Railway history in the garden.

[RANGERMOUSE]

At the bottom of our garden was a washing line. It was made of 3 posts. The posts were sleepers from the Cavan and Leitrim Railway that my ever "resourceful" Granddad "liberated" when the line closed. 3 railway sleepers was overkill for a washing line. The line itself was cable that he also "liberated" from an old phone line. Only one of the posts remains now. Granddad was an old Devil 

[jhb171achill]

Looks too thin for a sleeper...... could they be C & L fence posts or sections of a signal post?

jhb171 senior had perimeter fencing made of 5' 3" gauge sleepers cut in half longitudinally - could be that too....?

[RANGERMOUSE]

The 2 other posts had groves cut out for the rail and you could see where the spikes had been in the sleeper. They are gone now. The remaining one does look newer. Next time I'm home I'll have a look

[RANGERMOUSE]

Just had a look again and removed some of the ivy. You can see the groove and the wholes where the spikes were hammered in. It is definitely not a C&L sleeper as I measured from the groove to the ground and it's nearly 5 ft. It may have been hard to see the size with no scale so I've included the measuring tape too. Our nearest Broad Gauge line is the Sligo line 5 miles away with Dromad being the closest station. The washing line was there long before I was born and it was my Dad who told me they were from the "Narra Gauge" as he calls it. Clearly my Granddad was even more enterprising then we realised.

[jhb171achill]

Looking at those proportions it may well be narrow gauge. On a sleeper for 3ft gauge track, the actual sleeper length would be about 4 ft 6 or possibly 5ft.

If it's any longer than 5ft, it'll be a 5ft 3 sleeper, which could be from anywhere, I suppose.

[RANGERMOUSE]

It's just under 5 ft from where the tape is on the bottom photo to the ground. There are no grooves or spike marks at the 3 ft point. I would say if i did a bit of digging the groove would be just under the surface. Would 4 ft 6 be a standard size sleeper for Narrow Gauge? I'm 5 ft 6 and it never occurred to me as the sleepers were taller than I am that they weren't Narrow Gauge. Just goes to show that as kids we take what our dads tell us as gospel.

[jhb171achill]

Yes, it would. The strong probability is that is indeed a narrow gauge one.