Tag Archives: Sligo Line

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Steam and Semaphores: Another Vintage View at Killucan.

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—Not seeing semaphores? Click the link to Tracking the Light to get the full view and story—

I made this vertical (portrait) view of a driver’s training special on Irish Rail’s Sligo Line at Killucan back in April 2003

Railway Preservation Society of Ireland tank engine No 4 had run around its train at Killucan and then received the signal to reverse back on the main road (line). The driver had opened the regulator (throttle) and the engine had begun to move when I released the shutter, framing the engine in a cloud of its own effluence.

The semaphores were removed in conjunction with Irish Rail’s conversion of the Sligo line to operation using Mini CTC signaling during 2005, a change that closed Killucan cabin, among other classic signal cabins on the route.

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Irish Rail April 2000, Sligo Line at Hill of Down

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073 Leads the Afternoon Down Sligo Passenger

I made this pair of images of the daily afternoon Dublin Connolly to Sligo passenger train passing the long closed station at Hill of Down on the old Midland Great Western Railway mainline. Class 071 locomotive number 073 leads Mark II carriages.

Irish Rail passenger train in Meath.

Exposed using Nikon F3T with Nikkor 105mm lens on Fujichrome Sensia 100 slide film.
Hill of Down, County Meath.

 

Irish Rail Sligo LIne

Exposed using Nikon F3T with Nikkor 105mm lens on Fujichrome Sensia 100 slide film.

The old Midland follows the Royal Canal for many miles west of Dublin. This pastoral route was one of my favorite Irish rail subjects in the early 2000s. Although it wasn’t as busy as other routes, the combination of scenery, friendly signalmen and gatekeepers, and quaint old trains made for seemingly endless photographic possibilities.

At the time most trains were locomotive hauled with vintage General Motors diesels.

In additional to class 071 diesels working Mark II and Cravens passenger consists, the old classes 121, 141 and 181s regularly worked freight.

Today the line is exclusively run with diesel rail cars.

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