Category: History

The RTE archive has a piece on the opening of 4 new stations on the Maynooth Line in 1990 (Broombridge, Castleknock, Coolmine and Leixlip Confey).

The blurb contains many errors, including:

Referring to the service as “A new Dublin suburban rail line”. The Maynooth Line service actually started in 1981.

Stated that the original railway along which the service ran dates back back to the 1870s. The line actually opened in 1847.

Stated the railway was originally known as the “Great Midland and Western Railway”. No. The railway was originally built/owned by the Midland Great Western Railway.

There is a well known image of a steam locomotive protruding through the end wall of Harcourt Street station, this being the end result of an accident on 14th February 1900. The 125th anniversary of this was 2 days ago and the YouTube algorithm recommended this video to me:

It is reasonable enough in terms of the history, although I take issue with the narrative around how the locomotive was re-railed and left the following comment on YouTube:

Are you sure about how the locomotive was re-railed? My understanding is that the engine was lowered onto Hatch Street (the street that it protruded onto) where there was a tram line. Conveniently, the original tram network in Dublin used the same gauge as the railway, allowing it to be moved closer to Adelaide Road, where temporary track was laid to bring the engine up the goods area access road to be re-railed.

Co-incidentally, the locomotive in question had another off road excursion during the Irish Civil War and also had to be re-railed using temporary track.

The first commercial use of the Samuda and Clegg patent for the propulsion of trains by atmospheric means was on the railway line between Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire) and Dalkey, opening in 1844 and closing 10 years later.

The great Isambard Kingdom Brunel also tried to use the system on the South Devon Railway in England, where it was a complete failure. This is alleged to be due to the use of insufficiently powered engines in the lineside engine houses used to create the necessary vacuum in the centre pipe, which in turn moved a piston along said pipe to propel the train.

Little remains of the Atmospheric Railway in Dublin today – the station site (still used by Irish Rail as a Permanent Way dumping ground) and the final road overbridge at Dalkey, which has been abandoned for railway purposes are the only significant traces, the cutting in which the line ran having been rebuilt for conventional railway purposes.

At the Didcot Railway Museum in England, they have a section of the pipe used on the South Devon Railway (along with replica broad gauge track).

I availed of the February Bank Holiday to travel to Didcot and took the photograph below of said pipe.

The BBC has an interesting article about the quarrying of millstones in Fermanagh (and across the border in Cavan).

Happy 190th birthday to the Dublin & Kingstown Railway, opened on 17th December 1834, between Westland Row (now Pearse) Station and Dunleary (a temporary station adjacent to the West Pier of Dun Laoghaire Harbour).

I came on this excellent article by Kieran McCarthy about the Sunbeam Knitwear Company in Cork.

One of the lesser known canals of Ireland, also known as the ‘Dry Canal’, due to never having been completed and misinformation around the reasons for same, is the Cong Canal. I came across this recent Youtube Video on the subject, which makes extensive use of drone footage of the area to highlight what remains.