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| The World's First Suburban Commuter Railway. 08/05/2013 at 14:57 #44410 | |
afro09
167 posts |
This is a thread for those of you who enjoy steam locomotion, the steam era and the history of world railways. I have attached below some links for all of you interested to read the history behind the world’s first suburban commuter railway which ran from Westland Row Station, Dublin (now Dublin Pearse) to the port town of Kingstown (now the Dublin suburb of Dun Laoghaire). The line built in between 1833 and 1834 was the brain child of William Dargan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dargan). The Wikipedia page for the Dublin and Kingstown railway gives a good detail of some of the delays in building the railway, a good detail of the first ever written time table for the route, along with some great pictures of the railway at the time. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_and_Kingstown_Railway). Although it holds some very interesting information, the Wikipedia page is very short of detail. So if you have read the Wiki page and would like to read some more of the details about the line, like the cost of building the railway, the materials used to build the line, test trips that were made before the line was opened, more opposition to the line, the development of coupling techniques and the loco’s used to haul the trains, then the following link has some of the best information about the line. (http://www.dalkeyhomepage.ie/dublinkingstownrailway.html). I have also attached this youtube video of steam loco No.4 with a set of craven coaches at the current Dun Laoghaire station celebrating 175 years of the rail line between Dublin and Dun Laoghaire. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHwjHrsTcWc The Dublin to Kingstown line today still exists as part of the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) line and the Dublin to Roslare Europort line. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Area_Rapid_Transit). And for anyone who is wondering why other than the port did the railway come to Kingstown (Dun Laogaire) and what effect the railway had on the area, I have also placed a link below to the history of Dun Laoghaire website. (http://www.dun-laoghaire.com/history-fr.html). I hope you all enjoy the history within this post. Alan. Last edited: 08/05/2013 at 15:00 by afro09 Log in to reply |