One of the vans specially constructed for bagged cement traffic from the cement factory at Drogheda. It was built at Dundalk to Diagram 145A and joined the Company’s stock in 1956.
The vans were to be seen all over the GNR system, on CIE and the SL&NCR. At the dissolution of the GNR in 1958, all went to CIE, who simply added the suffix “N” to the GNR number.
They were unusually large for Ireland at that time – most other vans were of 10 tons capacity. Also, unusually for Ireland, the handbrake acted on both axles. So for once, a British outline model is very close to the Irish prototype. Our model comes with disc wheels, like the original van.
A total of 138 of these wagons were built between 1954 and 1956 and the modeller can easily represent another wagon in this series by dabbing out the first "2", as no.229 was another member of the series.
Open Coal Wagon No. 3164
2007
Open Coal Wagon No.5558
2008
Courtesy Dapol
This van as an ex-LMS(NCC) 12 ton van from the 2400 series. A hundred of these LMS vans were imported from the parent company to replace wagons lost during World War 2, when the NCC's York Road headquarters was heavily damaged by air raids.
Ours was offered in Ulster Transport Authority livery, which they bore after the nationalisation of the NCC in 1948. Being a fitted van, it is in a distinctive livery to highlight this fact. Photos (and memory!) show the livery these vans carried as near-orange and we have tried to replicate this. In fact, most were very dirty in their latter days ans if this van sells well, a weathered version might be offered later.
They were seen in goods trains on UTA and CIE lines until about 1965, when UTA goods traffic largely ceased.
Now repeated in 2011 as No.2459.
Photo Courtesy Dapol Ltd
In the early 1960s, the UTA renewed about 300 wagons, at the Adelaide, Belfast Wagon Works (part of the Loco shed complex). Some of these wagons were intended for use on the contract to supply coal to Courtauld's at Carrickfergus. They were separately numbered in a "C" series, of which C85 is one.
Yes, the strapping really was brown! A very colourful model and Dapol have got the red livery very close to how I remember it. Fitted with Dapol's new, smaller couplings.
These
wagons were to be seen all over the UTA's railways and on cross-border
goods trains until 1965, so they will have been hauled by all of CIE's
early diesels, up to and including the General Motors B (141) Class.
2010