Modelling Irish Railways of 2020

[Andy Cundick]

Not quite sure how that leaves me with modelling 1850's GWR Broad gauge through to 1950's County Donegal via 1900's Highland and North British ,1930s Great Southern not to mention the four irish and Welsh narrow gauge layoutsannd i won't mention the Rhodesian locos(Salisbury loco shed anyone?) Andy.

[Broithe]

53 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

 many enthusiasts seem drawn to a period around or just before or after when they were born.

My main period of interest would be 1990/2010.

 

This is, presumably, because I am so young-looking.

[patrick]

I was born I 1959 and my main interest in Irish railways is he period between the mid sixties and late seventies when the loose coupled goods ended.This era is particularly fascinating since much of the Railway infrastructure which had changed little for decades existed side by side with modern developments such as unit trains of containers, cement, oil and ore. Sadly today's Irish railways hold virtually no interest for me and on visits home over the last ten years I have not even bothered to go out of my way to see a train.                                 I recall reading somewhere that a good approach for a satisfying model railway is to model what got you interested in railways in the first place, an idea which I feel has much merit.

Edited August 17, 2020 by patrick

[DJ Dangerous]

2 hours ago, Andy Cundick said:

Not quite sure how that leaves me with modelling 1850's GWR Broad gauge through to 1950's County Donegal via 1900's Highland and North British ,1930s Great Southern not to mention the four irish and Welsh narrow gauge layoutsannd i won't mention the Rhodesian locos(Salisbury loco shed anyone?) Andy.

Are you two hundred years old, by any chance?

[Andy Cundick]

Apparently,Andy

[Noel]

3 minutes ago, patrick said:

I was born I 1959 and my main interest in Irish railways is he period between the mid sixties and late seventies when the loose coupled goods ended.This era is particularly fascinating since much of the Railway infrastructure which had changed little for decades existed side by side with modern developments such as unit trains of containers, cement, oil and ore. Sadly today's Irish railways hold virtually no interest for me and on visits home over the last ten years I have not even bothered to go out of my way to see a train.                                 I recall reading somewhere that a good approach for a satisfying model railway is to model what got you interested in railways in the first place an idea which I feel has much merit.

Your layout is a wonderful testament to that absorbing era. We were born in a similar era that was magical, diverse, and interesting.  Travelling on a train in that period was an assault on the senses as well as a visual feast. Intricate sidings and track work even at small stations, active goods sheds, always shunting going on somewhere, amazing rakes of stock in sidings, no passenger train had uniform rakes, nor goods trains before the ugly word 'freight' was invented. There was an interesting overlap between the loose coupled pick up, drop off goods trains and the beginning of containerisation with CIE's 1974 modernisation programme that saw modern era 42ft bogie stock. I remember travelling on trains that had a mix of green coaches, silver vans, and black and tan, laminates, park royals, before those modern Cravens with their plastic interiors and modern curved ends arrived. Watching goods trains being marshalled in Galway marshalling yard was a memory still etched in my brain, aside from the visual, the clanking, banging, buffering and banter between shunting men and drivers, the noise of marshalling conveyed activity, goods being transported, loaded and unloaded, passenger trains stopping in stations, people getting in and out followed by coach door slams progressively down the train, followed by a guards whistle and a green flag wave, the horn and EMD notching up like a jet engine as the train slowly started to move off, followed by the resonant rail clank as each axle crossed a rail joint. Compare that to the dull hum of todays plastic toy DMU yo-yo ICRs with nothing to see out of the window except overgrown greenery where once were busy marshalling yards, sidings and head shunts, goods sheds bricked up with dilapidated guttering falling victim to weather ingress, mould and uncontrolled vegetation on the roofs slowly ebbing away our disappearing built railway heritage. Hey ho, progress I suppose, but boy travelling on trains nowadays your more likely to see something of interest on netflix on an iPad than out the wind even passing through a large station complex.

[DJ Dangerous]

33 minutes ago, Noel said:

Your layout is a wonderful testament to that absorbing era. We were born in a similar era that was magical, diverse, and interesting.  Travelling on a train in that period was an assault on the senses as well as a visual feast. Intricate sidings and track work even at small stations, active goods sheds, always shunting going on somewhere, amazing rakes of stock in sidings, no passenger train had uniform rakes, nor goods trains before the ugly word 'freight' was invented. There was an interesting overlap between the loose coupled pick up, drop off goods trains and the beginning of containerisation with CIE's 1974 modernisation programme that saw modern era 42ft bogie stock. I remember travelling on trains that had a mix of green coaches, silver vans, and black and tan, laminates, park royals, before those modern Cravens with their plastic interiors and modern curved ends arrived. Watching goods trains being marshalled in Galway marshalling yard was a memory still etched in my brain, aside from the visual, the clanking, banging, buffering and banter between shunting men and drivers, the noise of marshalling conveyed activity, goods being transported, loaded and unloaded, passenger trains stopping in stations, people getting in and out followed by coach door slams progressively down the train, followed by a guards whistle and a green flag wave, the horn and EMD notching up like a jet engine as the train slowly started to move off, followed by the resonant rail clank as each axle crossed a rail joint. Compare that to the dull hum of todays plastic toy DMU yo-yo ICRs with nothing to see out of the window except overgrown greenery where once were busy marshalling yards, sidings and head shunts, goods sheds bricked up with dilapidated guttering falling victim to weather ingress, mould and uncontrolled vegetation on the roofs slowly ebbing away our disappearing built railway heritage. Hey ho, progress I suppose, but boy travelling on trains nowadays your more likely to see something of interest on netflix on an iPad than out the wind even passing through a large station complex.

 

Are you my Dad, by any chance?

 

34 minutes ago, Andy Cundick said:

Apparently,Andy

 

That's OK, I must be a newborn.

[K801]

On 8/16/2020 at 8:10 PM, Mayner said:

 

A 2 car 2600/2800 set or DART or 3 Car IRC and an oval of track would be an excellent start for as a first serious train set for a pre-teen or teenager entering the hobby for the first time. 

 

I think a current ICR or DART train set would bring a lot more newbies into the hobby 

[hexagon789]

23 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

I remember reading in a model railway magazine in the 1970s a comment, possibly about the late Mike Sharman’s early GWR broad gauge modelling, which suggested that many enthusiasts seem drawn to a period around or just before or after when they were born.

Evidently there’s some psychological reason for that!

Whether true or not, it applies to me; my main area of interest is 1950-65. By the time I’m in my teens, my interest in anything new wanes, thus while 181s were items of interest, there’s something in my head which says 071s are just “too new”.

I've read that as well, but I remain more interested in a period somewhat before I was born.

Not to say I'm not interested in more modern stuff, early BR privitisation when many new liveries and trains burst into the scene interests me as well just not quite as much.

If anything I look on the period with a degree of derisiveness and indeed amusement at many of the developments of the early 2000s.

Seemed to be the era of new but rather short trains being introduced on improved frequencies which led to increased demand, which then outstripped supply because of the short trains and so on...

Still find it interesting to reflect on Virgin Pendolinos being only eight-cars when new, when my local ScotRail 170s were all shiny and new in "toothpaste" livery and the era which led to the decline of loco-haulage in Ireland. 

Somehow the variety of the 1970s and 1980s interests me more even if it did begin the transition to fixed formation trains, at least there was still some variation.

 

 

11 hours ago, K801 said:

I think a current ICR or DART train set would bring a lot more newbies into the hobby 

I reckon it would, just as modern British trains have done the same in the UK.

[leslie10646]

20 hours ago, K801 said:

I think a current ICR or DART train set would bring a lot more newbies into the hobby 

I agree with the MAK Diesel on this, but NOT, I suspect, at £300 plus for three coaches.

Yes, that's the price of Bachmann's latest creation the Class 117 DMU.

Mind you it's pretty fancy - very nice models of units which were vile to travel in - clouds of DERV exhaust per mile. Lighting galore included, but no smoke generator!

[Mayner]

Our choice of prototype and era like our choice of friends and life partner(s) is probably a deep seated psychological thing.

Growing up in Dublin in the 60s my first serious modelling interest was British Railways western region mainly because of good coverage in the model railway magazines, and the generally poor public perception of CIEs rail services, both my mother and father had bad experiences with breakdowns and dirty trains in the 50s & 60s and did not travel by rail for many years.

I did not become interested in Irish Railways until the mid late 70s when I explored the CIE system using Railrover Tickets in my late teens/early 20s, although I was mainly interested in steam my first successful layout was based on then contemporary CIE practice in N Gauge having become frustrated trying to build a OO Gauge layout in a box bed room and the poor running quality of Lima locos. I found that I could build a more spacious realistic looking layout, and run longer trains on a shelf layout in a slightly larger space, running was more reliable than OO with the high quality  Arnold, Atlas and Minitrix mechanisms. 

Despite its success and plans for a much larger loft layout I dismantled the N gauge layout and disposed of the locos and stock after a house move, concentrating instead on building British and Irish outline standard and narrow gauge locos and rolling stock in 21mm, OON3, EM and OO9 gauges with the very odd 1:20.3 kitbash thrown in.

Since than I have had brief dalliances with British Railway Western Region in OO & EM & American On30 Narrow Gauge, and had more long term affairs with American and British industrial railways including building a large scale 1:20.3 American narrow gauge layout, an N gauge mainline loft layout and a minimum space EM industrial/mineral railway layout.

The American layouts provided a distraction from Irish modelling a chance to get something up and running reasonably quickly (1-2years) compared with the longer timeframes involved in kit and scratchbuilding models.

Interestingly my Irish modelling is slipping backwards from CIE in the 1950s to the GSR era as a Golden Age with  well maintained locos stock and infrastructure and reasonable train services compared with the more run down state of the railways during the CIE era.