Peat Railway History

[LNERW1]

I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole hole recently, while researching for a school project on Bord na Móna (Different to another project, regarding my local line, mentioned elsewhere), and began to research more in-depth regarding the railways of Bord na Móna. However, I’ve made the unfortunate discovery that, apart from BnM’s three 1949 Barclay locomotives, now preserved at Stradbally, Tywyn and Bushmills, I cannot find any information whatsoever on bog railways in Ireland pre-1950s. As BnM seems to have had a sizeable network by at least the early 50s, and of course was delivered locos in 1949, I assume there was indeed quite a lot going on that simply wasn’t catalogued. However, I don’t have much of a clue as to what it was, and in fact I’m not sure when any system was built, and whether there were any bog railways pre-BnM. My working timeline is as follows:

Pre-1920: I confidently guess nothing. 

1920-1930: Also likely nothing

1930-1940: Possibly a small amount of development, my guess is well under 100km of track, and possibly nothing at all.

1940-1950: Large expansion due to Emergency

1950-1960: Massive period of expansion

1960-1970: Expansion slower but still continuing.

1970-1980: Expansion ends, system reaches peak

1980-1990: Mainly stagnation, minor closures and some layoffs, as well as some small bogs sold to private companies.

1990-2005: Decline accelerates, significantly more closures and layoffs.

2005-2020: Slow decline until harvesting stops in 2020.

2020-Present: End of operation on all BnM railways.

The latter half of the timeline matters significantly less here, as I am trying to fill in the blanks pre-1950, specifically trying to work out when and where exactly the genesis was of peat railways, in Ireland at least, and to try and gain more information about the specifics of these early railways. Any help would be greatly appreciated, and I mean any. If you have any material on Irish peat railways that could possibly be pre-1950, please share it here. Thanks so much.

LNERW1

[jhb171achill]

In the 1930s it was the Turf Development Board, which pre-dated bnM. I believe the Dept. of the Taoiseach archives within the National Archives contains detail of that era. But your absolute go-to, who may watch this page, is the BnM expert, Sean Cain.

[Mol_PMB]

After my visits to the dying remains of the BnM railways a couple of years back, I bought several books on the history of the BnM and Turf Development Board. Some are more wordy and some more pictures. But they are all really good.

The best one for a detailed history is this, and it's not expensive:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brown-Gold-History-Irish-Industry/dp/0717147525

There's also a fair bit of history on the BnM's own website, though it's not too easy to navigate to all the pages.

When I was there, the oldest loco still in use was LM40 built in 1947:

So by 1947 there were at least 40 locos in use by BnM. The first few locos pre-dated the LM numbering system, but it was introduced fairly early. One of the very first diesels still exists at Dromod - German-built I think.

[Broithe]

19 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

 your absolute go-to, who may watch this page, is the BnM expert, Sean Cain.

I have mentioned his Twitter on here before, but it's always worth a look through.

https://x.com/seaniecain

[Flying Snail]

Another source of information is the ESB. Many of the bog railways were built to bring fuel to the power stations of the midlands. The ESB owned its own fleet of locos, a few of which have made their way to Stradbally - including their maid of all work Rusty

 

[LNERW1]

AFAIK Seán Cain volunteers at Stradbally- I'm fairly sure he runs the Maryborough Light Railway page on Facebook too. I'll try contacting him through both channels.

1 hour ago, Mol_PMB said:

After my visits to the dying remains of the BnM railways a couple of years back, I bought several books on the history of the BnM and Turf Development Board. Some are more wordy and some more pictures. But they are all really good.

The best one for a detailed history is this, and it's not expensive:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brown-Gold-History-Irish-Industry/dp/0717147525

There's also a fair bit of history on the BnM's own website, though it's not too easy to navigate to all the pages.

When I was there, the oldest loco still in use was LM40 built in 1947:

So by 1947 there were at least 40 locos in use by BnM. The first few locos pre-dated the LM numbering system, but it was introduced fairly early. One of the very first diesels still exists at Dromod - German-built I think.

A very good point which I would not have thought of. It's a great pointer actually. The problem I have with using this method is that I don't really have access to the information that makes it possible. The best way to do so seems to be site visits, and these just aren't an option for me, not least because of school taking up almost all of my time, but also because at this point more and more of the information I would glean is disappearing. I envy you for having seen the larger BnM bogs before they were shut down- all I ever saw pre-closure were a couple of Wagonmasters on Coolnamona. I have been to Shannonbridge post-closure, though.

Also, I neglected to mention in the original post that I did submit a form via BnM's Contact Us page on their website enquiring if there were any records regarding railways pre-1950. I'll be honest, I'm not confident it'll yield that much but hopefully it will have a few nuggets of useful information.

Thanks all for being so forthcoming in information and advice so far. Please do keep it coming- I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.

[Mol_PMB]

There are quite a few books on BnM railways and these are the ones I have:

For the history, Brown Gold is by far the best. The railways were such a key part of the operation that they get detailed coverage in the history of BnM as a whole. You can get it for about 10 Euro and I would highly recommend the book for anyone with an interest in BnM railways. It’s a thick tome but worth working through!

 

[Mol_PMB]

Very briefly, the industrialisation of the Irish turf harvesting started in the mid-1920s, at Turraun, using German equipment on a fairly small scale. This used a narrow-gauge railway with 2 locos and 24 wagons. It proved uneconomic but continued in use for a decade or so.

Lullymore was the next bog developed, by the Peat Fuel Company in the mid-1930s. They also constructed a briquette factory. Their equipment was mostly designed and made in GB. At that stage a lot of the machinery was still experimental, although some turned out to be very successful, such as the giant Garrett Disc Ditcher of 1935 (that behemoth on the front cover above). 

It's important to note that once you have started to develop a bog by cutting drains, there is a considerable lag time (several years) before the turf being dry enough to harvest, or indeed before the surface will support anything heavy like harvesting machinery. By 1939 the Peat Fuel Company was in financial trouble, having invested a huge amount of money and not really got to the stage of being able to harvest anything.

Meanwhile, the Turf Development Board had been established in the mid-1930s by the Irish government; they had a much wider remit including marketing turf and encouraging hand-harvested turf. But the future was in machine-won turf and they visited Germany and Russia to learn how it was done. They started to develop the bog at Clonsast in 1936, using machinery supplied from Germany (ordered in a hurry as the war clouds were on the horizon). Although the machines arrived, there were many delays in commissioning it and production didn't start until 1939, and produced disappointing quantities that were uneconomic. The German machines weren't ideally suited to Irish conditions.

The TDB acquired Turraun in 1935 and Lullymore in 1939, and also started to develop Glenties, which got its first Ruston in 1940. Other bogs where development was beginning in 1939 were Lyrecrumpane, Timahoe, Attymon and Carrigcannon. Some were more successful than others, but none of the bogs were economically successful at this stage. Whilst production did increase during the war, supply of machines and spare parts was near-impossible, and there were a lot of problems.

In 1946, the TDB was reconstituted as the BnM and there was a large expansion in the late 1940s and 1950s.

 

The early narrow-gauge locos used in the turf industry (pre-BnM) included:

• German Ruhrthaler diesels, one of which survives at Dromod. This was built around 1936 and later became LM11. 
• Motor Rail 'Simplex' diesels, details not known, did not survive to receive LM numbers in 1954
• Ruston & Hornsby diesels, one in 1939 and two in 1940 (later LM13/14/15) all for Clonsast, also another in 1940 (later LM16) for Glenties. 
• Whitcomb diesel, built 1945 (later LM12) for Kilberry