Jump to content
 

Belfast Great Victoria Street Station and Adelaide-lookalike tribute


Hunslet 102
 Share

Recommended Posts

Thanks Kieran. Well, surprisingly, here is the next update. Amazing what you can get done on a stormy night on the kitchen table while the better half is enjoying Strictly!

A couple of photos of the old stores building that occupied the Belfast bound platform. Not actually part of the station, it along with the other buildings was swept away when NIR changed most of the halts on the line to basic concrete structures with no character. Thanks to Steve (Lambeg man) who supplied me with a couple of photos of what is the viewing side of the building on the layout, but a side that was rarely photographed as most photos were either of the station side or the engine sheds slightly further down the line.

 

C7478ECC-EBD0-4E76-8D7E-0DE6314C425D.jpeg.419ca1afbfd9a18a9bc973cc951e177d.jpeg8D5050D4-FF10-46AD-8E16-5957B5189A15.jpeg.0f8b34ccfa431171f0677eddf891fbc6.jpeg

 

 

 

  • Like 6
  • Friendly/supportive 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, StephenB said:

I like the 0-6-0DH. Are there any details anywhere of its construction?

 

Stephen

Stephen I built the DH using a Mainline 03 shunter and plasticard a number of years ago. It is a close resemblance to the class, like my layout most things are lookalike tributes rather than fully accurate. The parts from the Mainline body were cut up and repositioned with added plasticard. I used the original Mainline split chassis, but have upgraded to a modern Bachmann version and she is a very smooth runner. I don’t have the skills to alter chassis’s! If you need any more info let me know, as I have dimensions somewhere of the originals which when scaled down to OO, makes the models body the correct length at least.

  • Like 1
  • Craftsmanship/clever 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I gave the platforms a black wash along with the stairs on the footbridge and painted the footbridge grey. The wooden platforms along the line were all soaked in creosote and thus were always quite dark, as well as giving off a distinct odour, especially on a hot day, which was a rarity in Belfast!

Hunslet 101 is passing through light engine.

 

D770E431-91E5-418C-A395-3DBCD3EB7168.jpeg.56cddbea6732420f0a0cccb0c2ecf5b8.jpegF491D04E-7070-4D18-B9E9-3E7E2D896C43.jpeg.76d4511cae696a0191fb84aa1359b5ac.jpeg

  • Like 7
Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm smelling the creosote off the wooden sleepers, and hearing the "ding" of bells in Lisburn cabin, as Noel Scott patrols the platform yelling "LISBORRRN! LISBORRRN!" as a noisy-exhausted AEC set rolls in, and a few mailbags are thrown out onto the platform from the guard's van in the middle coach........

 

And there's "jhb171 Senior" stepping out of the coach, recalling blue 4.4.0s ten years earlier, and also "Colin_McLeod Senior"!

 

Crawford the old GNR cattle train guard makes a few jovial remarks to passengers (but don't mention alcohol!) and the train grinds onwards to Portadown.........

  • Like 2
  • Round of applause 1
  • Friendly/supportive 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, jhb171achil said:

I'm smelling the creosote off the wooden sleepers,  as a noisy-exhausted AEC set rolls in, and a few mailbags are thrown out onto the platform from the guard's van in the middle coach and the train grinds onwards to Portadown.........

A great recollection JHB! My current AEC with a Lima pancake motor would certainly replicate the unit you described! Thankfully it will be getting an overhaul with a more modern Bachmann motor soon.

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

I could have mentioned the kindly Harry Mulholland, ex-Knockmore Junction, always with time for a couple of 12-year-old enthusiasts, and the signalman who my dad knew, ?? Gilmore. (Can't remember his first name - was he Harry as well?). He let me pull a few signal levers for the "Enterprise" once, with a gleaming black'n'tan 141 at the front of a string of laminates (how topical!)......

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

Billy Gilmore

 

When my Dad was getting the newspaper train very early, Billy would invite him into the cabin for tea and chat while waiting.  Billy used to say that the newspaper train, ran to a calender instead of a timetable. 

 

Another signalman was Jimmy Laverty who often let me pull levers under his supervision. Barney McCutcheon was another regular signalman at Lisburn who would let me in.

 

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

Ah, yes, I remember Barney - very nice man.

 

I'm not sure where Billy Gilmore had worked before Lisburn cabin, but he knew my dad when he was on the GNR. You will remember the crackle of the coal fire in that cabin, the "ding-ding" of the bells, and the heavy clash of the signal levers being pulled.

 

One day he asked me to pull the Knockmore Distant (yellow-painted lever, obviously), but I couldn't budge it. HE flipped it easily!

 

Senior later explained to me why distant signals were harder to pull - more signal wire to reach them!

 

Another day, the view from the cabin was somewhat obscured by a "Jeep" 2.6.4T simmering below us with a ballast train off the Antrim branch. Clearly, the fireman was making up a decent fire....... I was offered a mug of tea, but the mug was, to my precious 12-year-old mind, filthy! Didn't put senior off, though it's probably the solitary time in my life I've ever refused a mug of tea......

 

On another occasion, there was a PW gang in (another "Jeep" simmering outside), and Senior knew the PW Inspector Thompson - remember him? He was based by now in Porteeedown, but they knew each other from ballast trains on the INW. We went up to the cabin, inside which the PW gang were all partaking of tea - but with the cigarette smoke, you could barely see from one end of the cabin to another. Senior absolutely detested cigarette smoke, so we were not there long.......

  • Like 2
  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Hunslet 102 said:

Great memories Colin and JHB! 
There was character and characters in the railways back then, sadly missing in today’s society 

 

I only wish I could recall a tiny fraction of the stories I heard from old railwaymen in the days when Senior was still on the railway and I accompanied him to many places where children wouldn't be allowed near nowadays!

 

Harry Mulholland had great tales to tell....of trying to persuade a driver to leave the Robin's Nest to take a goods train up the Antrim line in the 1940s....there was no moving him....

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Great work Andy, you are really capturing the late 1960's atmosphere of the place and the line.

 

Lisburn station staff I recall from the mid-1960's were Albert Beckett (Foreman) and Bertie Lambert (Porter). At Lambeg the last "Station Master" (though in rank he was a Foreman) was Willie MacIntyre, a man my grandmother got on well with. The laurel bushes at the front of our house in Lambeg came from the embankment behind the down platform at Lambeg courtesy of Mr. MacIntyre. Tommy Morrison was later the porter there...

 

Now to the Belfast Guards. Can anyone add to this list -

 

Dan and Arthur Gribben, Andy Lawlor, Joe (one ding) Deveny, Davie Foster, Hubert Hadden and Joe Field...?

Edited by Lambeg Man
  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

Remember Mr Flavelle in Lisburn? 

He was selling me a ticket one time at the booking office. As I paid, he looked at me and said "Morning after the night before?"

 

"Yeahhh", I replied........I'd been in the Woodlands disco........remember that? Smithwicks 30p a pint - robbery. AND 50p to get in.

  • Funny 1
  • Friendly/supportive 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
On 26/11/2020 at 21:35, Lambeg Man said:

Bertie Lambert (Porter

 

Bertie lived in Young Street with his brother who was also at Lisburn station, usually checking tickets as you went onto the platform. Can you recall his first name.

 

 

I remember Albert Beckett very well. He got me a few footplate trips on locos as they ran round their trains.

 

There wad another foreman called Cecil, and a porter/signalman called Jimmy.

Edited by Colin_McLeod
typo. Foreman, not fireman.
  • Friendly/supportive 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

 

Bertie lived in Young Street with his brother who was also at Lisburn station, usually checking tickets as you went onto the platform. Can you recall his first name.

 

 

I remember Albert Beckett very well. He got me a few footplate trips on locos as they ran round their trains.

 

There wad another fireman called Cecil, and a porter/signalman called Jimmy.

Can’t recall his name.....Cecil rings a bell, though! GNR man - I suspect senior might have known him.

 

Signalman Jimmy - yes....

 

Naturally in the 1960s, almost everyone was ex-GNR and many had worked on the INWR and Portadown - Cavan, and Banbridge / Newcastle lines...

  • Like 1
  • Friendly/supportive 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...