Categories
General

Clogher Valley Railway – 2

A few weeks ago, I noted that I had visited about half of the CVR route to photograph the remains of the stations/halts on this line that closed in 1941, expressing the view that it would be 2026 before I’d do the other half.

The Indian summer I conditionally tied this to never came, however, opportunity knocked and I spent Sunday and today in Northern Ireland, knocking off a fair few locations from my list of un-visited stations.

Sunday started in Newry where I got to all 5 former station sites in the city itself. I then availed of the NIR £10 Sunday day tracker ticket to travel to Whitehead in Co. Antrim, where there had been two different station locations south of the now disused tunnel.

On my return from Whitehead, I alighted at Lanyon Place station and walked to the site of Central Junction, taking in the restored Belfast Corporation Tramways location case on Linenhall Street en route. After returning to Newry, I drove to Ballygawley in Co. Tyrone, via Glaslough, Co. Monaghan and overnighted there.

Today saw me visit the western end of the CVR (all stops except Maguiresbridge, which I had already covered) as well as Enniskillen (nothing left) and a re-visit to the SL&NCR line from Enniskillen to Collooney, last visited by me in 2009.

This is probably the last trip in 2025 as the short days and autumn/winter weather sets in.

Categories
General

The lighthouse in Kells, Co. Meath

Before you run to Googlemaps and tell me that Kells is inland and doesn’t have a lighthouse, you are correct.

What is located just outside of Kells is the Spire of Lloyd, a folly constructed in the late 18th century in the form of a doric column with a glazed balcony at its head, giving the appearance of a lighthouse.

Meath County Council have been running tours on Friday mornings over the last few months (ending this month) and as I was heading north last Friday to take part in Heritage Open Days in Northern Ireland (spent the full weekend there), I took the opportunity to pay a visit.

Spire of Lloyd, Kells, Co. Meath
Spire of Lloyd, Kells, Co. Meath. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2025.
Categories
General

Does Irish Rail pay its bills?

There exist service providers that provide access to the records maintained by the Companies Registration Office for a fee (that this data is not available free to the end user is a disgrace, but not surprising in this kakistocracy).

I came upon this entry on the record for Irish Rail:

From my limited legal knowledge, I understand that the Plantiff is the person/entity initiating legal action (the person/entity on the receiving end of a legal action is the defendant).

Categories
General

Keeping up with the law

As with most Government entities, Irish Rail tends towards fascism when enforcing laws in their favour whilst not applying a similar standard to rules that apply to them (I’d cite the closure of Dunleer station in 1985 without the requisite 2 months notice required by law, but on a technicality, that would fail as it was CIE that did that – Irish Rail only came into existence in 1987).

I recently commented on the report by the RAIU on track access by passengers at Navan Road Parkway. One of the points raised in this report was that information posters which could have allowed imprisoned passengers to contact Irish Rail, contained a phone number which was no longer in use.

I spotted the information poster below on a train recently and checked out what EC Regulation 1371 states. According to the eur.lex.europa.eu site, this regulation was repealed in 2023, stating:

“No longer in force, Date of end of validity: 06/06/2023; Repealed by 32021R0782

Makes you wonder what other misinformation about the law is put out.

Categories
General

Pretty in pink

Over the decades of taking photos of Ireland’s railway built heritage, I noticed that different periods see station buildings and other paintable structures in one particular colour across the network, which would suggest that Irish Rail buy their paint in bulk.

Looking back across my archive (over 15,000 railway images), there was a period where yellow was the norm and another where grey took over.

Passing through the walkway in Connolly Station from Amiens Street to the IFSC, I noticed a section of the wall painted in pink. Any bets on pink station buildings in the second half of this decade?

Connolly Station walkway.
Connolly Station walkway. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2024
Categories
General

Chat GPT

I finally got around to setting up a ChatGPT account, one of the features of which is the ability to create AI generated images. The issue of copyright in such images is unclear, with advice veering towards copyright not been held by the person who initiated the request.

I asked Chat GPT to produce 2 images and to be fair, it did a middling job.

ChatGPT generated image of industrial heritage in Ireland.
ChatGPT generated image of a railway station in Ireland.
Categories
General

Site milestones

Nothing to do with roadside features – just a post to note that my image collection has, in recent days, hit 15,000 railway digital images and 3,000 canal images.

To commemorate this, digital railway image 15,000 and digital canal image 3,000 are below:

Track remaining on Fenit Pier, Co. Kerry. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2025
Boat slip, Tralee Ship Canal, Co. Kerry. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2025
Categories
General Greenways

Westport train collision

I don’t normally comment on trains, not even railway accidents (although technically they do constitute railway history). However, this news item got me thinking about Westport and suggestions for a change.

TLDR, there is actually freight handled at Westport station, specifically timber trains. These are loaded in the old goods area. Not a large area to start with, it was inevitable that something like this would happen eventually.

Map Copyright OpenStreetMap – https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright

Looking at the map above, the greyed out section of track is that in use for train stabling/timber loading. If this activity were to move to a dedicated loading site east of the station within Westport station limits (track circuits/axle counters could protect trains), this would free up the area west of the passenger station, allowing for the connection of the Westport to Achill greenway to that running to Westport Quay, improving the tourist amenity of Westport and segregating passenger and freight trains. I have added a line in blue to the map above, showing how the 2 greenways could be connected.

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General

Midleton, Co. Cork

I have finally gotten around to starting the processing of the images I took of the Youghal Greenway just after Christmas (this took a while as multiple culverts/accommodation bridges etc had to be added to my Access database as a location and geo-referenced).

Looking at the aerial views of Midleton station online, CIE have kept a large amount of land east of Midleton station, which requires the greenway to Youghal to be diverted around this site before joining the original trackbed near to Broomfield Bridge.

Is this the site of the future CART depot (Cork Area Rapid Transit)?

Categories
General

Belfast Grand Central Station

Another weekend, another trip to Northern Ireland. Due to the realpolitik of driving a Republic of Ireland registered car, I have tended to prioritise taking photographs of historic station locations in the Republic of Ireland over Northern Ireland.

This weekend, through combination of bike and train, I successfully visited many former station sites on the railway between Belfast and Larne Harbour.

However, this post is about Grand Central Station. I had the need to use the facilities in the station and, notwithstanding that the station is only open for 4 months, one of the 5 stalls in the gents was out of order, the lock on the door of another stall was missing and the stall I used, the hi tech “button” to flush the toilet did nothing (i.e. failed to flush).

Therein lies the problem with State investment. Governments will provide a lot of money for one off investment in capital projects, but not a red cent towards ongoing maintenance costs. Having said that, I’d have expected the facilities in Grand Central to still be operational 4 months after opening.