24122, 24145, and 26633 are three ex-Iarnród Éireann ballast hopper wagons. 24122 and 24145 were built by CIÉ in conjunction with Whessoe Ltd in 1972 as part of a batch of 25 such vehicles. Known to railway staff as ‘the stones’, these ballast trains were an essential part of CIÉ’s (later Iarnród Éireann’s) Permanent Way fleet, and there are few if any parts of the network they haven’t reached, including some lines now long since vanished. Initially, they ran with older plough vans such as our own GSWR No.8452, but from 1978 they were paired with a new series of metal-sheeted plough vans, of which our own No.24852 is an example. A second batch of ballast hoppers followed in 1976, enabling older wagons such as our GSWR example to be phased out. These wagons would go on to give four decades of faithful service, with the last examples being withdrawn in 2013, as more modern bogie wagons replaced them. Ours were stored in Dublin’s North Wall freight yards until 2022, when IÉ started to dispose of its redundant wagon fleet, which is when we acquired them. Apart from preserving an iconic train from the CIÉ/IÉ diesel locomotive era, they also serve a functional purpose and will surely come into their own as and when extension works commence. The transport costs for these vehicles were funded thanks to our friends in Irish Railway Models, who had previously produced models of these wagons as their first release.
Despite its higher number, 26633 is actually older than the other two, being converted from a dolomite wagon built in 1969, to carry the mineral from Bennetsbridge, Co Kilkenny, to the Pfizer plant at Ballinacourty Co Waterford— part of this route now forms the Waterford & Suir Valley Railway. This traffic ceased in 1982, and 26633 was one of a number wagons repurposed for use on ballast trains, on which it remained in use until the early 2010s.
