last chance to see board na mona

[irishrailways52]

the board na mona railways which have run in Ireland for decades will soon be no more. whilst some may consider it a waste of a trip, they are a verry unique part of our railway network and are worth the trip. board na mona currently operates 2 lines. one to edenderry power station and one to mount dillion. board na mona plans to have both of these closed by November this year however due to the tempory closure of edenderry for maintenance there are talks that the edenderry line will close sooner. 

train times often verry but 2 trains usually leave edenderry between 7:00 and 7:30 in the morning returning laden around 10:30. some more set out from the power station at 13:30

edenderry location: 53.295465,-7.087523 (you can put this into google maps)

there is also a swing bridge at 53.261259,-7.758424 which has 4 trains between 7:30 and 8:30 with more in the afternoon.

 

[irishrailways52]

update 27-7-2023

as of a few days ago edenderry has closed for maintenance. the trains will continue operating however they will go to Ballycon instead. there is hope for a return to edenderry when maintenance is done as the line is being rebalisted.

ballast trains depart mount Lucas and head up the line towards edenderry.

 

co-ordinates for Ballycon: 53.281644, -7.194928

 

co-ordinates for location of ballast loading 53.283749, -7.203559

[Sean]

I would LOVE to see IRM making the loco and turf wagon.

[Flying Snail]

9 hours ago, Sean said:

I would LOVE to see IRM making the loco and turf wagon.

I agree .. would love to see more Irish narrow gauge in general too. Not sure that it currently makes business-sense for them (or will for a long time yet), but we can dream

[Colin R]

If this was done in OOn3 the biggest challenge would be to manufacture a working chassis for the locos.

That said I am investigating an 4wheeled chassis for the wagonmaster kit

https://paxton-road.blogspot.com/2019/07/commission-hunslet-wagonmaster.html

Also an 009 version of the turf wagon

https://www.chiversfinelines.co.uk/shop/p/rc815-009-bogie-steel-peat-wagon-kit

[Noel]

When I was at school Ireland was admired worldwide for its advanced harnessing of peat for energy, little did we realise then how much damage it was doing to our climate and biodiversity. End of an Era, all right, but from a climate perspective, existence doesn't seem an optional aspiration.

[irishrailways52]

it sure would be nice to see a model of it

[Mayner]

Due to their massive scale both on the bog and at the power stations the milled peat operations don't translate easily into a model in 4mm scale or larger. Not really interesting from an operating perspective basically merry-go-round 15 wagon trains running between the stock-piles on the bogs and reception sidings/discharge points at the power stations. There was a 'modelable" motive power depot, fueling point near Ferbane suitable for a compact MPD sort of layout avoiding the need to model a power station or a full train of wagons

The older/smaller sod and moss peat operations like Allenwood and Ballivor tended to be more achievable in scale and interesting operationally. At Allenwood the ESB had its own Ruston and Hornbsy locos for shunting wagons beteeen the BNM reception sidings and power station. At both Portarlington and Allenwood the sod peat wagons (less bogies) were hoisted by crane to the top of the power station before being discharged into a storage bunker, Ballivor used end tipplers for unloading 4w peat wagons into trucks. The older power stations and smaller plants tended to use modified standard Ruston and Hornsby locos rather than Hunslet Wagon-Masters. 

[irishrailways52]

yesterday was the very last one. it was supposed to stop at the end of 2023 however a small service continued to tun from Belair works. one rake yesterday was the last however. the trackwork was so bad in that area that it derailed at least 5 times yesterday