CIE era trains

[Noel]

CIE era model trains. Extract from running session earlier. Enjoy. Thank for watching.

 

[Rob]

They look great!

I was just thinking, how l never encountered this era and it seems so 'historic'.

But already, the era l like (IÈ Mark III, or end of the 141 / 181 era etc) is already starting to be 'historic' to others!

How time moves on.....

[Noel]

22 minutes ago, Rob said:

They look great!

I was just thinking, how l never encountered this era and it seems so 'historic'.

But already, the era l like (IÈ Mark III, or end of the 141 / 181 era etc) is already starting to be 'historic' to others!

How time moves on.....

Hi Rob, Yes in my head I'm still only 34, but my birth cert says otherwise, unless you were a few decades older you'd never have seen those old classics nor travelled on board. And yes the mk3s were introduced to Ireland 37 years ago, and to BR 48 years ago. Age usually dictates nostalgia memory. One day in the distant future even an awful Rotem 22k may end up on a preservation lot on display.  You were fortunate to catch the end of the 141/181 era combined with mk3 coaches which were so much more comfortable to travel on than the yoyos. Its all a mater of 'eyes of beholder' and all that stuff. The earlier era not having fixed rake formations of anything seemed rather interesting because there was so much more shunting and marshalling stock compared to today, huge variety of rolling stock, lots of activity at nearly every passing station between Dublin and Cork, or Galway or Sligo, etc, enough to keep a 10yo boy peering out a coach window entertained combined with an assault on the senses as stock was buffered up under brakes, the whine and notching of locos running around and coupling up, coach windows, head stuck out coach door windows peering at the train as it rounds an inside bend, etc, seeing a train beside yours out the window begin to slowly move and then realise its the train you are on that is actually doing the moving. No particular time is right, only ones own memory paints the picture. TV and video can also colour shade memories, we've all seen so many GWR, LMS, LNER, SR and BR trains in period movies and TV dramas that they almost seem a real part of ones own memory creating a fondness for a steam era one never actually experienced first hand. Must be why Hornby still sell so many steam era train sets and steam locos today to people under 85 and half.   

[jhb171achill]

13 minutes ago, Noel said:

Hi Rob, Yes in my head I'm still only 34, but my birth cert says otherwise, unless you were a few decades older you'd never have seen those old classics nor travelled on board. And yes the mk3s were introduced to Ireland 37 years ago, and to BR 48 years ago. Age usually dictates nostalgia memory. One day in the distant future even an awful Rotem 22k may end up on a preservation lot on display.  You were fortunate to catch the end of the 141/181 era combined with mk3 coaches which were so much more comfortable to travel on than the yoyos. Its all a mater of 'eyes of beholder' and all that stuff. The earlier era not having fixed rake formations of anything seemed rather interesting because there was so much more shunting and marshalling stock compared to today, huge variety of rolling stock, lots of activity at nearly every passing station between Dublin and Cork, or Galway or Sligo, etc, enough to keep a 10yo boy peering out a coach window entertained combined with an assault on the senses as stock was buffered up under brakes, the whine and notching of locos running around and coupling up, coach windows, head stuck out coach door windows peering at the train as it rounds an inside bend, etc, seeing a train beside yours out the window begin to slowly move and then realise its the train you are on that is actually doing the moving. No particular time is right, only ones own memory paints the picture. TV and video can also colour shade memories, we've all seen so many GWR, LMS, LNER, SR and BR trains in period movies and TV dramas that they almost seem a real part of ones own memory creating a fondness for a steam era one never actually experienced first hand. Must be why Hornby still sell so many steam era train sets and steam locos today to people under 85 and half.   

Yes, I identify with all that too. When one is young, things stick in your mind and become the stepping stones for nostalgia; for me, my earliest memories are very late 1950s, so I remember steam just about, and green UTA coaches and buses, and green CIE everything! AEC railcars, of course, on both the UTA (GN section) and CIE were the norm in those days too - I will always remember the throaty roar of those beasts as they did their best to accelerate away from stops......

[Mayner]

6 hours ago, Noel said:

Age usually dictates nostalgia memory.

Its all a mater of 'eyes of beholder' and all that stuff. The earlier era not having fixed rake formations of anything seemed rather interesting because there was so much more shunting and marshalling stock compared to today, huge variety of rolling stock, lots of activity at nearly every passing station between Dublin and Cork, or Galway or Sligo, etc, enough to keep a 10yo boy peering out a coach window entertained combined with an assault on the senses as stock was buffered up under brakes, the whine and notching of locos running around and coupling up, coach windows, head stuck out coach door windows peering at the train as it rounds an inside bend, etc, seeing a train beside yours out the window begin to slowly move and then realise its the train you are on that is actually doing the moving.

 Must be why Hornby still sell so many steam era train sets and steam locos today to people under 85 and half.   

Not sure where nostalgia leaves me 

My first memory of a train was a big blue steam loco steam loco with smoke deflectors and a long line of carriages crossing Gormanstown viaduct, followed shortly by a noisy dark green thing with a yellow nose and no engine when I was about 5 or 6. My first train ride was in a non-corridor coach hauled by a black diesel dripping oil and water on a trip home from the sea side when I was about 9-10. I only started to take in the detail of the railways in my early teens on seaside trips in AEC railcars to Bray and Mosney.

Somehow or other my first serious modelling/scratchbuilding attempt was the GWR in Cornwall of all places, most likely because of what I saw and read in magazine. I attempted to scratchbuild because I had no money and there was very little rtr available.

Despite my Northern Exposure I settled on the Midland 1st the Meath Road and ficticious branches in the Midlands, after a brief flirtation with a WLWR based layout in N my interest returned to 4mm with a lot of half built stock and still no layout over 30 years later.

Perhaps some day a Vs and a rake of ex GNR coaches to re-live a childhood memory.

[jhb171achill]

3 hours ago, Mayner said:

Not sure where nostalgia leaves me 

My first memory of a train was a big blue steam loco steam loco with smoke deflectors and a long line of carriages crossing Gormanstown viaduct, followed shortly by a noisy dark green thing with a yellow nose and no engine when I was about 5 or 6.........

Best description of a UTA AEC ever!

[DoctorPan]

Nostalgia leaves me with old slam door stock with dusty seats and cold dafty interiors and being replaced with brand new railcars that were bright and increditably warm. New stations opening up and plans for two extra tracks out of Heuston. 

[Noel]

6 minutes ago, DoctorPan said:

Nostalgia leaves me with old slam door stock with dusty seats and cold dafty interiors and being replaced with brand new railcars that were bright and increditably warm. New stations opening up and plans for two extra tracks out of Heuston. 

Indeed, but in the old days the transport system was joined up, one could buy a ticket to UK cites, you could get on a train anywhere in Ireland and get off on the quay platform at Dunlaoghaire or Rosslare, walk a few feet board a ferry to a UK port, walk a few feet onto a BR train and get to the destination city same day. Time tables were sync'd. Yes the shinny new ICRs may be warm, but no proper food service, no curtains, bucket seats that seem designed to keep osteopaths and chiropractors in business for decades, progress I suppose accelerated by low cost air travel and the decline of waterborne ferry travel. As a youngster back then you didn't need an iPad to watch netflix on a journey, all one had to do was look out the window in awe at all one saw, enough stimulation to keep a 10yo boy's mind wound by the fascinating scenes and noises experienced from a railway carriage. Yea in the 1980s some of the off beat services were pretty drab and more like the midnight express to bangladesh than the limerick shuttle to LJ. The missing link is good public transport to major rail stations (eg dart to heuston and dart to dublin airport).

[Noel]

Old CIE Era goods traffic

 

[jhb171achill]

7 minutes ago, Noel said:

Old CIE Era goods traffic

 

Love the sound effects!

(May we say 1970s, with all the brown wagons? )

 

Keep 'em coming!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Noel]

8 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

Love the sound effects!

(May we say 1970s, with all the brown wagons? )

Certainly  

8 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

Keep 'em coming!

Right so Ted here's another. Not sure if these models are small or far far away!  

 

[Noel]

Love this one to waterdord

 

[Noel]

Happy St Patricks day to all. Celebrating nostalgia.

 

And as its St Patricks day. The ballygowhatsit special.  

 

[Noel]

Another classic. Look at the speed of the trains going over the Barrow bridge. Just goes to show MM grey livery 121s can run with CIE Green Flying snail coaching stock and CIE B&T livery. Glad now I got a pair in this livery and have a silver A class on order with Accurascale/IRM.

 

[Westcorkrailway]

6 minutes ago, Noel said:

Another classic. Look at the speed of the trains going over the Barrow bridge. Just goes to show MM grey livery 121s can run with CIE Green Flying snail coaching stock and CIE B&T livery. Glad now I got a pair in this livery and have a silver A class on order with Accurascale/IRM.

 

Toss in some blue and cream coaches for the craic!

[Mayner]

37 minutes ago, Westcorkrailway said:

Toss in some blue and cream coaches for the craic!

Blue and Cream coaches turned up at Macmine Junction before the North Wexford line closed. There is a  1962 John Langford photo of an ex-GNR BUT railcar set at Macmine on the 07:25 Westland Row (Pearse)-Rosslare passenger with a mixture of CIE green, Blue and Cream and Black and Tan stock.

If you haven't got them its worth while looking out for Irish Railways Railways in Colour "from Steam to Diesel" and "a Second Glance" both contain a good selection of colour photos of the West Cork, the SLNCR and narrow gauge in addition to main line CIE, GNR & UTA operations. next best thing to a time machine.

[Galteemore]

Agreed - excellent volumes for the modeller esp showing weathering and other details. One even shows the elusive SLNC red coupling rods which don’t often feature in colour shots - they must have been cleaned that day! Another excellent one is Derek Huntriss’s ‘Irish Traction in Colour’.

[Westcorkrailway]

8 minutes ago, Mayner said:

Blue and Cream coaches turned up at Macmine Junction before the North Wexford line closed. There is a  1962 John Langford photo of an ex-GNR BUT railcar set at Macmine on the 07:25 Westland Row (Pearse)-Rosslare passenger with a mixture of CIE green, Blue and Cream and Black and Tan stock.

If you haven't got them its worth while looking out for Irish Railways Railways in Colour "from Steam to Diesel" and "a Second Glance" both contain a good selection of colour photos of the West Cork, the SLNCR and narrow gauge in addition to main line CIE, GNR & UTA operations. next best thing to a time machine.

One of the books i saved from being thrown in the local libraries bin! Along with some other rare books like colm creedons cmdr book. Irish railways in colour 1 and 2 are very good for colour pictures of the late 50s early 60s.

 

[DSERetc]

Bray in the 1950s

Bray Railway Station today is an efficient Dart Terminal station.  It has about 110 Dart arrivals and departures on an ordinary weekday, using the down platform for arrivals from Dublin and the Up platform for departures to Dublin.   About a quarter of the Dart services go on to Greystones.   There is a regular arrival and departure timetable frequency of between 3 and 12 arrivals and departures per hour.   There are also intercity trains to Rosslare and commuter trains to Arklow and Gorey.                                                                                                                   This is very different to what I remember in the late 1940s and 1950s                                          From 1854 until 1927, Bray had only one platform, with a scissor crossover halfway along it, to serve trains to and from Harcourt Street and Amiens Street or Westland Row and to and from Greystones and Wexford or Rosslare.  It was a junction station.  It seemed to me that many of the practices of that time continued, even after the second platform was built.  I am writing as an observer.  I do not have a working timetable for that time.                                                         It seemed that if there was no train due from Greystones, then trains from Dublin were brought into the up Platform ‘The Near Side’. 

 

 

Sean Kennedy’s picture in Great Southern Railways by Donal Murray of a train from Dublin just arrived at the up platform.

If a train was due from Greystones or already at the up platform waiting to depart, then the trains from Dublin were brought into the Down platform (the Far Side) and passengers had to cross the footbridge to get out of the station.                                                                                   There was an exit on the Down platform about halfway between the Signal Cabin and the Glass canopy and another exit at the south end of the Up platform beside the Starting signal and the water column.   This exit was down steps to Albert Avenue under the Railway bridge.  The bricked-up doorway at road level, can still be seen in the bridge abutment.    These exits were used on fine summer days, especially Sundays when extra trains from Dublin were put on for ‘Day-trippers’.         It has been mentioned about looking out the window.  It was common in a train coming from Dublin as it was crossing the river Dargle at the harbour, for someone to look out at the three doll Home signal to see which signal was off and to announce to the rest of the passengers “It’s the near side”  or “It’s the far side"                           Because of the single line beyond Bray, if a train was approaching from the south and another from Dublin, then both were brought to a stand for a few moments at the outer home signals, the up signal at the ‘Wicklow sidings’ behind the Esplanade Hotel and the down signal just after Woodbrook Golf Course.  Then both cautiously entered the station.

On a week day, there were 25 arrivals from Amiens Street, 2 from Westland Row to Rosslare and 22 arrivals from Harcourt Street, 1 for Arklow and 1 for Rosslare.   There were 16 departures for Greystones, three for Rosslare and one for Arklow.                                                 Arrivals and departures were not evenly spaced out during the day.  Usually departures for Harcourt street and Amiens street left within a few minutes (sometimes 4 minutes) of each other especially if one train had arrived from Greystones.    Then there could be almost 45 minutes or more to wait for the next departures.   

 Shanganagh Junction worked with Bray to ensure that when two trains from Dublin arrived at the junction at about the same time, the one going on to Greystones went through even if the other arrived first.  Sometimes it was the one from Harcourt Street, (the Main Line), sometimes from Amiens Street.  Very often, the train for Greystones ran to the very end of the up platform. Then the second, about four minutes later, followed.  It was stopped at the home signal then the ‘Calling on’ signal came off and the train came into the up platform behind the train for Greystones to let passengers change trains without having to cross the footbridge.

Sean Kennedy’s picture in Great Southern Railways by Donal Murray, of a train from Dublin on the facing crossover from the down to the up line after getting the calling on signal to come in behind the train already at the up platform.   If the platform line was clear, the main or top signal would be used.

On Sunday afternoons in Summer, when the weather was fine, droves of day-trippers came out to Bray and in the evening, it seemed that the time-table was abandoned.  Both platforms were used for arrivals and departures.   Trains waited in the Wicklow sidings and sometimes in the sidings on the north side of the gates.     Engines were waiting on the centre road.   When a train arrived from Dublin, the first of these engines would go forward and reverse on to the back of the train, while the engine that had just arrived was uncoupled to go to the turn table.    As soon as the train was filled it would depart.      If there was gap in the arrivals, a train would be brought to the platform from one of the sidings.

All sorts of goods and parcels arrived in and were dispatched from Bray.      The window to collect parcels was beside the exit gate facing up Florence Road.    The 7 bay goods shed was entered from the Meath Road.     All day long you could hear buffers clanging as wagons were shunted to be loaded or unloaded.    In the evening, at about 8.00 or 9.00 pm, the Wexford goods would arrive from Dublin to drop off and pick up wagons.   It would depart at about 10.30 or 11.00 and very often would need a banking engine to get up the gradient out of Bray.  This would return a short time later.   I only discovered a long time later that there were two staff instruments in Bray Signal cabin, one the train staff and the second the banking staff.   The line remained ‘occupied’ until both staffs were returned to their instruments.

In the summer of, I think 1956, Bray and Shankill parishes had a combined pilgrimage to Knock.  The train arrived in Bray from Inchicore.   The engine, a new A class diesel, ran round the train and then took the carriages to Shankill Station on the Harcourt Street line for the Shankill pilgrims.  The engine ran round again and brought the train back to Bray for the Bray pilgrims.  It ran round again and then ran nonstop to Knock.   The line through No 5 platform in Amiens street ran straight to the down line to Glasnevin before the alterations for the Dart.   I was standing at the door at the rear right hand corner of the carriage and as we swept round the curve beside the passenger entrance to platform 5 at about 40 mph, the edge of the carriage over-rode the platform leaving a trail of sparks.

Finally, my first practical lesson about steam engines.   We were in Amiens street to meet cousins arriving from Belfast.    The big Blue Engine (a Vs) had stopped just short of the huge hydraulic buffers on Platform 2.    There was a lot of hugging and kissing, meanwhile I was enthralled by the outside valve gear and motion.  I reached out and touched the cold silvery piston rod only to discover it was HOT!!! - VERY HOT.

DSERetc

[Billycan]

Enjoyed that.  I don't suppose you'd have something similar for Westland Row?  Would enjoy reading that.

[Ironroad]

14 hours ago, DSERetc said:

 

as we swept round the curve beside the passenger entrance to platform 5 at about 40 mph, the edge of the carriage over-rode the platform leaving a trail of sparks.

 

Even the thought of a train travelling at 40mph on the loop line and through platform 5 is frightening.   But you've reminded me of my earliest recollection (at 3 yrs old) of seeing a steam engine and it was on platform 5.  As this great steaming noisy beast stormed along the platform,  I hid under a bench.

I also remember those enormous hydraulic buffers and seeing them in a mangled state after the enterprise failed to make a timely stop. 

[jhb171achill]

1 hour ago, Ironroad said:

Even the thought of a train travelling at 40mph on the loop line and through platform 5 is frightening.   But you've reminded me of my earliest recollection (at 3 yrs old) of seeing a steam engine and it was on platform 5.  As this great steaming noisy beast stormed along the platform,  I hid under a bench.

I also remember those enormous hydraulic buffers and seeing them in a mangled state after the enterprise failed to make a timely stop. 

An excellent "earliest memory"!

In terms of speed, it seems that nowadays trains approach all platforms at walking pace, and we've got used to that. In the past, people seemd to think nothing of things passing at speed - I recall being in Westland Row and seeing a light engine - a 141 - FLYING through. No idea where it was going, but he wasn't holding back....and the platform was well-filled with people as there was a train due behind him..........

[Broithe]

24 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

An excellent "earliest memory"!

In terms of speed, it seems that nowadays trains approach all platforms at walking pace, and we've got used to that. In the past, people seemd to think nothing of things passing at speed - I recall being in Westland Row and seeing a light engine - a 141 - FLYING through. No idea where it was going, but he wasn't holding back....and the platform was well-filled with people as there was a train due behind him..........

In 1963, I was standing on the platform of Kingham station in Gloucestershire, with my father, who was off to Cyprus for three months. In those days, in the right circumstances, you could detect an approaching train much further away than is generally possible now. The bursts of smoke and steam as it passed under each bridge gave a good indication of its location and speed. Having spotted its approach, it seemed to me that it was unlikely to be able to stop at the station, but, there were many adults involved and I had to assume that they knew what they were doing. Eventually, it came into sight and hammered through the station at a good 60mph, in the violent manner that only an ageing steam train can, much to the surprise of everybody but me.

When the smoke, steam, ash, smuts and other debris had cleared, we could see the stationmaster on the opposite platform, shouting "That was your train!" and pointing at where it had gone with his walking stick, as if we didn't know.

It was pulled up in the next station and we went off and literally caught it by mean of the stationmaster's van.

[Noel]

On 27/3/2021 at 3:28 PM, Ironroad said:

Even the thought of a train travelling at 40mph on the loop line and through platform 5 is frightening.   But you've reminded me of my earliest recollection (at 3 yrs old) of seeing a steam engine and it was on platform 5.  As this great steaming noisy beast stormed along the platform,  I hid under a bench.

I also remember those enormous hydraulic buffers and seeing them in a mangled state after the enterprise failed to make a timely stop. 

Yes I miss those 'enormous hydraulic buffers' and dislike the way nowadays the locos have to stop so far away from the terminus buffers. H&S.

Some more CIE golden oldie scenes

[Noel]

 

[David Holman]

Lovely stuff.

[Noel]

Eamonn Redmond sent me this link. Nostalgia gold 1960s and 1970s by Tom Dowling and Ciaran Cooney