PUBLIC TRANSPORT

All Photographs Supplied By William Murphy

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BLACKROCK TRAIN STATION AND NEARBY

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I USED A SIGMA DP3 QUATTRO CAMERA TODAY

The Dublin and Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) Railway was the first suburban railway in the world. The line began operating in 1834 and was built by William Dargan, an engineer from County Laois.
The idea for the railway arose from proposals by the merchants of Dublin to link the city with Dún Laoghaire Harbour, because the levels of silt at Dublin Port meant that large ships could no longer dock there and instead called at Dún Laoghaire. The line ran from Westland Row (Pearse Street) to Seapoint and shortly after was extended to Dún Laoghaire. Blackrock Station opened on 17 December 1834.

Blackrock once had a natural coastline which ran along the Rock Road. This disappeared when the train line was built in 1834 making the space between the road and the track into a marsh. Before the line was built, the locals used the beach as a bathing area.

This marsh area was the cause of local nuisance, as even though water would flow in and out with the tide, it was not enough to wash the area out. This made the marsh very unpleasant to the nose. It was later decided by the Blackrock Towns Commissioners to fill in the area and construct the Blackrock Park in 1873. The granite gates at the main entrance once belonged to a house called Vauxhall and the gardens at the entrance were part of the gardens of the old house.

In 2007, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council published plans for the conservation and development of the park. The plans include extensive redevelopment of the course of the Priory River, as well as refurbishment of several of the buildings within the park.

Blackrock baths were provided for by the railway company in 1839 and were built beside the Blackrock train station. A special train ticket also permitted entrance to the baths. In 1887, the baths were rebuilt in concrete with a large gentlemen’s bath and a smaller ladies’ bath. In 1928, the Urban District Council bought the baths for £2,000 and readied them for the Tailteann Games. The baths, with a 50-metre pool, were well known for their swimming galas and water polo and could accommodate up to 1,000 spectators. Eddie Heron lived in Sandycove and is known for his achievement as 36 years undefeated Springboard and Highboard Diving Champion of Ireland. A plaque commemorating him is on the railway bridge that crosses over to the baths.

COBH TRAIN STATION

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PHOTOGRAPHED IN MAY 2023

RUSHBROOKE RAILWAY STATION

When I arrived in Cobh the weather was beautiful but about twenty minutes later I had to return to the station in order to shelter from an intense thunder storm. I decided to get the next train towards Cork city centre but as the weather had improved I got off the train at Rushbrook but after about twenty minutes more rain arrived.

Cobh railway station serves the town of Cobh, County Cork. It is located in a red brick building adjacent to the town’s Cobh Heritage Centre.

It is the terminus of the on Cork-Cobh section of the Cork Suburban Rail line. Travel to Glounthaune station to transfer to Midleton.

The station opened 10 March 1862 and was closed for goods traffic on 3 November 1975.

It began life as the terminus of the Cobh (then Queenstown) section of the Cork, Youghal & Queenstown Railway.

The present station occupies only a small part of the old station building. The original station was expanded greatly during the latter part of the 19th century as it served what was then Ireland’s largest emigration port which was also an important way-point as the last port between Western Europe and North America. The station was also the main receiving centre for mail for Ireland and Britain from the United States and Canada. Mail would be brought by ship to Cobh, processed and forwarded by mail express trains to Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) on the outskirts of Dublin and on to Holyhead. This was faster than conveying by ship directly to Liverpool.

It is famous for being the station where hundreds of survivors of the RMS Lusitania disaster left the town of Cobh after surviving the sinking.

With the development and growth of transatlantic air traffic Cobh lost its importance as a mail and passenger centre. A significant part of the train station remained largely unused until the opening of the Cobh Heritage Centre in the front part of the station in the 1980s. At that time the station was also reduced to a single platform. The freight yard of the station has now become a public carpark while another part of the station has become a covered carpark for Cobh Garda Station.

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THE DOCKLANDS TRAIN STATION

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UPPER SHERIFF STREET

Services run to M3 Parkway during peak times, Monday to Friday. The station is closed on Saturday and Sunday. Passengers need to change at Clonsilla for connection with the Maynooth service.

Docklands Station is a terminus railway station serving the Dublin Docklands area in Ireland. It is owned and operated by Iarnród Éireann and was part of the Irish Government’s Transport 21 initiative.

The station is one of three termini for the Western Commuter service run by Iarnród Éireann, the others being Dublin Connolly and Dublin Pearse.

The station was officially opened for commuter services by then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at a temporary location on Sheriff Street in the North Wall area of Dublin’s Northside on 12 March 2007, construction groundbreaking having taken place on 9 March 2006 with Transport Minister Martin Cullen. It is the first new heavy rail station in Dublin city centre since Grand Canal Dock opened in 2001. It was required because the nearby Connolly Station had reached capacity and could not support additional commuter services to County Meath.

However, in March 2008, it was reported that the transport minister, Noel Dempsey, would allow CIÉ to seek new planning permission to keep the station on a permanent basis as a terminus for services from Maynooth and Navan following his decision to allow the Railway Procurement Agency to use Broadstone Station for extensions to the Luas.

I GOT A TRAIN FROM BROOMBRIDGE TO MAYNOOTH

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7 APRIL 2023

The train station at Broombridge is at best unattractive.

Broombridge is a railway station beside a Luas Tram stop serving Cabra, Dublin 7, Ireland. It lies on the southern bank of the Royal Canal at the western end of what had been Liffey Junction station on the erstwhile Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR). It takes its name from Broome Bridge, which crosses the canal, where William Rowan Hamilton developed the mathematical notion of quaternions. A plaque on the adjacent canal bridge and the name of the Luas Maintenance depot on site, Hamilton Depot, commemorates this.

Years ago I would have avoided this station because it was not safe at any time of the day. The station is unmanned and had been subject to significant and sustained vandalism, enough for Iarnród Éireann to be concerned and questions asked about it in the Dáil.The lack of shelter for passengers or seating facilities was similarly questioned. In 2012, additional security measures were added along with seating and decoration in advance of the station’s redesign as part of the Luas Cross City project. Leap card validators, previously not provided due to vandalism concerns, have been installed and Iarnród Éireann ticket machines were installed towards the end of 2019.

Broombridge is the northern terminus of the Green Line of the Luas, Dublin’s Light rail tram system. The tram platforms were constructed in 2017, at the same time as the nearby Hamilton Depot, the forecourt which provides space for buses to access the station, a staff car park, and a footbridge over the main line tracks to allow easier interchange. The two platforms lie adjacent to the eastern end of the main line platforms, and interchange between the two systems is possible via steps and a ramp.

On average, trams depart every 10 to 15 minutes and head south towards Bride’s Glen, a journey which takes approximately one hour. Immediately after leaving Broombridge, they go through a double crossover point which allows them to make use of both platforms. The line runs parallel to the heavy rail line for 350m, before turning south into the Broadstone railway cutting, which takes it into central Dublin.

In 2020, a 4 km (2.5 mi) extension of the green line from Broombridge to Charlestown Shopping Centre was announced. According to the current plan for the project, Broombridge will become a through stop, and trams will leave the stop before taking a sharp turn to the right, crossing the heavy rail line and the Royal Canal on a specially constructed bridge which will run parallel to Broome Bridge itself, and then continue northwards.

“Luas Finglas is the extension of the Luas Green Line from Broombridge to Charlestown via Finglas. It will add four new stops to the line and create a key public transport connection between the communities of Charlestown, Finglas Village, Finglas west, St Helena’s and Tolka Valley and the city centre. The National Transport Authority and Transport Infrastructure Ireland have developed an Emerging Preferred Route for Luas Finglas and are inviting comments from all stakeholders and members of the public on the proposed route. Luas Finglas will be constructed mostly in grass track, an attractive innovation in Ireland, while a cycle and pedestrian path will be constructed along much of the line, providing family-friendly, sustainable, convenient access between northside communities and the city centre.”

https://www.luasfinglas.ie/#/home

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MAYNOOTH RAILWAY STATION APRIL 2023

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A BEAUTIFUL SETTING

The station is situated on the south side of the Royal Canal, opposite Dukes’ Harbour. Access to Maynooth is by either the footbridge to the west, which leads to the Main Street of Maynooth; west along the canal walk to residential areas of the town, or via the road bridges to the east, which lead north to the older part of Maynooth, or south to the newer areas.

The station has two staffed ticket desks and four automated ticket machines, one inside and three outside the station building. The ticket office is open from 06:00 AM to 23:15 PM, Monday to Sunday.

The footbridge crossing the tracks and connecting the two platforms was originally situated at Lansdowne Road railway station.

From Maynooth onwards to Sligo, the line is a single-track railway, the line being a double-track railway from Maynooth to Bray.

The 2018 NTA Heavy Rail Census showed 6,625 passengers using the station on the day of the survey, up from 6,228 in 2017 and 5,262 in 2016.