{"id":8254,"date":"2014-09-22T02:00:07","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T06:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=8254"},"modified":"2014-09-17T01:14:24","modified_gmt":"2014-09-17T05:14:24","slug":"irish-rails-nenagh-branch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/irish-rails-nenagh-branch\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish Rail\u2019s Nenagh Branch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roscrea Revisited\u2014August 2014.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I first visited Roscrea in August 1998. Denis McCabe was giving me a tour of rural Irish stations, and we stopped there to intercept the branch passenger train running from Ballybrophy to Limerick.<\/p>\n

Back then the train consisted of an 071 diesel, a steam heating van and two ancient looking Cravens carriages. It was a cloudy morning.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to August 2014, and Denis and I made a return visit to Roscrea. While I\u2019ve visited this rural station on several occasions in the intervening years, what struck me was how little the station and its environs have changed.<\/p>\n

\"Irish<\/a>
Irish Rail station at Roscrea, County Tipperary in August 2014. Exposed with a Lumix LX7. (And yes, I also made a color slide, for the sake of modal consistency and archival longevity.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The old signal cabin is still open and active; the mechanical semaphores remain as I remember them, the station building seems unchanged. Compared to many of the station I visited in 1998, this is one of the few that still looks the same. The Celtic Tiger years didn\u2019t result in unnecessary uglification\u2014er, I mean improvement\u2014<\/em>to Roscrea.<\/p>\n

\"In<\/a>
In 2004, Irish Rail replaced the traditional locomotive-hauled steam-heated Cravens with a more modern railcar. Today 2800-series railcars in the latest green and silver paint work the Nenagh Branch. Exposed with a Canon EOS-7D with 100mm lens.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Exposed<\/a>
Exposed with Lumix LX7.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the downside, you must know where the station is in the village. I don\u2019t think there was any sign off the Motorway or in the town itself giving any hint of an active railway station there. It\u2019s a real pity too. The Nenagh Branch is one of those throwbacks to another age. Unsung, unloved, and largely ignored, it soldiers on in a world that time forgot.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roscrea Revisited\u2014August 2014. I first visited Roscrea in August 1998. Denis McCabe was giving me a tour of rural Irish stations, and we stopped there to intercept the branch passenger train running from Ballybrophy to Limerick. Back then the train consisted of an 071 diesel, a steam heating van and two ancient looking Cravens carriages. … Continue reading Irish Rail\u2019s Nenagh Branch<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10],"tags":[4537,178,7535,182,2361,2360],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Irish_Rail_station_Roscrea_P1060517.jpg?fit=800%2C534","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-298","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8254"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8254"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8275,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8254\/revisions\/8275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}