Broadstone railway works or simply Broadstone or the Broadstone was the headquarters for mechanical engineering and rolling stock maintenance for

Midland Great Western Railway The Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) was the third largest Irish gauge () railway company in Ireland. It was incorporated in 1845 and absorbed into the Great Southern Railways in 1924. At its peak the MGWR had a network of , making it Irela ...

(MGWR). The complex grew around the Dublin Broadstone railway terminus.

History

The first railway construction on the site was by J.S. Dawson, later to become Rogerson, Dawson an Russell. Two first class coaches are noted as ordered from the firm in 1839 by the

Eastern Counties Railway The Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) was an English Rail transport, railway company incorporated in 1836 intended to link London with Ipswich via Colchester, and then extend to Norwich and Great Yarmouth, Yarmouth. Construction began in 1837 on t ...

of England at a cost of £420 each. The firms workshops were later purchased and incorporated in Broadstone Works in 1851. From basic beginnings around the Dublin terminus serving the basic of the newly created railway in the late 1840s the works had grown and become cramped by 1869/70. The works were extended in 1877 allowing space for locomotive building and assembly with No. 49, ''Marquis'' being the first built there in 1879. A further 119 engines were built or constructed at Broadstone until the MGWR's amalgamation to form

Great Southern Railways The Great Southern Railways Company (often Great Southern Railways, or GSR) was an Irish company that from 1925 until 1945 owned and operated all railways that lay wholly within the Irish Free State (the present-day Republic of Ireland). The p ...

(GSR) in 1925. The GSR's

Inchicore works Inchicore railway works, also known locally as 'Inchicore' or 'The Works', was founded by the Great Southern and Western Railway in 1846 and emerged to become the major engineering centre for railways in Ireland. Located west of Dublin city ...

was expanded with a new erecting shop and from 1928 the assembly of the GSR Class 372

2-6-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a leading truck, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. ...

''Woolwich Moguls'' was switched from Broadstone. Engineering work was thereafter switched from Broadstone, with the works and station closing in the 1930s but with the steam locomotive depot remaining active until 1961. The wagon works resumed wagon building after a gap in 1950, with over one hundred cattle trucks constructed.

Site

The site evolved around the

Broadstone railway station Broadstone railway station ( ga, Stáisiún An Clocháin Leathan) was the Dublin terminus of the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR), located in the Dublin suburb of Broadstone. The site also contained the MGWR railway works and a steam ...

to serve the requirements of the MGWR and also incorporated a

steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

servicing

depot Depot ( or ) may refer to: Places * Depot, Poland, a village * Depot Island, Kemp Land, Antarctica * Depot Island, Victoria Land, Antarctica * Depot Island Formation, Greenland Brands and enterprises * Maxwell Street Depot, a restaurant in ...

. By 1920 the site had reached its full extent. A set of buildings to the north of the station and the west of the main line housed locomotive, boiler, carriage, machine and paint

shop Shop or shopping refers to: Business and commerce * A casual word for a commercial establishment or for a place of business * Machine shop, a workshop for machining *"In the shop", referring to a car being at an automotive repair shop *A wood s ...

s. A locomotive semi roundhouse and large turntable lay to the east of the station and a locomotive shed to the north of that. These were for day to day servicing of steam locomotives. To the south of the station accessed by a line passing by the locomotive sheds and over a filled in dock of the

Royal Canal The Royal Canal ( ga, An Chanáil Ríoga) is a canal originally built for freight and passenger transportation from Dublin to Longford in Ireland. It is one of two canals from Dublin to the River Shannon and was built in direct competition ...

lay the wagon build and repair shops.

Present day

After the depot closed to steam the site was generally given over to omnibuses with a

LUAS Luas (pronounced ; Irish for "speed") is a tram/ light rail system in Dublin, Ireland. There are two main lines: the Green Line, which began operating on 30 June 2004, and the Red Line which opened on 26 September 2004. Since then, both lin ...

line from central Dublin running past the south front of the station and up the west side then on the old main line towards . The wagon shops to the south of the station have been replaced by the Dublin Bus Phibsborough depot.

Bus Éireann Bus Éireann (; "Irish Bus") is a state-owned bus and coach operator providing services throughout Ireland, with the exception of Dublin and the Greater Dublin Area, where bus services are provided by sister company Dublin Bus. It is a subsidia ...

occupies the substantial part of the remainder of the site with buildings in the north east of the site and areas to the north and west of the station paved over for parking with the locomotive depot buildings having been demolished.

References

Sources

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History

Site

Present day

References

Sources

Further reading