A Rare Find

[Patrick Davey]

My day jobs bring me to many very interesting places throughout Ireland, and recently I was working at an event & wedding venue called ‘Limepark’ which is situated near Armoy in County Antrim.  My work colleagues and I were standing at the bottom of a set of stone steps at the side of a building, when the handrails caught my attention….. I quickly recognised them as being lengths of narrow gauge rail.  The venue is not far from the track bed of the Ballycastle narrow gauge line, which closed in 1950.  On closer examination, I could see that each length of rail bore the following inscription:

West Cumberland Steel B C R 1879

A quick Internet search located the company operating in the north of England from 1872 to 1916, and the date of 1879 would suggest that these are some of the very original Ballycastle line rails, as the line opened in 1880.  I’m not sure what ‘B C R’ means, but it would be nice to think it meant ‘Ballycastle Railway’.  Obviously, I may not be able to find out when these rails were installed at the venue, so either they survived in use until 1950 and were then sold off, or the selling off happened much earlier than 1950, during a presumed relay.

One of the staff members at Limepark was able to tell me that there are a lot of lengths of rail in use around the venue, and he says there are also original railway sleepers there as well, so a return visit is now very much on the agenda!!

[Old Blarney]

Interesting in more ways than one.

Might these rails be cast-off from:-

The Ballymena, Cushendall and Red Bay Railway was a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge railway between Ballymena and Retreat,^[1] both in County Antrim, in what is now Northern Ireland. It operated from 1875 to 1940.^[2]

^{Above information from:-}Ballymena, Cushendall and Red Bay Railway - Wikipedia

Edited June 14 by Old Blarney

[Patrick Davey]

Anything is possible!  Definitely more research needed

[Tullygrainey]

Well spotted Patrick. Your trained eye scores again. A rail find

[Patrick Davey]

Bingo - from page 13 of the 2006 Colourpoint edition of EM Patterson’s ‘The Ballycastle Railway’:

McKinnon’s scheme for laying the track with light-section rails went a stage further when, on 12 March 1879, the Board asked Evans to obtain prices for 30 lb and 40 lb rails. By early April, 14 companies had replied, but none could roll rails as light as 30 lb, and they offered either 40 lb or 45 lb rails at prices varying from £4 18s Od to £6 11s 6d per ton. The West Cumberland Iron Company's tender was the lowest and the Ballycastle Company decided to take their 45 lb rails, a wise reversal of policy. The Company then tried unsuccessfully to get the price brought down to £4 12s 6d. Half the rails were to be delivered to Ballycastle and half to Portrush; those delivered to Portrush were to be railed over the Northern Counties line to Ballymoney and the track was to be laid from both ends.

One might assume therefore that the rails at Limepark came from the Armoy area, and with Armoy being closer to Ballycastle than to Ballymoney, these rails were most probably from the consignment delivered directly to Ballycastle. 

[jhb171achill]

Superb. You've persuanded me to fish out this book and re-read it again! A most interesting line!

Edited June 14 by jhb171achill

[Mike 84C]

And a very "thinking outside the box" bit of recycling .  The workmanship looks rather neat. A very good find Patrick.

[Broithe]

Before the upgrade to the carpark at Ballybrophy, this was the 'ersatz Armco barrier' that would stop you running off the edge.

[David Holman]

Our 1970s built house has a breeze block garden wall, with vertical posts that are lightweight fb rails. The area has many old cement workings, a no prizes for guessing where the rail came from, especially as there was originally a much older house next door.

 Must have another look to see if I can find a maker's mark.