All aboard for train series
Two separate programmes in the six-part series are dedicated to the West Cork region — one to the West Cork Railway, and a second to its eccentric little sister, the Schull to Skibbereen tramway.
The TG4 series, Bóithre Iarainn, which begins this Thursday, investigates the stories and traditions around some of Ireland’s best-known railways, starting with a look at the Bundoran Express.
The series, which runs until the middle of March, highlights the fun and romance of the Harcourt Street line’s Dance Trains, the gruelling work of shovelling coal on the Cavan and Leitrim line, and provides a fascinating insight into the Radio Trains of the ’50s, which came complete with their own MC and broadcasts of the Rosary for Knock-bound pilgrims.
However it is the trains of West Cork that dominate the series, as former employees recall the busy hum of the beet trains from Courtmacsherry, the “rising of the steam” in Skibbereen station and the hand-made wooden carriages on the Schull and Skibbereen tramway.
Some the most interesting anecdotes originate on the West Cork Railway, which constitutes the second programme of the series, to be broadcast on Thursday, Feb 16.
“This was a hugely interesting programme to make. West Cork, more than any other programme threw up more interviews,” says series director Geraldine Heffernan
“It’s such a huge region — the railway ran for 100 miles right across scores of communities. It seemed to go to so many little places in West Cork. It was a vast network, and to the people of the region, it was more than just a railway.
“We spoke to people from Bandon, Bantry and Skibbereen, each of whom had a different take on the railway. Every village and town had different stories connected to the railway,” Ms Heffernan said.
The West Cork Railway, on which construction began in 1845, was also the railroad most affected by the upheaval of in the 1920s, with signal boxes burned and tracks and bridges blown up, including the Chetwynd viaduct. An incident at Upton Station in 1921 is reinacted in the programme, showing a regiment of British troops being attacked by the IRA. The line eventually ceased operating in 1961.
But, says Heffernan, it is the people who make the programme so interesting:
“It’s the human stories as told by characters like Bertie Harrington from Skibbereen, who was a steam raiser and fireman on the West Cork railway or Jim Collins from the Drimoleague station which really give this programme its heart and soul.
“Trains were about the people they carried and the people who worked them and this is evident from listening to the stories from these men who lived in another time.
“Bertie recalls having to wake the fireman every morning at 7.05am when they would set about firing up the train and getting up a head of steam so that the train could power ahead to its destination.
“He also talks about the back-breaking work of piking beet into wagons as the train ran day and night during the frantic beet season. There were trips to Knock which started in Bantry at 3am — a mammoth journey.”
March brings the last programme in the series, which features the unique Schull and Skibbereen tramway, which operated between 1887 and 1947 — although it only ran for 15 miles, it boasted first class carriages with comfy upholstered seats and second-class carriages with wooden benches:
“The carriages were all made locally by a carpenter in Skibbereen. We cannot imagine in this day and age that you’d build a whole railway for a 15-mile journey, but there was a railway mania at the time and they were building them in the remotest places.
“People in Schull really needed it — when it was built in the 1880s, there were people in Schull who had never even been as far as Skibbereen.”
* The West Cork Railway is broadcast on TG4 on Thursday, Feb 16, at 8pm and The Schull and Skibbereen Tramway on TG4 on Thursday, Mar 15, at 8pm.
