The Dublin Festival of History takes place between 27th September and 13 October 2024.
I have reviewed the listing of events and have created a page listing those events of IH interest.
Categories
Month: September 2024
Categories
Haulbowline Lighthouse, Dundalk Bay
The Dundalk Argus reports that a commemoration to mark the bi-centenary of Haulbowline Lighthouse will take place in Greenore, Co. Louth, at 15:30 on 22nd September 2024.
Railways brought forth all sorts of social change and innovation, in much the same way that the internet has over the last 25 years.
One such act of entrepeneurship in London saw the creation of the London Necropolis Company, which transported the deceased and their funeral cortege from London to a Brookwood cemetery, some 23 miles south west of London, by train. Primarily using the railway lines of other companies, they did have their own connections at both London and Brookwood.
Continuing in operation until 1941, the company’s former station building at 121 Westminster Bridge Road, London, remains in alternative use. This is the second London station of the company, coming into use in 1902.
The original station was nearby and removed to make way for expansion of the adjacent railway mainline, the Necropolis Railway Company making the London & South Western Railway pay heavily for their relocation.
RTE reports that H&W Group Holdings PLC is to enter into administration, due to the company being insolvent.
As a technicality, the company that is entering administration is the holding company, which holds the shares in the 4 shipyards under its control and the shipyard in Belfast is not entering administration, nor are the other 3 shipyards the company owns.
Categories
M3 Parkway Station
Passing through M3 Parkway station today, I noticed that the little used Up platform has a ramped section in the middle, for purposes unknown.
Categories
The Nenagh Branch
Or the railway from Ballybrophy to Killonan for the uninitiated.
This little used railway line (2 trains a day each way and only 1 on Sunday) runs from Ballybrophy (on the Dublin to Cork line) to Killonan – a junction just over 4 miles east of Limerick Station.
Strangely enough for such a line, it has 4 block posts on it, counting the terminal points (Ballybrophy, Roscrea, Birdhill and Killonan). Great you might think, if either of the two trains a day gets out of path, there is the ability to change crossing points.
Except that the two services a day are provided by the one unit and don’t cross anywhere on the line. In addition, whilst Roscrea and Birdhill have two platforms, the Up platform in each case is inaccessible due to no footbridge connection. This latter has become something of an IR standard at “crossing” points, rendering such locations effectively useless for crossing service trains.
In addition, in terms of crossing point location, if you were to design a railway in terms of ideal crossing points, it is unlikely you would do it in this manner. The rough mileages of the crossing points are:
Ballybrophy 0
Roscrea 10
Birdhill 42
Killonan 52
Spot the 32 mile single line section in the middle, giving Boyle to Sligo at only 28 miles a run for its money.
Given that there is full CTC at Ballybrophy and Killonan, the more sensible approach would be to install axle counters (now that track circuits are verboten) at each end of the line and operate it as one 52 mile branch. This would allow the property development company with the inconvenience of a public transport network attached to dispense with the costs of manning 2 signal cabins and associated ETS equipment.
Categories
Ulster Canal and Kingscourt Greenway
A second update – having spent today in Northern Ireland taking photos, I now have recent photos of most of the canal. The only missing section is that from Maydown through the Benburb cutting to Milltown (both exclusive). With the information I had to hand in the field, I could not do this section justice and as such, will make a return trip to cover this section.
I have also added an inset map of Clones to the Ulster Canal map.
As I stayed overnight in Northern Ireland on Saturday, I productively used the trip up there to photograph the station sites on the now fully opened greenway from Navan to Kingscourt and also visited the sites of Glenanne and Loughgilly stations in Co. Armagh. These will also be added to the site shortly.