Station to station

                                         VR ( Victoria Regina ) Post box  The original post boxes were painted red - pillar box red - as they were through out the British empire. the were standing , embedded into walls and attached to telegraph poles . Modern postal services date back to 1840 when the first penny post was introduced in Britian and Ireland by Sir Rowland Hill the British tax and social reformer .                                                                ER   ( Edward Rex )  Post Box  In the 1850's post boxes were introduced to Ireland by the novelist Anthony Trollope who was a surveyor for the Post office .  The free standing postboxes Penfold date back to 1866 to 1879 , ...

                                                                                     Martello towers  Sandycove Martello tower featured in the opening chapter of Ulysses   Twenty six Martello towers were built in Dublin between 1804 -05 from Bray to Ballbriggan, the reason behind the building of these towers is due to the serious threat of invasion from Napoleon Bonaparte the French army of 2.5 million eclipsed that of the British army ( Royal navy ) The origin of the Martello towers were inspired by the coastal tower at Cape Mortello in Corsica dating back to the mid 16th century.  Cape Mortella, San Firenza Bay, Corsica © Mark Prokop Dublin at the beginning of the 19th century was one of the least defended places in Ireland , Dublin was vulnerable to invasion...

                            The Atmospheric railway Kingstown to Dalkey ( 1844 - 1854 )  The experimental atmospheric railway opened in 1844 , ten years after the first railway was opened from Dublin Westland row ( Pearse station )  to Kingstown station ( Dun Laoghaire ) The inventers of this unique transport were Samuel Clegg and the Samuda brothers they set up a demonstration at Wormwood scrubs , this was attended by the directors of the Kingstown railway . Plans were put in place to extend the land to Dalkey .  James Pim ( Junior ) the treasurer of the railway estimated the line would cost £15,000 .                                        illustration of the line near Barnhill road  The standard gauge line was 9,200 ft in length with an uphill gradient of 1 in 110 , a 15 inch vacuum pipe was used f...

                                                                           Merrion   Cemetery ( 1300 -1866)                                        There is a cemetery in South country Dublin that dates back to the 14th century , it originally had a church . Today excuse the pun it is buried behind a petrol station . Before Dun Laoghaire harbour was built shipping disasters were common occurrences and one such was the sinking of the Rochdale crashing against the rocks at  Seapoint Martello on November 19th 1807 . 265 people died that night including 42 women and 29 children , they ship was due to fight in the Napoleonic war . 140 from that ship are buried in Merrion Cemetery The cemetery ...

                                               The Harcourt street line 1854 - 1958   The Harcourt street line was a line that went Harcourt street via Dundrum to Bray ,it opened on July 10th 1854 the same day the line from Dalkey to Bray opened ,  it was built by  William Dragan for his construction work he took bonds in payment exchanging later for shares . He became a shareholder in the Dublin and Wicklow railway company and a director in 1856. In its lifetime the line had steam electric ( Drumm trains ) and Diesel and trains went to Greystones and Waterford va Macmine junction and Wexford . A morning commuter express train ran from Bray to Harcourt in 20 minutes stopping at Ranelagh . The reasons trains stopped at Ranelagh was due to the crash at Harcourt street station on February 14th 1900 when a cattle special failed to stop and crashed thru ...

                                        The Harcourt street line 1854 - 1958   The Harcourt street line was a line that went Harcourt street via Dundrum to Bray ,it opened on July 10th 1854 the same day the line from Dalkey to Bray opened ,  it was built by  William Dragan for his construction work he took bonds in payment exchanging later for shares . He became a shareholder in the Dublin and Wicklow railway company and a director in 1856. In its lifetime the line had steam electric ( Drumm trains ) and Diesel and trains went to Greystones and Waterford va Macmine junction and Wexford . A morning commuter express train ran from Bray to Harcourt in 20 minutes stopping at Ranelagh . The reasons trains stopped at Ranelagh was due to the crash at Harcourt street station on February 14th 1900 when a cattle special failed to stop and crashed thru the buffer stop and the ste...

                                                                                         The Harcourt street line 1854 - 1958   The Harcourt street line was a line that went Harcourt street via Dundrum to Bray ,it opened on July 10th 1854 the same day the line from Dalkey to Bray opened ,  it was built by  William Dragan for his construction work he took bonds in payment exchanging later for shares . He became a shareholder in the Dublin and Wicklow railway company and a director in 1856. In its lifetime the line had steam electric ( Drumm trains ) and Diesel and trains went to Greystones and Waterford va Macmine junction and Wexford . A morning commuter express train ran from Bray to Harcourt in 20 minutes stopping at Ranelagh . The reasons trai...

                                                                                              Killiney diversion works 1913 – 1915   Due to severe coastal erosion a decision was made to divert the line inland, in July 1910 it was reported to the board two miles of the seawall was breached between Killiney and Bray. The Killiney diversion obtained under the 1903 act and instructions were giving in January 1913 for the obtaining of tenders for the diversion. The tenders were Naylor brothers of Hudderfield . A start was made on the works, two temporary sidings were installed at milepost 14 ¾ facing to down trains and at milepost 16 ¼ to up uptrains both been worked by keys on the section staff. work progressed well for a new frame for the signal...

Over the last year I have done videos on my android phone documenting the remains of the Harcourt street line , I moved to Tullyvale Cherrywood which enabled me to cover the former railway line. My You Tube channel Stationtostation https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFu5zwZPE_ufpqDILFNfmDg  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFu5zwZPE_ufpqDILFNfmDg    I decided to cover the line over the following months doing approx 5 mins on each video taking photos as well and with the help of fellow enthusiastic  Mark Fagan who edited my vidoes . I enclose photos i took of the Bride's glen Viaduct back in 2009 .