Genny 
Then the IE ones were painted in the Ral 2011 and given the IE logo but the InterCity logo remained the same
So what do we know about black and orange rothe tofs?
Supertrain only seemed to have orange roofs, been looking for an IR coach with a black roof but have been unable to make one out due to most photos being of the coach side, roofs did not seem important back in the day. Various pics of IE's with black roofs, someone suggested to me that the black roofs were mineral felt applied over the existing roof due to leakage? Any truth in this men?

The change from ST to Tippex was I believe originally purely the addition of stripes, the colour change & IC logos came later.

Black roofs also came later, there's mention of it being trialled and why in one of the IRRS journals. Bear with me and I'll have a look

[WRENNEIRE]

So the IR & IE coaching stock would originally have been similar to the Supertrain stock, Ist Class, Composite, Standards Restaurant & EGV
As there were only 4  of each IE with Orange & Black roofs modelled by MM would there be a demand for 1sts & Comps, although most of the Comps were converted to Standards at some stage?
Also some more running numbers in the Standards

[iarnrod]

3 hours ago, WRENNEIRE said:

So the IR & IE coaching stock would originally have been similar to the Supertrain stock, Ist Class, Composite, Standards Restaurant & EGV
As there were only 4  of each IE with Orange & Black roofs modelled by MM would there be a demand for 1sts & Comps, although most of the Comps were converted to Standards at some stage?
Also some more running numbers in the Standards

I think that the only issue would be the carriage ends. The MM Supertrain Mk2's appear to depict the carriages as delivered with tan coloured ends and black strip, but by IR days when they started adding the white stripes, the carriage ends were painted black, similar to the MM IE Mk2's. I would suspect that this was due to that area being a known dirt trap, so the tan colour didn't stay tan for long in that area. From memory, the tan only extended to the edge of the doors at the ends of the carriages by IR period, with the section from door end to gangway connections painted black.

The attached link of a train at Greystones by Albert Bridge illustrates this.

https://www.geograph.ie/photo/3071995

[flange lubricator]

One thing to bear in mind is by IE days the majority of the compos and firsts were de classified as standards .

Great footage here (at 08.15) of an up Sligo made up of 3 standards 2 compos (de classified) 1 first (de classified) 1 diner  and 1 compo very typical mix . Interestingly enough the ex first is  maybe 5104 with black window surrounds and 5215 also with black window surrounds no silver both these coaches were rebuilt by BREL in 1987/88 following a incident at Newry in 1985 . 

Edited July 30, 2020 by flange lubricator

[murphaph]

I'd be mostly interested in standards.

[DoctorPan]

Standards and EGVs mainly for me.

[hexagon789]

6 hours ago, WRENNEIRE said:

So the IR & IE coaching stock would originally have been similar to the Supertrain stock, Ist Class, Composite, Standards Restaurant & EGV
As there were only 4  of each IE with Orange & Black roofs modelled by MM would there be a demand for 1sts & Comps, although most of the Comps were converted to Standards at some stage?
Also some more running numbers in the Standards

Of the nine Composites originally ordered, five were converted to Standards either as introduced or by April 1973.

The 1sts began to develop converted to Standards from 1986, only one went into IR/IE for use in the Enterprise.

By 1989 there were only 3 composites which actually were such internally but by 1994 one of the originally dowmclassed ones was converted back to composite, giving 4.

These were used on the Sligo line which regained Superstandard accommodation either the 1989 timetable, two would be needed for service so the other was likely spare and I've seen a few photos of a Composite in the Enterprise instead of a 1st.

The composites as was in 1994 seemed to remain as such into the early 2000s, but by 2004 only two remained so internally and Sligo services were Standard only.

5106 was the last 1st, to start with after the De Dietrichs were introduced it simply had the "I" painted out first of all and was converted to Standard internally a bit later.

So, for the IE/IR era all Mk2 sets would be Standard only except for the Sligo and Belfast rakes.

[murphaph]

On page 56 of Irish Railway Rambler there is a tippexed EGV (rest of train still in ST) and the it does not appear to have all black coach ends yet. The wraparound orange and black ST seems intact to me, with just the tippex stripes being added and stopping a few inches around the corner of the end of the coach. The EGV is not identified in the book.

The photograph is very early IR days though (87) but it's still valid I think. I doubt it would have gotten the black ends for a while after that shot was taken.

[iarnrod]

11 hours ago, murphaph said:

On page 56 of Irish Railway Rambler there is a tippexed EGV (rest of train still in ST) and the it does not appear to have all black coach ends yet. The wraparound orange and black ST seems intact to me, with just the tippex stripes being added and stopping a few inches around the corner of the end of the coach. The EGV is not identified in the book.

The photograph is very early IR days though (87) but it's still valid I think. I doubt it would have gotten the black ends for a while after that shot was taken.

That would have been the exception rather than normal by that stage. EGV's were normally the poor relations when it came to repaints as they were always needed in service.

 

[DiveController]

Indeed, if there are any Mk3s to come I know this livery will be very popular (despite my preference for an ST livery, I'd certainly make an exception).The elusive restaurant coach with correct IE style windows, obviously

 

[hexagon789]

29 minutes ago, DiveController said:

Indeed, if there are any Mk3s to come I know this livery will be very popular (despite my preference for an ST livery, I'd certainly make an exception).The elusive restaurant coach with correct IE style windows, obviously

 

You know, I actually thought they were quite similar to British loco-hauled Mk3A Restaurant First Modular vehicles, but there are actually a number of subtle differences in the window arrangements on both sides having now done a comparison.

Definitely completely different to High Speed Train buffet cars, most of those have only three seating bays and a different kitchen/buffet counter layout.

But as I said before the beauty of it is you simply need three base designs for the InterCity fleet - Standard, Diner and EGV.

All the other types of seating car differ only in branding and internal layout the actual bodyshell of First/Composite/Standard being identical unlike the Mk2D fleet where each of those is quite distinct from each other.

 

On livery, I think it's familiarity. Certainly I came to know of the Irish Mk3s in later Tippex livery well before Supertrain. I prefer Supertrain but given much of the fleet was introduced in Tippex and indeed the entire fleet was in Tippex for practically 80% of its service life, it would be no surprise if it was more popular. (Ignoring the orange changing shade of course, but I think we can simplify a bit and call both just Tippex, rather than Tippex ex-Supertrain and Tippex new orange or whatever ;) )

1 hour ago, iarnrod said:

That would have been the exception rather than normal by that stage. EGV's were normally the poor relations when it came to repaints as they were always needed in service.

 

The very last Mk2D in Supertrain appears to have been an EGV - no. 5602

Edited July 30, 2020 by hexagon789

[Mayner]

20 hours ago, flange lubricator said:

One thing to bear in mind is by IE days the majority of the compos and firsts were de classified as standards .

Great footage here (at 08.15) of an up Sligo made up of 3 standards 2 compos (de classified) 1 first (de classified) 1 diner  and 1 compo very typical mix . Interestingly enough the ex first is  maybe 5104 with black window surrounds and 5215 also with black window surrounds no silver both these coaches were rebuilt by BREL in 1987/88 following a incident at Newry in 1985 . 

Going off topic I enjoyed the video especially the ploughing in the background at Gormanstown and 171 to Galway and return. Some odd stuff taking place on the Midland, the signalman routing the empty Esso and Up passenger through the loop rather than the main running road at Killucan and the signal man at Athenry bringing an Up passenger to a halt on the Oranmore side of the level crossing, at the time infrastructure on both Galway & Sligo lines was in a poor state due to years of deferred maintenance, requiring interesting "work arounds" by staff on the ground to keep things moving.

Edited July 31, 2020 by Mayner

[Railer]

 In the below clip you can see Mk2s with different shade of orange on the same coach and 2 coaches with black window frames.

 

 

[DiveController]

I had only noticed black window frames on the Mk2a coaches before

[hexagon789]

16 hours ago, DiveController said:

I had only noticed black window frames on the Mk2a coaches before

I seem to remember reading about the different window frames on some coaches but I don't recall where. Not in the IRRS journals, I'm quite sure of that.

 

On 7/31/2020 at 7:59 AM, Railer said:

 In the below clip you can see Mk2s with different shade of orange on the same coach and 2 coaches with black window frames.

 

 

Possibly the ones which were shipped to GB for extensive work, might explain the window frames being different?

[DiveController]

On 7/25/2020 at 1:52 PM, hexagon789 said:

Wouldn't mind some PRs or Laminates, would suit my approx era but oh if they modelled the Mk3s in Supertrain with proper doors, what a beautiful thing that would be:

I can't look at that photo without hoping one day someone in the modelling world does it justice.

Of course the First class passengers will need some catering nearby

 

Edited October 2, 2020 by DiveController

[hexagon789]

6 hours ago, DiveController said:

Of course the First class passengers will need to catering nearby

 

Unless there is no "First Class"

Amazing how the lighting changes the appearance of the "golden brown" though.

Some interesting photos on that flickr as well

[jhb171achill]

32 minutes ago, hexagon789 said:

They changed the painting method around then. The idea was that the colour would be the same. No change was planned, but the new method resulted in a brighter, more “orangey” finish! Thus, for a while, both could be seen.

Edited October 2, 2020 by jhb171achill

[hexagon789]

1 minute ago, jhb171achill said:

They changed the painting method around then. The idea was that the colour would be the same. No change was planned, but the new method resulted in a brighter, more “orangey” finish! Thus, for a while, both could be seen.

As in the Supertrain Mk3s carried different "golden browns"? I was aware that occurred with the Tippex livery and indeed is quite obvious in many rakes into the mid-1990s but I wasn't aware the base colour changed shade with the Supertrain livery.

[DiveController]

7 hours ago, hexagon789 said:

Amazing how the lighting changes the appearance of the "golden brown" though.

Some interesting photos on that flickr as well

I didn't mean to restart the great orange debate as we've had in the past but the coach is indoors, and aside from camera/exposure/film/developing variations, if you look carefully above the cantrail you'll see the same colors from the perspex lighting in the roof

[hexagon789]

9 minutes ago, DiveController said:

I didn't mean to restart the great orange debate as we've had in the past but the coach is indoors, and aside from camera/exposure/film/developing variations, if you look carefully above the cantrail you'll see the same colors from the perspex lighting in the roof

Neither was I, just passing comment on how the lighting changes the perception of colours

[DiveController]

Sure, @hexagon789I understood that, you're comment is valid. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I agree it does look very different with the different lighting 

[DiveController]

 

[hexagon789]

1 hour ago, DiveController said:

 

I've seen that before, quite a rare leaflet I should say I've never seen one up for sale for instance. Excellent illustration of how the Mk3s looked internally when new, though I think the switch to have more table bays in preference to the original predominantly airline seating arrangement was probably better.