To all GNR(I) fans with a few minutes to spare ...

[Galteemore]

Put your feet up on this wet Sunday and explore Ernie’s 56 album. What an absolute treat. Look what this morning turned up...https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/albums/72157715532510616/page2

One of @leslie10646’s bread containers at Bundoran Junction.....and there is much more! Cheers, Ernie 

.

Edited October 4, 2020 by Galteemore

[airfixfan]

Thanks will enjoy later on.

[WRENNEIRE]

Have the Cocoa on simmer......

[jhb171achill]

Mighty stuff, Galteemore!

And, of course, Ernie!!

[Irishswissernie]

I'm still trying to get a grip on the manoeuvres at Bundoran Junction. I've got some plasticine somewhere so am thinking I'm going to make little lumps marked for the different locos and stock and draw a diagram of the junction and move them

according to the writers notes. I think the bread containers according to the notes came from Enniskillen and are now being added to the Enniskillen bound train which doesn't make sense unless they were picked up at Ballinamallard  and it was easier 

to do this operationally. Or I could just take some paracetamol and have a kip!

[Galteemore]

Lol my dad is at similar mental gyrations!! Ideally we need the WTT and weekly operating circular....

[leslie10646]

 

44 minutes ago, Irishswissernie said:

I'm still trying to get a grip on the manoeuvres at Bundoran Junction. I've got some plasticine somewhere so am thinking I'm going to make little lumps marked for the different locos and stock and draw a diagram of the junction and move them

according to the writers notes. I think the bread containers according to the notes came from Enniskillen and are now being added to the Enniskillen bound train which doesn't make sense unless they were picked up at Ballinamallard  and it was easier 

to do this operationally. Or I could just take some paracetamol and have a kip!

Ah, Ernie, I know exactly what you mean! I'm cataloguing Lance King's slides and he came through the Junction in 1957 behind PP No. 50. Now she did a complicated shunt on the "Main Line" and I've still got to sort that one out!

At least Bundoran Jct was a fairly complicated place, but I'm having a nightmare with a series of shots at Portadown on 13 July 1963 - the Sham Fight Day at Scarva. Now ....... the sequence begins with the 5pm Derry arriving with the VS Class No.207, which isn't allowed up the Derry Road. She's relieved by S Class No.170, but in the middle of all of that a WT arrives with a train from Dublin and much shuffling goes on, so that there are not one shot on the Bann Bridge of No.170, but FOUR! By the time all this shuffling and dealing has finished  she eventually sets off for Derry.

I might add that Lance got off the Heysham boat that morning and by the time he retired to bed that evening, he had taken 51 memorable slides of a very busy day on the Great Northern.

He was up early next morning and off to Warrenpoint for yet more steam photography, finishing the day by catching the Cambria back to England that evening. So not to lose the attention of you youngsters who like Infernal combustion we have A33 in Green at the Pier.

Final, boring point, Mr G, that's TWO of my bread containers in Ernie's lovely BJ piccie. I have done both Stevenson and Brewsters bakery containers. Photos Copyright Irish Railway Record Society

 

Edited October 4, 2020 by leslie10646

[Irishswissernie]

I have the 1953 WTT and all the trains in the notes ran then but no mention of through coaches or bread containers. I had also completed a scale model ( invoking the view at 500 feet rule) in order to work out the moves but have been hindered in completing my examination of the manoeuvres by a.)  one of the dogs ate the bread container model and b.) my missus suggesting that really I should perhaps go and have a lie down.  I plan to continue my investigations after she has gone to work tomorrow and after locking the dogs in their cages.

[jhb171achill]

Good to see the loco plasticene is blue, Ernie!! 

[Mayner]

I love the plasticine models!

There is a good photographic account of operations at Bundoran Junction shortly before closure in September 57 in Anthony's Burges "Railways in Ulster's Lakeland.

Interestingly the junction between the Bundoran & Omagh lines had been revised to a facing turnout off the up? running loop at the Enniskillen end of the station eliminating the diamond crossing off the down? loop. I am not sure whether this section or line was considered as up or down as the Omagh-Enniskillen line was originally built by the Londonderry & Enniskillen and later worked by the Dundalk & Ennisklllen later Irish North Western before being absorbed by the Great Northern.

Interestingly 2:05 Enniskilled-Omagh/Bundoran ran double headed to Bundoran Junction on 7th September before dividing and working as separate trains to their destination. 

Some of the photos feature PP No50 with the 10:30 from Bundoran and U No 205 with the 12:00 Enniskillen-Omagh.

The 10:30 appears to have picked up "van traffic" at a number of stations en-route to the junction and attaches a bread container wagon to the rear of the 12:00 at the junction.

Interestingly No50 shunts her entire train including coaches on to the waiting 12:00 on the up? main line platform. 

Both the Bundoran & Enniskillen trains had the normal consist for stopping trains on the Irish North two passenger coaches, a passenger rated van and a string of fitted vans and bread container wagons.

No 50 appears to have re-marshalled her train before attaching traffic to the 12:00 from Enniskillen, the vans and wagons are marshaled between the loco and coaches in photos at Beleek and Kesh.

[Lambeg man]

5 hours ago, Galteemore said:

Ideally we need the WTT

I have not got a WTT for 1956 (the summer the photo's were taken), but here are the Winter 1955 and Summer 1957 which may be of some help.

Winter 1955:

 

It would appear from the crayon marking that this copy of the WTT was in use at Bundoran Junction!

Summer 1957

 

 

 

Edited October 4, 2020 by Lambeg man

[Lambeg man]

5 hours ago, leslie10646 said:

At least Bundoran Jct was a fairly complicated place, but I'm having a nightmare with a series of shots at Portadown on 13 July 1963 - the Sham Fight Day at Scarva. Now ....... the sequence begins with the 5pm Derry arriving with the VS Class No.207, which isn't allowed up the Derry Road. She's relieved by S Class No.170, but in the middle of all of that a WT arrives with a train from Dublin and much shuffling goes on, so that there are not one shot on the Bann Bridge of No.170, but FOUR! By the time all this shuffling and dealing has finished  she eventually sets off for Derry.

Hi Les,

Someone else identifies the 'WT' No. 53 as having arrived with a stopper from BELFAST. It ran into platform 3 and then ran around its train via platform 4. It did so while the 'VS' and the 'S' were shuffling about between the Bann Siding, platform 1 and platform 2 where the Derry train was waiting. The figure hanging out of the cab in your excellent photo is Laurence Liddle. Des Fitzgerald was also there at the same time photographing.

Kind Regards, LM

Edited October 4, 2020 by Lambeg man

[Galteemore]

My aged parent was also travelling that day in Jul 63. His train, he told me this afternoon, was a WT with a rake of slab-sided NCC 6 wheelers....

Edited October 4, 2020 by Galteemore

[Lambeg man]

12 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

His train was a WT with a rake of slab-sided NCC 6 wheelers....

Hi Galteemore,

I don't think they were six-wheelers, but they were ex-BNCR stock if your dad was on this Scarva special.....

UTA 'WT' No. 57 about to leave Pontzpass on 13th July 1963 propelling empty stock from a Scarva special back to Portadown. The carriages are ex-Belfast & Northern Counties Railway. (Photographer Des Fitzgerald). Other photographers active that day were Lance King as Leslie has already mentioned, Sid Nash, John Langford, John Laird and Richard Whitford. 

Regards, LM

 

Edited October 4, 2020 by Lambeg man

[airfixfan]

Question for Leslie. Did Lance take any photos from Strabane to Foyle Road and thev intermeddiate stations in particular?

[airfixfan]

Love the latest batch of photos of Strabane and Foyle Road in particular. Thanks Ernie for all your good work. IRM members enjoy!

[jhb171achill]

On 4/10/2020 at 11:07 PM, Galteemore said:

My aged parent was also travelling that day in Jul 63. His train, he told me this afternoon, was a WT with a rake of slab-sided NCC 6 wheelers....

If he had flat-sided six-wheelers, they wouldn't have been BNCR but older ex-BCDR. However, I think that the last of these were scrapped about 1953/4. It's more likely he was in carriages like the above - old BNCR bogies.

By 1963 there were VERY few of these in traffic, and the above pic (and your dad's rcollections) are of interest in that it would have been exceptionally rare to see these things on the GNR at all, let alone this late.

I would doubt very much, given the changes in '63, '64 and '65, that BNCR stock was ever to be seen again on the GNR!

Edited October 15, 2020 by jhb171achill

[airfixfan]

Looks like 291 and 293 ex BCDR 120/1 built as late as 1938 but gone by 1964.

[leslie10646]

Galteemore, I'm don't think that the photographic evidence bears out the memory of your revered father. Surely the six wheelers had finished by then. I can't remember ever seeing them in use and I was reasonably awake to things railway by 1963.

If you look at the photo above, you can see the bogies AND the coaches have eight compartments. Lance King has a photo of this train returning with 57 bunk first, with an elliptically roofed bogie, followed by a very low-roofed bogie coach - I think you can just make this out at the rear of the train at Scarva.

 

[jhb171achill]

9 hours ago, airfixfan said:

Looks like 291 and 293 ex BCDR 120/1 built as late as 1938 but gone by 1964.

Those had curved sides.......any flat-sided BCDR stock was all 6-wheel, and all dating from 1880-1885. The two you refer to were actually built with a distinctly LMS-style side profile!

.....and as you say, gone by '64.

The first four behind the loco are BNCR, and the rear four - well, hard to tell, but the one next to the BNCR ones appears to have an NCC-like roof profile....possibly ex-GN, though. Too far away to tell for certain.

[airfixfan]

There are some great NCC photos now and the new GNR photos are super as well

 Great stuff and many thanks.

[airfixfan]

After his grand tour reached Cork with some great photos our mystery man has now reached Portadown. Enjoy these photos and thanks again Ernie on behalf of IRM members.

[Irishswissernie]

47 minutes ago, airfixfan said:

After his grand tour reached Cork with some great photos our mystery man has now reached Portadown. Enjoy these photos and thanks again Ernie on behalf of IRM members.

The Portadown views are part of a few photos taken on 22 & 23 June 1957, he also filmed at Belfast GVS and York Road, Adelaide and on the 23rd at Connolly, Harmonstown and Sutton. I get the impression he may have had the family in tow and managed to grab a few minutes at each spot before being persuaded/cajoled or forced to move on; something I experienced when my brood of 5 were with me!

[airfixfan]

Thanks but he has captured some great photos despite the hand luggage!

[StevieB]

My particular favourites are Bundoran and Fintona. Many thanks.

Stephen

[jhb171achill]

3 hours ago, airfixfan said:

After his grand tour reached Cork with some great photos our mystery man has now reached Portadown. Enjoy these photos and thanks again Ernie on behalf of IRM members.

 

27 minutes ago, StevieB said:

My particular favourites are Bundoran and Fintona. Many thanks.

Stephen

FINTONA - the PERFECT location for a small shunting layout.

You'd get a good representation of it even in 0 gauge track on a 6ft x 2ft 6" board. In 00, you could manage, if pushed, with a 3ft x 2ft board, to be shoved in the cupboard when finished operating.

Add one GNR 0.6.0, a Provincial GN Guard's Van and a dozen trucks, and you're done. 

Dunno about a motorised horse; but had it survived much longer, Senior was of the opinion that the old Gardner railcar which did the Derry - Strabane locals would have probably ended up there.

[airfixfan]

John you mention the legendary Railcar A that was well ahead of it's time. Doing the Disused Stations article for Foyle Road to Strabane has made me realise the historic importance of Railcar A. This article is alomost ready and thanks to Ernie for supplying some great photos. My favourites are the Swilly and the County Donegal of course.

[StevieB]

On 8/12/2020 at 9:52 PM, jhb171achill said:

 

FINTONA - the PERFECT location for a small shunting layout.

You'd get a good representation of it even in 0 gauge track on a 6ft x 2ft 6" board. In 00, you could manage, if pushed, with a 3ft x 2ft board, to be shoved in the cupboard when finished operating.

Add one GNR 0.6.0, a Provincial GN Guard's Van and a dozen trucks, and you're done. 

Dunno about a motorised horse; but had it survived much longer, Senior was of the opinion that the old Gardner railcar which did the Derry - Strabane locals would have probably ended up there.

How right you are about Fintona. An almost perfect layout for those short of space.

Stephen

[airfixfan]

Would say Foyle Road would make  a compact layout as well.

[NIR]

Anyone have a track plan of Fintona?

[jhb171achill]

8 hours ago, airfixfan said:

Would say Foyle Road would make  a compact layout as well.

Very long, though!

6 hours ago, NIR said:

Anyone have a track plan of Fintona?

Yes - Norman Johnston’s little book about the line had one. I could post it here except my stuff is in storage right now.

If I remember I’ll post a copy of it here in a few weeks.

[airfixfan]

Norman's book did not have a track plan

[Dhu Varren]

8 hours ago, NIR said:

Anyone have a track plan of Fintona?

Found this in The Golden Years of The Great Northern Railway Part 1.

[Irishswissernie]

1 hour ago, airfixfan said:

Norman's book did not have a track plan

It does Jim , top of page 53. I can't scan it at the moment because the scanner is full of Londonderry & Lough Swilly negs from 1937.  There are 16 views of Fintona branch in the GNRI album

https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/albums/72157626756740602

 

[airfixfan]

Sorry missed that and now you have interested when you mention more Swilly photos! My 2nd railway in County Donegal. The Donegal Railway Heritage Centre is open again. We were offering a virtual Santa experience for the kids which you can access no matter where you live! Funds raised will go towards the Drumboe restoration work. Check it out!