IRELAND'S first railway was opened between Dublin and Kingstown—now Dún Laoghaire—in 1834, just nine years after the pioneering Stockton and Darlington opened for traffic. The Irish line made history as the world’s first commuter railway. Steam-powered, it was built to the standard British gauge of four feet eight-and-a-half inches between the rails and today’s modern, electric DART trains still use the route on their way to and from Greystones.

THE Irish navvies who blasted, picked, shovelled and drilled their way through the hard rock of the Scottish Highlands to bring the railway from Fort William to Mallaig in 1907, are being recalled in a series of events to mark the anniversary of the opening of the railway this summer.