jhb171achil

The BCDR designs were very different, unfortunately! The BCDR was building new six-wheelers into the 1920s and by the time most of their system closed in 1950, they had barely a dozen bogies in total. However apart from body design, which has many types with straight, flat sides, and a completely different window style, height and spacing to the Hattons (and Hornby) stock, uniquely among Irish lines they did not use the standard 30ft length; many of their post-1895 types had chassis up to 35ft long, and there’s just nothing comparable. The GOOD news is that Worsley Works do “scratch-aid” kits of these. Fiddly, but do-able, though a proven RTR chassis would be a boon. Almost no Irish six-wheelers are like ANY British ones in design, length or anything; but there’s an exception to every rule: the standard GSWR stock is VERY good as a match with these generic Hattons ones; I knew it when I first saw the initial announcement, a few years ago, and went straight for my GSWR carriage diagram records to confirm! For a western branchline (and my own beloved D16 “Achill Bogie” too), I’m afraid we’d need a MGWR design - even more different!

Certainly reasonable enough, yes - though the GSWR tended to have a slightly more brownish tint - but for a model, unless one was to be ultra- perfectionist, perfectly fine in my view / and I’ve seen samples of both originals!

I would be no expert but other than non-passenger-carrying vans I would doubt it.

Pretty much; LMS maroon. However, the BCDR had that colour long before the LMS or its predecessor - it seems to have been a sort of "generic" dark maroon used by many companies all over the world. In Ireland, and again long before the LMS, the same type of shade was used by the Clogher Valley Railway, the Cavan & Leitrim Railway, the Sligo, Leitrim & Northern Counties Railway, the original Fintona Horse Tram (!), the DSER and DWWR, the WLWR and the BCDR.... On the BCDR it lasted from very early days right through to the UTA takeover in 1949. When most of the line closed in April 1950, most carriages were still maroon...... The GSWR and early GSR shades were a great deal darker.

Not just the south; the mainly suburban Belfast & Co Down Railway was populated almost ENTIRELY by six-wheelers right up to closure of most of it by the nationalised UTA in 1950! Even then, some of those coaches ran briefly on the Larne line. the BCDR was building NEW six-wheelers well into the 1920s, after Britain was withdrawing them.

Indeed - that had occurred to me too, but as long as you alter the chassis to black, the shade is about right for GSR maroon, but too light for GSWR livery. GSWR livery - which occasionally had white upper panels on main line BOGIE stock between 1906 and about 1915, can be seen perfectly reproduced on a model in the UFTM in Cultra in a glass case, and on ex-GSWR No. 836, preserved with equivalent accuracy at Downpatrick.

Those dates are slighly incorrect; for the record: The chocolate and cream first appeared in the late 1920s, and was confined to top-link main line stock. Secondary stock including all six-wheelers remained the old crimswon lake of the GSR, but as you say with GS markings. It wasn't brown but was occasionally mistaken for it, due to the effects of weathering and the fact that secondary stock and paintbrushes rarely met! What was described as "crimson lake" is actually an extremely dark maroon. Think of a pint of Guinness held up to the light - it looks brown or even black, but is actually a very dark red! That is the colour used from 1925 UP to 1933 - the shade used AFTER thaqt date was akin to LMS mkaroon in Britain and it is this which lasted until 1945. CIE came into being on 1.1.45, so it is during that year rather than 1944 that green started to appear. Just details, I know, but there will be someone out there who might like that clarified.

GSWR livery was indeed a "claret" colour - a sort of very very dark maroon with a distinct brownish tint. The GSR continued this until the late 1920s when main line stock only (not six-wheelers, narrow gauge or secondary stock) were painted chocolate and cream with black lining. From about 1933 the GSR painted everything - from old narrow gauge four-wheelers to brand new "Bredins" to run on the Cork main line - in a shade of maroon identical to that of the LMS in Britain, with yellow lining. The CIE dark green with lining above and below windows was introduced in 1945 when CIE was formed, and maintained after CIE was nationalised in 1950. In 1955, any repaints were done in the lighter shade, with one single waist line and no logo. As the new black'n'tan livery was being introduced in the early 60s, the very last of the six-wheelers were being withdrawn at the same time, so no passenger-carrying ones ever carried it. However, of six full vans which survived another few years, three DID get this livery; the last known working of them being in 1968.

This is quite simply the best news for a very long time in the Irish railway modelling world. With IRM having brought out silver and green "A" class locos, and 00 Works the ubiquitous J15 0.6.0, models of this era are crying out for appropriate passenger stock to haul. The likes of Provincial Wagons and several others already have the wagon end of things well catered for, but passenger stock, beyond a repaint of an old Hornby coach or a Park Royal, is sadly lacking. The Hattons Genesis "generic" design is a very fortunate and opportune model. Irish carriage design pre-1970 was almost wholly unlike anything British - especially for companies like the GNR, MGWR, DSER, BCDR and BNCR. However, by good fortune, these "generic" coaches bear a striking similarity to some GSWR designs of the mid 1880s to mid 90s. Unlike Britain, where six-wheelers were largely gone by 1930, they were commonplace - indeed, the norm on some lines - in Ireland up to the time the last were withdrawn in Cork in 1963. While MGWR designs were by then as common as GSWR ones, these Hattons coaches fit the bill perfectly for the latter design. The attention to detail is exquisite, down to the double footboard - British six-wheelers tended to have only one footboard, whereas Irish ones always had lower steps as well due to lower platforms. I see that for most coach types, more than one number option is supplied. Both the 1945-55 and 1955-63 green liveries are correctly represented, with such details as the re-branding of "3rd" as "2nd" around the same time as the livery change faithfully reproduced; a dark green third which was given a repaint in, say, 1956, would re-appear with a "2" on the door instead of a "s". The coach numbers chosen are deliberately of vehicles OF that particular type, and not only that, but the longtest lasting examples of the type. When the last of the six-wheelers were being withdrawn in 1963, the new black'n'tan livery was just appearing - thus, no passenger-carrying six-wheeled vehicles ever carried it. However, some half a dozen full passenger BRAKE vans did indeed survive after that, of which three (1077, 69 & 79) certainly got the new livery. Therefore, while not passenger-carrying coaches, this trio were nonetheless the only six-wheeled passenger stock ever to carry the black'n'tan (other than the "tin vans" built in 1964/5). The colours have been reproduced exactly - always worth remembering for modellers that nothing CIE ever had grey or white roofs - always black, until the "supertrain" Mk 2s in 1972! I am aware that Hattons have gone to great lengths to ensure that colours are correct. Prototypically, the "flying snail" logo is always carried on the dark green livery, but not the light green - with this latter livery, only some bogie stock (but not all) received it - not six-wheelers. Overall, a truly excellent expansion of the Irish railway modelling scene back into the 1950s and even late 1940s. I've ordered mine as I understand that this is a limited edition. Well done, Hattons!

Castletown West; thus far, no scenery. A start will be made here shortly, as the basics of scenery have reached the outskirts of the station.

The "tin vans" of Dugort Harbour; a mix of Silverfox, who will shortly send me a silver one and a green one, and J M Design.

Market Day at Dugort Harbour, and there’s a second coach on the midday train….

Fair Day, August 1960, and steam makes a welcome reappearance….

You'll get him on messenger. His "icon" is a pic of one of his 3D printed letter boxes.

That’s it for tonight!

A few about the layout tonight….

”So yer man gets to Killorglin that day with the sheep special, and he unhooks the van, an’ wait till ye hear what the eejit does then….” ”SSSSHH! He’s coming, tell me later!”

Your ballast & PW wagons also really look the part - beautifully weathered too.

Indeed - that would be a truly excellent idea for even a small-space shunting layout, as the train in steam days would probably have been mixed - one or two six-wheel carriages and maybe a fish van or two in tow. In diesel days, probably a single walker railcar (you'd need a turntable, though!) and perhaps towing a van or two, Donegal-style............. good idea.

This would have ben one of hundreds of requests by all sorts of people to all sorts of railway companies, local authorities and the British government (in terms of seeking grants for construction), which prevailed throughout the 19th century, often to the irritation of railway companies who (correctly) took the view "Don't you think WE would have built this, if it was worth building?". Still, like so many of the other ideas put forward like this, while the practicalities in real life came to nothing, and usually for good financial reason, such ideas can act as great fodder for the imaginations of us "what-if" modellers! So - in your case, may we hope that the seed of an idea for the Tulla branch is born!

“…Wheel’s off the damn thing. We’ll have to carry the rest”. ”That thing hasn’t seen even a drop of oil since the black’n’tans were here…..”

A few pictures lately. The track is now connected up into Castletown West, into which the first goods train rolled tonight in beautiful sunshine through the attic window. Some other shots show scenery in its early stages along the route, including a turf bog as it's set somewhere in West Kerry. Couple of pics of a local train leaving Dugort harbour for Castletown West on a summer afternoon in 1966.....

That is an absolute beauty of a layout.