__NOTOC__ The Tralee and Dingle Light Railway and Tramway was a ,

narrow gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller struct ...

running between

Tralee Tralee ( ; ga, Trá Lí, ; formerly , meaning 'strand of the Lee River') is the county town of County Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. The town is on the northern side of the neck of the Dingle Peninsula, and is the largest town in Count ...

and

Dingle Dingle ( Irish: ''An Daingean'' or ''Daingean Uí Chúis'', meaning "fort of Ó Cúis") is a town in County Kerry, Ireland. The only town on the Dingle Peninsula, it sits on the Atlantic coast, about southwest of Tralee and northwest of Kill ...

, with a branch from Castlegregory Junction to Castlegregory, in

County Kerry County Kerry ( gle, Contae Chiarraí) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and forms part of the province of Munster. It is named after the Ciarraige who lived in part of the present county. The population of the co ...

on the west coast of Ireland. It operated between 1891 and 1953; the Castlegregory branch closed shortly prior to the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. It was one of the most westerly railway lines in Europe, but the terminus of the Valentia Harbour branch at 10.277785° was further west.

Early years

The railway was built as cheaply as possible, largely following adjacent roads, resulting in some very tight curves and severe gradients. The railway opened on 31 March 1891, but from the start income failed to cover operating expenses. In March 1893, the Board of Trade held an inquiry into poor management and operating practices on the railway; nevertheless a fatal accident (involving a runaway train) took place at Curraduff in May of the same year. The railway continued to require public subsidies from local ratepayers; these were able to be reduced in 1898 after a grant from the Treasury (although the line continued to require subsidies throughout its existence). In 1907, a further grant of £23,000 (just over €2 million at 2007/8 values) was made to allow the scene of the accident at Curraduff to be bypassed, and other improvements made.

Conflict

Operations on the railway were severely disrupted between 1921 and 1923. The line was closed in 1921 on the orders of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkha ...

(during the struggle for independence prior to the creation of the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between ...

). Services were also suspended at times (and infrastructure damaged) during the

Irish Civil War The Irish Civil War ( ga, Cogadh Cathartha na hÉireann; 28 June 1922 – 24 May 1923) was a conflict that followed the Irish War of Independence and accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State, an entity independent from the United ...

of 1922–23. The railway was taken over by the

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 ...

on Thursday 1 January 1925; a train had a collision with a car on a level crossing on the first day of GSR ownership.

Operations

The line was 31 miles long, broken into approximately 10-mile sections at Castlegregory Junction and Annascaul, where the locomotives would take water if required, and where trains could pass each other. In 1910, at the peak of the line's usage, there were two return passenger trains, morning and evening, which on market days, Tuesday and Saturday, made a third midday trip. The trains passed one another at Castlegregory Junction, apart from the morning trips which passed at Annascaul. The journey time was two hours and 30 minutes. The Castlegregory branch train met every train at the junction for the six-mile branch. On Saturday afternoons it ran an extra trip through to Tralee and back. On Sundays, only the morning trip from Tralee and the afternoon return from Dingle operated, plus two connecting round trips from Castlegregory. By 1922 there were just the morning and afternoon return trips on the main line, which passed at Castlegregory Junction, and two round trips on the branch to connect. Journey times were still the same. Sunday services had ceased. By 1938 there were still two round trips daily on the main line, still taking the same time, but the times were altered so that in the morning a Tralee-based train ran out to Dingle and back, while in the afternoon a Tralee-based train did the round trip. The Castlegregory branch train ran through to Tralee and back in the morning, as there were no convenient main line trains to connect with, but in the afternoon made a shuttle to the junction as before. Despite the rundown in the line's usage over time, all the timetables required three locomotives to operate the passenger services each day. In addition there were freight services, normally a round trip each day with general freight, plus extra services on market days to move cattle between Tralee and Dingle, which were the last trains to use the line. The cattle trains to the end were of sufficient size to require two locomotives.

Later years

The road between Tralee and Dingle was improved in the 1930s, allowing buses and lorries to effectively compete with the railway. The infrastructure of the railway becoming increasingly dilapidated and, in parts, unsafe. The passenger train service was timetabled to run from Dingle to Tralee in 155 minutes (for a journey of little over 31 miles), whilst the competing bus service took 105 minutes. On Monday 17 April 1939, all passenger services were withdrawn; the Castlegregory branch was closed completely. A single daily goods train continued to run until 1947, when coal shortages forced its temporary withdrawal. Thereafter, a special train (for cattle) was operated once per month in connection with the fair at Dingle. These trains finally ended in June 1953. An extraordinary event occurred at Dingle station on Thursday 13 June 1940, after the line's closure to passengers. A German spy named Walter Simon arrived at the station and asked when the next train would depart (not realising that only freight services were still operating). Simon had been landed by a German submarine, U-38, during the previous night. He then made his way by bus to Tralee and thence by train to Dublin. Following his enquiry at Dingle station, the

Garda Síochána (; meaning "the Guardian(s) of the Peace"), more commonly referred to as the Gardaí (; "Guardians") or "the Guards", is the national police service of Ireland. The service is headed by the Garda Commissioner who is appointed by the Irish Gove ...

were informed and he was trailed by detectives. He was arrested on arrival in Dublin and interned for the duration of the War (known in neutral Ireland as " The Emergency").

Restoration

A 3 km (1.8 mi) section was reopened as a preserved line in 1993The steam train from Blennerville
/ref> between the Aquadome in Tralee and

Blennerville Windmill The Blennerville Windmill is a 21.30 m high, stone, reefing stage, windmill in Blennerville, Co. Kerry, Ireland. The mill has five floors, ground floor, intermediate floor, grinding floor, stone floor and cap floor. History The mill was buil ...

. As of 2013, the railway was no longer in operation. Extract from th
appeal page from Ted Polet, webmaster of the 009 Society Dutch Group

''Early in 2009, on this page an appeal was published to the Tralee Urban District Council, the owners of the railway, to take steps to safeguard this heritage locomotive. In May, 2009, a representative of the Tralee UDC informed me that the agreement with the previous (private) operator of the railway was terminated. The parts of the locomotive were put under cover and during the summer a diesel locomotive was put into service hauling a single carriage between Tralee (Aquadome terminus) and Blennerville. All this was confirmed by repeated reports by Holger Lorenz on his Tralee Blog.'' ''Although restoring 5T to working order may be far away, at least it will not rot to pieces as it would have, had the boiler, tanks and cab been left out in the open. Another good development is services being restored, even if diesel-hauled. This way the railway will at least have a chance to keep going.''

References

General references

* The Dingle Train, David Rowlands, Walter McGrath, Tom Francis, Plateway Press, 1996, * The Tralee & Dingle Railway, David G Rowlands, Bradford Barton, 1973 * * The Irish Narrow Gauge (Vol. 1), T Ferris, Midland Publishing Ltd, 1993, * Running Out of Steam in Tralee, ''Phoenix Magazine'' 20 No. 14, 19 July 2002 * Transport Preservation in Ireland 2005 and 2007, ed. David McGlynn Parks, Chicken Rock Publishing * Locomotives & Rolling Stock of CIE & NIR, The Irish Traction Group, 1997

External links

Holger Lorenz's Tralee Blog
{{coord missing, County Kerry

Light Railway A light railway is a railway built at lower costs and to lower standards than typical "heavy rail": it uses lighter-weight track, and may have more steep gradients and tight curves to reduce civil engineering costs. These lighter standards all ...

Defunct railway companies of Ireland Dingle Heritage railways in the Republic of Ireland 3 ft gauge railways in Ireland Transport in County Kerry