4th November 2019 · ‘Rhapsody in Blue’

Presenter: Ken Grainger

Thirty Members and friends were present at Weston Favell on Monday afternoon. Many of us had pondered the content, and we were delighted to discover that Ken Grainger was referring to the beautiful mid-blue livery carried by many of the steam engines running in Ireland during the 1950s. The talk was a little more than that however, and we were treated to trips from various stations from all over the island. During the 1950s, the largest engines for passenger workings were the 4-4-0 tender engines, wearing the blue of Ken’s title. For the surprisingly large amount of freight, the largest engine were 0-6-0 liveried mostly in well turned out black. It was helpful that the occasional dirty engines appeared to highlight the condition of the clean ones.

Many 1950s enthusiasts were too engrossed in saving local images, and were probably biding their time to “do” Ireland until they had reached local satisfaction. That this aim was rarely reached did not attract many of us to get to the Emerald Isle, where Ken had to admit, the sun was not always as vivid, or even as present, as his grand selection of slides might have indicated!

The Dublin Connelly Street station of today is apparently still habitually referred to as Amiens Street – good for them! A similar situation with our long lost, but never referred to by real locals, “Northampton” versus “Northampton Castle”.

With typical Irish humour, the only tramcar owned by the Fintona Tramway Company carried number 381.

An excellent presentation from Ken yet again.