It was seventeen years ago that I caught my first glimpse of the multiple-arch Kilnap viaduct from the window of a scheduled Bus Éireann coach running from Limerick to Cork.
On various occasions since then, I’ve travelled across Kilnap on trains running between Dublin and Cork.
On April 20th, thanks to the expert guidance of Irish Rail’s Ken Fox, I finally visited this noteworthy bridge on the ground and made these photographs. It is just a few miles from Cork’s Kent Station on the double-track Dublin-Cork mainline.
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Text from my book Railway Masterpieces indicates:
Starrucca was completed on November 23, 1848, and the first locomotive rolled across it a couple of weeks later on December 9th.
While my more recent research on the Dublin-Cork line reveals:
Today’s Irish Rail route from Dublin to Cork is the legacy of the old Great Southern & Western Railway (GS&WR) which built from Dublin starting in 1845, inaugurating services to Cork in 1849. GS&WR improved its connections in Cork city with its completion of a long tunnel in 1855, and in the 1890s with erection of Glanmire Road (now Kent) Station that features a curved train shed.
So, I think it’s safe to say that the two bridges were built about the same time.
I was traveling from Galway to Cork (via coach changed at Limerick). At the time there was no rail service Galway-Ennis, and the Ennis service was sparse. If I recall the bus ran every two hours and only cost about 8 Irish pounds.
Mmmh! What were you doing on a Bus Eireann coach????
The ethics committee take a dim view of such behaviour.
Mark
It’s a mini-Starruca… does it date from the same general period (1842)?