H/T to my brother for bringing to my attention the existence online of the Irish Travel journal – a series produced in the early years of the Free State.
One such snippet that is relevant to this site is the use of the filled in Broadstone branch of the Royal Canal as a designated car parking lot during the Eucharist Congress held in 1932.
The journals can be downloaded at https://arrow.tudublin.ie/irtourjap/10/. The information in question is in the June 1932 edition.
Located on the Carlingford peninusla in Co. Louth, the station at Bellurgan was last used as such in 1951 when the Dundalk, Newry & Greenore Railway closed. The former station building is for sale at a price of €230,000.
With COVID19 restrictions leading to reduced economic activity and the possibility of a hard Brexit still present (Bellurgan is border territory), I think this is overpriced.
As part of the mass hysteria around COVID19, a number of lightly used railways in Ireland (e.g. the Ballybrophy to Limerick Line) have been closed “temporarily” (one wonders how temporary these closures will be – CIE has never been one to waste a crisis to close railway lines).
As an alternative method of transport on these lines going forward, I give you this idea from Romania.
This is not quite IH, but close enough to merit a mention.
As I am recovering old electrical wires whilst gradually doing up my (1950s) house, I wondered how is the copper recovered from these wires (and those inside WEEE separated electrical equipment).
I searched on Youtube (the home of just about anything!) and, among others, found this video, where an individual recovers the copper from old wire as a one man project, making ingots out of same.
I’m not sure of the economics of it, but judging by his collection (at the end of the video), it is an interesting way to pass the time and retain some metals at the end of it.
a coup, or something else, or so one engineer (train driver) in the US thought.
To react to this “coup”, he ran his locomotive off the end of the line in some sort of attempt to attack the USNS Mercy in the Port of Los Angeles.