European Railroad Discussion > Ireland in 1985

I've started a project to collect all my pictures - prints, slides and digital - taken in Ireland in a single gallery.

I went to Ireland for the first time in 1975 before the photography bug had really bitten, I took some pictures but my main focus was on track and loco bashing - riding over new lines and behind new motive power.

When I returned in 1985 I was more into picture taking, here's a sample. This wasn't really a railway holiday, I was staying with friends in West Cork, about as far from a railway as you can get in Ireland, it necessitated a three hour bus journey to Cork to see a train!

The pictures were taken at Portarlington, about 120 miles from Cork and the furthest I could get along the mainline to Dublin in a day and get back in time for the bus back to Schull. The train I arrived in is leaving on the left, on the right is a Dublin to Westport service headed by an EMD 071 class.

Second picture is of one of the smaller 141 class on a Tralee to Cork train, descending towards its destination past the closed station at Blarney, the consist typical of a secondary train at the time.

Final shot was taken on our way home. We stayed our last night in Wexford prior to catching the ferry from Rosslare the following morning. Proceeding slowly along the quay a Rosslare to Dublin Connolly service headed by a pair of 121s.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/15 00:40 by 86235.

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Stunning as always Nick! Not much of Ireland railroading to be seen from that era.

Thanks Alan, it always surprised me that Ireland was overlooked in those days. It still is today but that is probably because the scene is rather bland.

86235 Wrote:
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> I've started a project to collect all my pictures
> - prints, slides and digital - taken in Ireland in
> a single gallery.
>
> I went to Ireland for the first time in 1975
> before the photography bug had really bitten, I
> took some pictures but my main focus was on track
> and loco bashing - riding over new lines and
> behind new motive power.
>
> When I returned in 1985 I was more into picture
> taking, here's a sample. This wasn't really a
> railway holiday, I was staying with friends in

Great photos! The last one is a classic!!!
> West Cork, about as far from a railway as you can
> get in Ireland, it necessitated a three hour bus
> journey to Cork to see a train!
>
> The pictures were taken at Portarlington, about
> 120 miles from Cork and the furthest I could get
> along the mainline to Dublin in a day and get back
> in time for the bus back to Schull. The train I
> arrived in is leaving on the left, on the right is
> a Dublin to Westport service headed by an EMD 071
> class.
>
> Second picture is of one of the smaller 141 class
> on a Tralee to Cork train, descending towards its
> destination past the closed station at Blarney,
> the consist typical of a secondary train at the
> time.
>
> Final shot was taken on our way home. We stayed
> our last night in Wexford prior to catching the
> ferry from Rosslare the following morning.
> Proceeding slowly along the quay a Rosslare to
> Dublin Connolly service headed by a pair of 121s.

gaspeamtrak Wrote:
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> Great photos! The last one is a classic!!!

Thanks

Nice memories. I used to go over in the 90's, when you could still enjoy the small GM's and steam heated Cravens stock, together with those ex-BR Mk2 pressure vent stock. Sadly, I'd only consider going there now for a "normal" holiday.

SD70M Wrote:
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> Sadly, I'd only consider
> going there now for a "normal" holiday.

Yes, there's not much to entice me over now, even on the Dublin to Cork mainline I believe there are only four loco hauled trains, everything else is a DMU.

I suppose there's still the Tara Mines trains from Navan to North Wall and Liner trains between North Wall and Ballina and Waterford and Ballina and timber from Ballina to Waterford, although how frequent they are (probably less than daily. It all went down the toilet when IE lost the sugar beet traffic in 2006, after that there wasn't enough to really sustain the freight operation any more.

A good website to keep up to date with what's going on in the RoI is

http://thewandererphotos.smugmug.com/



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/15 07:53 by 86235.

Wonderful pics. Thanks for sharing.

Things have definitely changed over there!