jhb171achill

True, and amazing!

Ah, them oul Ottomans!

When it was built, measurements would have been in inches, groats, roods, quarts, perches and cubits...... and other such medieval nonsense!

On a quiet summer evening, Dugort Harbour reposes, since the late afternoon mixed went back to Castletown. Since it’s fair day tomorrow, several cattle trucks and spare passenger stock are stabled here this evening. Smell the salt air and drifting turf smoke….. beyond the gulls down at the harbour, silence. This might look better for 1959!

It’s a quiet sunny afternoon at Dugort Harbour in August 1959, as Pat unloads a VW-sized consignment of turf just arrived from Kenmare. Meanwhile, the sun illuminates the gorse and fuchsia behind the buffer stops….

“I thought PJ had got someone to fix that fence?” ”C’mon SHOO!!!” ”Ye’d better get Bridie - I think they’re hers….” —- —- —- “…Need to get ‘em out before PJ comes back. And put some oul oil drums or lobster pots in that gap or they’ll just come back in….”

Indeed - and worthless as scrap metal! Yes to both of them.

Outstanding! Excellent!

100 years ago you're looking at the end of GSWR days, at which time the line was far from sleepy, with the Nenagh branch, as it was known, having heavy goods traffic plus two main line trains a day plus locals. Typical locomotives would have been standarrd GSWR types, mostly J15 0.6.0s, but with a good few of Limerick's ex-WLWR locos, including 2.4.0s. Passenger traffic would have been in the hands of various classes of GSWR 4.4.0s, with ex-WLWR ones more to be seen on locals, especially to Killaloe. Passenger stock was a mixture. Local trains almost entirely non-corridor six wheelers, main line trains a mix of about 50/50 these and corridor and non-corridor bogies. Not sure about pullmans - they only had a handful of these, and they were more normally one each on the up and down Cork and Galway mails. However, the main line services had dining cars after, probably, about 1900. Within a year, with the GSR taking over, and ex-MGWR stock working into Limerick somewhat more, the odd ex-MGWR coach might have turned up, but this line remained pretty solidly "southern" territory until diesel days. The forthcoming Hattons Genesis six-wheel coaches are very close to what would have operated over this route on all but Dublin services. 00 Works' J15, if you could get one now, is the "go-to" locomotive for local, mixed and goods trains on this line at the time you're talking about.

A replica UR one would be interesting - IF they had them!

TRUE!

VERY good idea……

A bright day in summer 1965, and B141 is heard above the seagulls as it idles its way down to Dugort Harbour with the mixed. Only one van to unload today, with rolls of Irish Linen from Brookhall Mill for the local textile firm, O'Shea's who make linen souvenir goods for tourists, and some cases of Persil for McInerney's Cash Stores. Seen from a hill opposite the station, B165 shunts the following day. C201 appears in Dugort Harbour with a rake of empty trucks one day in 1966. Coal boats, once reasonably common here, only turn up about three times a year now, but when they do, the coal is unloaded into wagons and taken away.....

On a murky day in 1957, A30 approaches Dugort Harbour with the 08:35 mixed. On a bright summer day in 1960, No. 472 leaves Dugort Harbour with an overload goods. Two years later, in her last year in use, the same loco is seen shunting at Dugort Harbour. Yes, it's about to rain. "OK, Here's one. The Englishman an' the Scotsman an' Irishman walk into a bar, an' there's a rabbit sittin' there with a bottle o'stout in front of him, an' a woman on his lap......" "I'm tellin' ya! Thirty five vans an’ a drover’s van, over the summit with 120 pounds on the clock…. If anyone could keep time with that lot it was him, even with THAT coal…..” An almightly thunderstorm is about to erupt one summer afternoon in July 1963 as A42 brings the afternoon connection off the down Tralee train into Dugort Harbour.

On 19th September 1961, the afternoon train crosses the Dugort River as it approaches the Harbour station. "Tell ye what, the overtime on the weedspray will be good - three weeks all over the system" "Yeah, but sleepin' in that oul van, and you've the stink of the weedkiller on ye for days afterwards - sure it's worse than fair day in Ballinasloe!" "Yeah, but the up goods has to be held at the junction. The special will be in the next section at the time, which means we'll be looped at Farranfore for at least half an hour, and gawd help us if the down mail is running late. That would mean we're not into Tralee until maybe eight...." "Paddy! Would ye give Martin a shout an' tell him if he wants a lift up to Tully gates, he'd need to get a move on!"

(The neighbouring branch to Drumbane, which lost its passenger service in 1947, is in the process of being lifted in 1968). "Twelve miles of it pulled up over the last few days, sure they'll have buses all over Kerry before long" "Well, I suppose with the mill gone in Drumbane, and the mart moved to Kenmare, there's been nothing much over the line since the fuel crisis..." "What's he doin' - growing the damn tea leaves? We've to leave in ten minutes. Where's the Rich Teas, anyway?"

"Thing is, once you leave Cobh you'll be fine. The boat's at nine tonight, so you'll have plenty of time. Your stuff in the ship went six weeks ago so it'll be in Cape Town by now..." "It'll be hard getting used to the heat, but sure there's nothing for me in Castletown these days... dunno even when I'll be back!" Note on an old colour slide from 1966: "This morning's 11:40 leaving Dugort for Castletown".

Hold on...... that's a MODEL? WOW!

There are two, potentially. The LNWR livery is well within the “two foot rule” for DNGR livery. The LMS is suitable, albeit with some amendments, for GSR livery.

Generic looking stuff - not identifiably Irish….

I’d ask Nurse for different medication!

My guess is - for a good while. There has been talk of (a) hourly services and (b) 90 minute services* for at least a third of a century. Think budgets, necessary tax, costs, votes, and the gombeens that we persist in voting for, with zero incentive to plan long term. ZERO. Result: ain’t gonna happen unless the EU (hopefully) forces us to. (* With ever increasing journey times due to said gombeens having no interest in bulldozing north Dublin to create a 4-track line from Drogheda to Wicklow, expect journey times over said sections, no matter what tube-shaped “customer” train is operating, to take the same pedestrian times over the same sections, as the Dublin & Drogheda railway in 1844, and the Dublin and Kingstown railway in 1834; or possibly the donkeys before them!)

This will be Cork! An 800 plus the solitary Rosslare-liveried “Woolwich”!

Would the one with 583 not be 1960 rather than 1950? Wheel handle on wagon brake....

Exactly!