Links


Although I have visited many sites, I will limit myself to listing a few which provide enough links, on the subjects covered here, to avoid repeating the exercise, plus eventually trading cross listings (although not many reciprocate!).
Links were checked on flag for new material 22/1/12.

General railways and model railways:

Webville & Hypertext Railroad Co.: Originally a wealth of info and links spread over many sub-categories but no updates since 2004. A close second, but also looking a bit dated, is Cyberspace World Railroad. Another more up to date suggestion is international rail links. Look also at the Railserve directory.

Models railways DCC:

Lenz GmbH Home Page. For product info on DCC in English.

Tried & True Trains. Excellent. Look through all the sub-pages

The NMRA home page provides links to all DCC standards. For general modelling supplies Walthers, although with the expected US bias, is pretty comprehensive, and was reworked in February 1999. While in the US, try discount trains. For broad background material and links on the British Isles, see the comprehensive Historical Model Railway Collectors' Society pages. If you have a fast connection, of particular interest in Irish modelling terms is the Jouef made in Ireland page detailing the production of, and demise of the company. But don't try it on dial-up, or you may be waiting for a while.

Railwayana:

Mostly US links, are on the collectibles page on Cyberspace World Railways, but no updates recently. Have not come across much else. Search engines did, however, turn up some references to railwayana, but most investigated tended to be spurious, i.e. multiple references to many old Sheffield auction catalogues. ebay has railway hardware on many pages of listings (although with quite a few doubtful items). There are many more US sites on railroadiana, but the most likely ones listed tended to be manufacturers of new stuff. Robert Forsythe's site is back at Railway ephemera and covers relatively recent UK railway paper items comprehensively, and also has links to a number of Hornby Dublo sites. Maybe I should dig out my old three-rail material and see if it might be worth a fortune. For US Lionel collectors' trains try Dave's Trains. Robin Gibbons has set up an excellent site on UK steam era railwayana, getting better by the month (and, with a change in URL the first railwayana dot.com, but server can at times be slow!), and with the odd reference to Irish material, an LLSR ticket, plus reporting extensively on UK auctions. Gloucester Worcestershire Railwayana was the first real on-line railwayana auction. Early ambitions of monthly on line auctions seem to have settled down now to normal auctions every six months, often with items of Irish interest. SRA has its own dedicated site with results and future auctions (pretty good and timely news on coming auctions, although info not always available on postal auctions realisations and photos are beginning to show the age of the original concept of scanning the catalogue). KRA auctions, since October 2001, had a very useful site with photos (good quality, but big) of many items. It is now part of the Great Central Railwayana Auctions stable. Talisman Railwayana Auctions has an attractive new site since summer 2003 and its seeming break from the RCJ fold. A relatively new auction site, now with its fourth sale under its belt, is Stafford. The RCJ acquirer established a railwayana portal, but in October 2007 it now seems to be by subscription. Onslows has one of the best selection of posters, often with images of UK Irish related posters on site. In June 2007 it moves over to internet only auctions. Bonhams often has interesting items at its Knowle site. Paddington Ticket Auction usually has quite a few Irish tickets in its main auctions. A relatively recent site, Gloucester Antiques was also uncovered, with Irish items now and then - with several buttons of late. A nice UK site with many illustrations of signs (plus, as a bonus, one Irish one at the link given - although no activity for several years now). There is a railwayana sales diary on Tony Hillman's site (now on the prorail site). A newer auction site is railwayana.net. Also the long-standing Solent site sometimes has clues on items upcoming at its auctions. A particularly interesting collection of Irish items is held at the Narrow Gauge Museum at Tywyn in Wales. Browse through their collection for CDRJC, Skull and Skibbereen, Cavan & Leitrim, LLSR, CVR, etc. items. The Guinness loco is now to be seen elsewhere. A new site, but which may be an incarnation of one of those above is collecting railwayana

Irish:

Irish Railway News has useful present day material and a well frequented message board. NIR is now part of Translink, the wild wallpaper is gone, and it has moved yet again. The Iarnród Éireann site moved some time ago and received a considerable revamp (answering the campaign here, carried out over sixteen updates!). A link to the Irish Railway Record Society. This site is developing well over time. I note that the IRRS has individual company pages. Given the knowledge base within the Society, these should eventually make my own pages fairly superficial, except perhaps for signs. But for the moment we are still in the game. The Railway Preservation Society of Ireland seems not to be at its old address www.rpsi-online.org when checked. flag for new materialThe Irish Steam Preservation Society now seems to have disappeared yet again after its momentary appearance. Cavan and Leitrim after being back since 25 August 1997, with another change in URL, but not much news as of August 2008 and was gone again in March 2011. The plug seems to have been pulled in early 2005 by Easyspace on Steve Flanders' impressive Donegal Railways, but it reappeared elsewhere in June 2005. Another site with Cavan and Leitrim Railway history emerged online a year or two ago but has stayed "as is". Its creator's, great grandfather was the longest serving director of the line, and the loco 'Isabel' is named after his grandmother. Another fascinating Clare site is Matthew Labine's West Clare Garden Railway documenting his gauge 1 15mm scale garden railway. Matthew, unlike yours truly, must spend more of his spare time extending his model railway. There is a second, official, West Clare site detailing the important preservation work being done there. A relatively new site, with much modern Irish material, from Steve Johnson contains a Bord na Móna page. For the BCDR, go to the Downpatrick and County Down Railway Museum site which, as well as describing the Museum, has useful history of that line and a BCDR crest, and moved to a new url in November 2004. While disappearing in November from its previous location, in January 2006 the Irish Traction Group was found at a new url. There is an excellent Irish narrow gauge site, with a wealth of information on locos, builders, stations and even precise links to map references. It also has pictures of CDRJC tickets but shows little new activity since mid-2004. Will have to get down eventually to linking each of my narrow gauge pages on geocities to this authoritative site. It will also point you to sources for most Irish railway books. The Waterford and Suir Valley Railway site has good information on the Waterford area and Belturbet Station has history of the station and the GNRI and Hell's Kitchen has a great collection of Irish railwayana. The Finn Valley Railway has useful historical information and impressive ambition. An recently discovered site has Irish tokens, including tramway and railway.

Belgium:

The NMBS/SNCB official site is being upgraded and the English version is temporarily unavailable. Stefan Nicolai continues to complement this Belgian information with 'additions' pages on his personal site. These are perhaps of more interest to readers of these pages.

Other Europe:

The European Railfan page has enough European links to keep you going for the day.

Acknowledgments:

Paul Stevens, previously of PC Plus Magazine, for his excellent series and advice (with the forms page, I am now up to his November 1996 article) but the site has not been updated for some time, I am grateful for Marco van Uden's extensive company logos in his links page on the European Railfan Server which are still used, and to the MGWR authority, P O'Cuimin, for provenance of plates.

Other interests:

For those interested in genealogy, perhaps visit my Dublin Lenn*n pages, now the third site under management. If you are not detained, try the link to Family Tree Maker. You may even, like me, discover ancestors on the railways (granduncle William Casey was a driver on the GNRI and his son a fireman - thanks to the Irish Railway Record Society for filling in all the details from their employee database). Another justification for expenditure on GNR memorabilia! Have now moved to the best (in my view) genealogy programme, The Master Genealogist, and the lack of work on railways can be explained by getting to grips with its intricacies. Finally, I should also mention the Irish Club of Belgium site, which provides essential expatriate information, as well as that of my employer, the European Commission, for material of broader European interest.

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