Starter home: Timoleague, West Cork €75,000

The train has been and gone, and now the ‘Express’ need to get a riverside home here by the Argideen River near Timoleague will be to beat a planning deadline.

Estate agent Michael Galvin of DNG Galvin has this rare slice of West Cork railway history for sale at Killavarrig, three miles up this excellent fishing river from Timoleague and the sea beyond.

It comprises a quaint corrugated shack, an old cottage on 0.27 of an acre on the Bandon-Courtmacsherry line, which ceased to run in the early 1960s.

Planning permission to build a bungalow on this exceptional site runs out by the New Year, so it’s time to get buyers and vendor on the same fast-track to a sale, says Mr Galvin, who remembers his own early childhood train rides to the sea at Courtmac past this spot.

VERDICT: Whistle-stop sale - all aboard.