Barl

Good to see the signs going back up, it looks like a tidy job too. There's been talk of replacing the timber bearers for a while now but nothing has come of it so far. They can often look ok from below, but will have started to rot in the centre where water sits on or beneath them. The 'Heineken' bridge coming out of Kent Station on the Cobh line had a similar job done a few years ago - I think they temporarily jacked up the bridge and placed new concrete bearers in place of the timber sleepers. If you get a chance you should try look at the river/stream bridge (193) next to UBC194. It had an interesting looking repair job carried out a few years ago but the masonry arch was maintained. I can't remember if it's visible from the road or only from the field.

Normally, any instance where a vehicle hits any part of a bridge, even the warning chevrons, should be reported and is recorded as a 'bridge strike' by IÉ. This then triggers a follow up structural inspection outside of the normal cycle. It could have just fallen off though as you said. The height signs and chevrons are normally fairly lightly fixed with timber, so that they will give way if hit, and not damage the bridge itself. The few times I've been there I have seen turf loads coming in and out (for personal use only of course ) but it is a very lightly used road as you say. I'm not sure what age the bridge is. Steel troughing bridges are very common throughout the network as they were relatively quick and cheap to install without requiring large machinery. The concrete bearing shelf over the masonry abutment, does suggest that the bridge may have been raised in height at some point in its history - the original deck could have been replaced at this point.

I'm glad you took a picture of the good bearing shelf! From memory, if that is UBC194, the other side has timber sleepers supporting the span, which aren't in great condition! That structure is known as a steel trough and the other side is basically a mirror image. There's normally weep holes for drainage in the lower troughs. They're fairly robust but do tend to rust where the trough sits on the bearer/abutments in particular. I don't recall seeing anything about a bridge strike there but I'll have to look back and see. There's normally a bit of 'leeway' in the minimum height signage to account for the "I'll chance it" drivers!

As far as I know, Shannon Foynes Port Company are responsible for installing the loading/unloading infrastructure and associated track. Given that SFPC are one of the main drivers of the project, I presume they will be influential in sourcing a freight flow for the network also.

I think one of the main issues here is the headline grabbing €3m price tag. It's unclear if this is the total cost, including the station purchase cost or just the actual works itself. The existing platform at Adare does not meet modern standards, not to mention being quite small so it cannot be used. I'm assuming the use of a temporary, stage like set up is also part of the reason for a fast-tracked planning process. Given that a renewed railway line is available, it makes perfect sense to use it to serve an international event that will be visited by thousands of people. Without knowing the frequency of the 'shuttle' service, I can only imagine how many buses would be required to move the same numbers of people. As an example, IÉ spent close to €250k on replacement bus services to cover weekend works on the CACR project, over - if I remember correctly - the space of a year. It wouldn't be long getting close to that €3m figure at that rate with nothing to show for it. As for the outrage, I'm sure there's plenty of people who were upset at their local stations (or lines) closing during the last 70 years, let alone being aggrieved by the lack of a new one being built.

The majority of these bridges are preserved and can't be removed - despite being like Triggers brush - so it will be interesting to see how they are dealt with in terms of fitting OHLE. Several have been replaced with new bridges (such as Little Island and Charleville) and are no longer open to the public, but remain in-situ. Despite being preserved, there is little appetite, or money, within IÉ to to maintain bridges that aren't being used by the public, hence many are slowly rotting away. These still have to be inspected as they span the railway - it can be 'interesting' walking across them at times!

RIP Paddy. Your contribution to Irish railway modelling was huge and brought many people, including myself, back into the hobby.

Has this been mentioned before or did I miss something? It would line up with the UK outline crossover I guess. Something that I don't think has been mentioned is how kit building - what was once the only option for Irish outline - has also increased in price compared to what it was before. Even taking kitbashing a basic Dapol plastic kit, they are now €12 in Marks. I think they were €8 the last time I bought one! That would mean a cost of roughly €20-25 per wagon (likely less if batch-building) for a representation of an Irish wagon by the time you include paint, glues, transfers etc., not to mention the time taken to complete them. While the cost of RTR appears high, in the grand scheme of things it's probably good value all things considered!

Not sure if this has been posted already, but CIE have created a website with some of the material from their archives which some may find interesting. https://archives.cie.ie/ They say that it's being added to on an ongoing basis so it may become more useful as time goes on.

Have been inside the building more times than I'd like in it's current guise but it still has many of the original features, such as the big wide doors and open fireplaces.

Frank presented this a few months ago for the Limerick Junction Division and it was a very interesting talk. He is very knowledgeable in all things level crossing related and is heavily involved in the annual ILCAD Level Crossing awareness days for the public.

A few photos from around Cork over the last few weeks, mostly of the 2600's, including one of a set in Cobh taken from the Armorique heading back into Ringaskiddy. The stationary set sitting on UBC406 is waiting to head back into the platforms having moved out of the yard in Cork.

IÉ have their own "team" of drone operators - still a one man team as far as I'm aware, so it's probably not that unusual for drivers to see a drone operating nearby, if they notice them at all. However, most of the on-track work would be carried out during possessions. There's been talk for a while now of more IÉ engineers getting drone operating training to help with inspections on the network but nothing has come of it so far!

It seems to be easier for the tabloids to bash BAM over the NCH than to look at the bigger issues with the incomplete design and poor management of the project from the start. BAM have successfully completed many large projects in Ireland, including large motorway schemes with no problems and are currently carrying out the Midleton line twin tracking with no major issues that I am aware of. As DoctorPan has said, the contract for the NCH was a pay as you go form of contract, hence the constant cost increases. Most public infrastructure projects are now fixed term contracts, which puts almost all of the risk onto the contractor and not the state - this can have the negative impact of increasing costs as there are only a handful of large contractors who can afford to tender for such schemes. The Luas Cross City (LCC) had a fairly decent scheme design completed by RPA/TII even before a design consultant was appointed by SISK/Steconfer. This helped massively in ensuring there were no major hiccups during the scheme, other than the usual items like discovering a cholera burial ground! Several members of the LCC project team now work for Irish Rail as part of the Capital Investments Team which should, hopefully, be a good sign for future heavy rail projects. It will be interesting to see what route the government go down and whether it will be a PPP scheme with Design-Build-Operate contract.

Remains of the old water tower and turntable pit at Birdhill.