Heuston Station - One Friday in July 1985

[Old Timer]

Here are some scans of slides that I found earlier. Apologies for the quality.

I am not sure why but the originals are far better quality than the scans have turned out.

Photo 1
The Driver of 211 receives instructions from the shunter at Heuston Goods. This loco was tripping to and from North wall during the day.


Photo 2
083 descends Inchicore bank with an incoming Galway to Heuston service.


Photo 3
073 storms up Inchicore bank with the 1745 Heuston to Limerick (via Limerick Curve). Most other Limerick services were provided by a shuttle to/from Limerick Jct, or by a Limerick to Ballbrophy service which connected into a Cork or Tralee working.


Photo 4
As the afternoon heats up, 076 runs light engine from Inchicore to pick up its main line working out of Dublin.


Photo 5
Metropolitans Vickers A class 050 drops down light engine on the Third Line on Inchicore bank towards Islandbridge Jct from where it ran to North Wall goods yard.


Photo 6
B Class 144 descends Inchicore bank with the incoming afternoon Waterford to Heuston service. Note the Cravens steel and wooden bodied vehicles, which were then the norm on this line.


Photo 7
B class 173 storms through Islandbridge Jct with the 1710 (FO) Heuston to Ballina. Normally Ballina was worked as a branch shuttle except for a FO ex Heuston and a SuO afternoon return service.


Photo 8
Having been held back until after the evening flight of Down services, 050 sets of to tackle Inchicore bank with the evening Dublin (North Wall) to Cork goods Guiness Liner. The Guiness kegs are simply stacked in open wagons.

As he sets off the driver will be mindful of the need to storm the bank as hard as he can as this train was regularly looted if it lost speed on the bank.


Photo 9
Metropolitan Vickers A class 012 storms through Islandbridge Jct with the evening Dublin North Wall Container Terminal to Waterford Bell Ferries container service. This service was normally worked a brace of 141/181s


Photo 10
As evening falls B class 144 having been shunt released runs out to Inchicore Depot for maintenance and fuel.

 

[Bill EWS]

They look like the results I used to get from my very first 36 bit film scanner. Very grainy with blue bias and dense shadows. My present Epson 3490 flat bed scanner is 48 bit and the quality of scanned slides is excellent. This may be your problem Old Timer. If you already have a 46 bit scanner, I have obvioulsy got that wrong.

Nice photos, pity about the scan quality.

 

[4SRKT]

I think I may be about to cry. Some of my best railway memories are of CIE of that era. Thanks for posting. I never saw that FO/SuO Ballina working, and never realised it was only 3 coaches long.

To add to this here's some of my collection from that time. The scans here are very good reproductions of the originals First one is C class no 227 on the Greystones shuttle at Bray in 1985, before 121 class locos took over. Also in 1985 is A class no 038 at Galway on the mid-day departure to Heuston (booked A class in those days). The following year we were at Greystones and 149 came in with a PW working, seen here running round before heading back north. I struck photo gold at Greystones in that hour: as well as 149, 025 came through northbound on Ammonia tanks, 132 + another 121 on the afternoon Rosslare > Connolly, plus of course the 121 + grotstock on the shuttle put in an appearance. I've yet to scan the rest of these. Lastly a few years later and into the Irish Rail era pioneer A class no 001 is seen at Belfast Central unusually working the 18:00 to Dublin Connolly on 23rd May 1991. Happy, happy days!

 

[Old Timer]

They look like the results I used to get from my very first 36 bit film scanner. Very grainy with blue bias and dense shadows. My present Epson 3490 flat bed scanner is 48 bit and the quality of scanned slides is excellent. This may be your problem Old Timer. If you already have a 46 bit scanner, I have obvioulsy got that wrong.

Nice photos, pity about the scan quality.

Thanks for the info Bill.

I am using a 5mp one from Lidl which scans at 3600 dpi, presumably this is the 36 bit to which you refer ?

Other slides seem to scan fine but these ones in particular are very poor.

 

[GM078]

Nice shots.

 

[Drimnagh Road]

Thanks for sharing Old Timer. Fascintating stuff.

Was the first coach on the FO Ballina a half break?

Unusual to see trains formed of wooden stock / cravens without a BR / Dutch van, even it was in the Summer

 

[GM078]

Thanks for sharing Old Timer. Fascintating stuff.

Was the first coach on the FO Ballina a half break?

Unusual to see trains formed of wooden stock / cravens without a BR / Dutch van, even it was in the Summer

Actually looks like there's two half brakes on the train, the rear one appears to be one of the 1958 built composites that were converted to half brakes in the early 70s (like DCDR's 1918 or the RPSI's 1916).

 

[33056]

Interesting pics which bring back a load of great memories, though 9 and 10 appear to be the same BTW.

Regarding scanning, what film are the originals on?

I ask this because Kodachrome slides are processed differently to most other makes and I can never get them to look right even using a dedicated slide scanner with a specific setting for Kodachrome positives.

Taken on Kodachrome film c.1988

Compared to (I think!) Agfa also taken c. 1988

Luckily neither of us used Kodachrome or any Kodak slide film much, it was usually Fuji Provia which scans like a dream, even in dull conditions