Categories
IH News 2022

Railway cottage, Glenfarne, Co. Leitrim

There is an ex SL&NCR crossing cottage for sale on Daft.ie – however, the absence of internal photos of any property on a property website is usually indicative of a property needing extensive internal work.

In addition, I expect a fall in property values in the next 12 months so even at an asking price of €65k, I’m not interested.

Separately, the potted history provided by the seller/agent appears to be lifted from the blurb about the previous sale of Glenfarne Station last year, which contained errors that I pointed out to the estate agent at the time.

Another concern I would have, based on the site boundary, it that most of your garden is the railway trackbed, which will potentially be subject to compulsory purchase order for a greenway, leaving you with no garden and possibly nowhere to install a septic tank. The sales blurb states the following:

“The cottage would benefit from some renovation and modernisation and is serviced by Water and electricity.”

Nothing about a septic tank, which I suspect is not present.

Categories
History

Mitchell House, Belfast

The BBC have an article about Mitchell House, which is a special education school in Belfast. The IH connection is that the school was founded on foot of the Mitchell family (involved in whiskey distilling) donating the family home – Marmont House – for use as a school for those with physical disabilities.

Categories
Site Updates

Gazetteer update

Based on my recent trip to West Cork, where a substantial number of stations have disappeared completely, to the extent that I was not able to get near to where they were, I have added a new default image for those stations where I have not yet had a chance to take a photograph.

The existing image has been replaced with one stating “PHOTO NOT TAKEN YET” and going forward, I will use an image stating “NO PHOTO AVAILABLE” for sites where access is not possible.

Categories
IH News 2022

Saintfield windmill

The BBC are reporting that a windmill in Saintfield, Co. Down, that was damaged in a storm over 200 years ago, is to be restored, along with the creation of a park. Per the BBC, the project “will also restore a section of the old Belfast and County Down railway line.”

I suspect the latter will be as a greenway, rather than as a railway.

Categories
IH News 2022

Fr Browne Avenue Portlaoise

Every so often, the MSM provides information you were unaware of and so it is with this story.

I was aware that there had been a siding for grain off the former Portlaoise to Kilkenny line, with the result that a section of the latter was retained/reinstated, however, I assumed that with Irish Rail having a tendency to remove redundant railway sections, rather than maintain them, that this was gone.

From the photo at the above link, this is clearly not so.

Categories
Site Updates

Website status

Regular viewers of the site may have noticed the lack of updates (apart from blog postings) in recent months. This is because I have been doing work behind the scenes – in particular, creating web images for my older digital photos to add to the gazetteer.

The plan is to complete the processing of this (some 2,700 odd as of today) and wait until all are loaded onto the site before creating photo gallery pages for each location, which will link to the photos.

I have also been visiting some of the railway stations that I have not photographed – these last few days saw me in West Cork, where I visited most of the former stations west of Bandon, as well as the Kinsale branch, the Cork and Macroom line and parts of the Cork and Muskerry Tram. These station photos will be added to the relevant station pages shortly.

Categories
Overseas

A poor man’s Light rail

I was in Cambridge last Saturday, for the express purpose of taking a ride on the town’s guided busway.

Always a believer in the concept of don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, I went there to see the guided busway (one of two in England) and was greatly underwhelmed.

Oakington busway station, Cambridge, England. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2022
Oakington busway station, Cambridge, England. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2022

Whilst seeing the bus driver drive handsfree on the guided busway section (majority of the guided sections north and south of Cambridge are on former railway alignments) was interesting, I haven’t changed my view of guided busways. They are a poor man’s LRT and a full light rail system would be better.

Categories
IH News 2022

Glenanne Mill, Co. Armagh

Glenanne Mill in Co. Armagh, long since derelict, has been transformed into a community garden by local residents.

The BBC have a video clip on their website about the site.

Categories
IH News 2022

Oranmore Station

RTE reports that Irish Rail are proposing to apply for planning permission to build a passing loop and second platform at Oranmore station, to divide the otherwise single track section from Athenry to Galway.

Categories
IH News 2022

Dublin Port historic documents

The Government of Ireland website notes that recently opened parcels of salved documents from the 1922 Four Courts fire were discovered to relate to Dublin Port and the latter is now co-funding their restoration.

This is merely one arm of the State paying for work that should have been done decades ago by the State and leads onto the obvious question – how many other unopened parcels of similar 1922 fire survivors exist unrestored?