Hugh Dougherty

IF IRELAND has an efficient—and hopefully— expanding modern railway system, it equally benefits from being home to a surprising number of high quality heritage railways and museums. Irish heritage railways are popular tourist attractions, with an impressive 93,000 passengers taking trips on them annually, getting in touch with the trains of yesteryear, which enthusiasts have lovingly kept alive for posterity.

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.