Category Archives: Prototype
GNR Butter Van
Alan O’Rourke In the days when everything went by rail, some companies found it worth while building highly specialised vehicles for perishable traffics, which attracted premium rates, even if it meant those vehicles must have spent half their time … Continue reading
Filed under Prototype, Scale Drawings
Lineside Details: GSWR Mileposts
Alan O’Rourke Irish railways used a number of methods to mark distances: the symbolic steel sheet squares, diamonds, triangles and arrow-heads of the MGWR were probably the most original design. Other companies used metal, stone or wooden markers. The … Continue reading
Filed under Prototype
Station Survey: Abbeyfeale
Alan O’Rourke We have already represented the North Kerry line in this series, but another station will not come amiss, especially as elevations of the main building are to hand. Abbeyfeale station opened with the rest of the Newcastlewest-Tralee … Continue reading
Filed under Prototype, Scale Drawings, Site Surveys
GNR Hopper Wagons and Plough Vans
Alan O’Rourke Until the end of the 19th century, the typical ballast wagon was a primitive short wheelbase vehicle, with low drop sides, leather flaps to try and keep the stone dust out of the grease-axle boxes and, possibly still, … Continue reading
Filed under Prototype, Scale Drawings
Lineside Details: GSR and CIE Tubular Post Signals
Alan O’Rourke The traditional material for signal posts was either wood or steel lattice. However, from the 1930s onwards, several companies tried more modern ideas, typically tubular steel, and these diagrams show the CIE design, including new light-weight metal … Continue reading
Filed under Prototype, Scale Drawings
Fond Memories
A Moyner The signboard read “Rathmines & Ranelagh,” but although Rathmines was then generally as being what house-agents now describe as being “upmarket” to Ranelagh, the station was never known by any name but Ranelagh. On any fine Saturday … Continue reading
Filed under Prototype
CIE Four-Wheeled Bulk Cement Wagons
Robert Drysdale The four-wheeled cement wagons, or “bubbles” as they are popularly known, are iconic of the modernisation of Irish Railways in the 1960s. They are continuously popular subjects for modelling, so in this article a few observations are … Continue reading
