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THE WEST CORK RAILWAY
On the 31st of March 1961 the entire West Cork Railway System closed and of course this was a terrible blow to Drimoleague. I worked in Drimoleague Station from 1946 to 1950 and I will try to give a brief history of the people who worked there, the type of work that went on there, and the layout of the station which is very important. Later on I will explain with the help of a drawing, the various tracks, sidings and what have you.
On the 31st of March 1961 the entire West Cork Railway System closed and of course this was a terrible blow to Drimoleague. I worked in Drimoleague Station from 1946 to 1950 and I will try to give a brief history of the people who worked there, the type of work that went on there, and the layout of the station which is very important. Later on I will explain with the help of a drawing, the various tracks, sidings and what have you.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WHOLE WEST CORK RAILWAY SYSTEM
The first train was run by a company called the Cork & Bandon Co. and obviously that ran from Cork to Ballinhassig and Bandon in 1849. A separate company was formed in 1866, a company called the West Cork Railway Co. operated from Bandon to Dunmanway. There were several
meetings then in order to get an extension further to Skibbereen with various failures and then a new company was formed called The Ilen Valley
Railway Co. so the first train ran from Dunmanway to Skibbereen on the 21st of July 1877. It would be 1881 before they built a branch from Drimoleague to Bantry.
In 1888 the three smaller companies that I mentioned; The Cork & Bandon, The West Cork railway and The Ilen Valley Railway amalgamated and became known as the Cork Bandon & South Coast Railway. Then in 1925 they in turn amalgamated with the rest of the railways in Ireland and became The Great Southern railway. They were nationalised in 1946 and became Caras Iompar Eireann.
Now the whole system of the West Cork line was of the gauge (that's the distance between the tracks) 5ft 3ins. This was the standard Irish gauge so consequently trains from Drimoleague could have run to Dublin or to Limerick or Youghal or Midleton, but they never did so. People had to get off at the station at Albert Quay in Cork and trudge all the way across to the station on Lower Glanmire Rd for to go to Dublin or any other destination.
This was a terrible drawback especially in the later years when I was there. There were trains that ran from Bantry to Knock and at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning to walk from Albert Quay near the City Hall over to the Glanmire Rd station was quite a walk and back againat night when it might be raining.
Drimoleague itself was one ofthe most important stations in the West Cork System. It had the biggest signal cabinoutside of Cork City itself, comprising of 31 levers. Tothose who don't know much about Railways, the signal cabin is like the control tower in an airport. The signalman has levers for to move the points, that is the switch of a track. We'll say No.19 when it was in the normal position, the train at the platform at Drimoleague at night would go to Skibbereen, but if you pulled the lever 19 then you switched the track and the train would go to Bantry. Each point or switch was controlled by a signal and they were also operated from the cabin. Drimoleague cabin had 31 levers. The layout of Drimoleague Railway Station would be a Railway modeller's dream. It started up across the road from Mike Sullivan's garage and extended to the Quarry Rd where Mossy Murphy's Sculpture works are now. The Skibbereen branch crossed the Main Rd. where Mrs Eileen Hayes' house is now and that
roughly would be the confines of the station. From Mike O'Sullivan's garage down to the bridge going up to the churchthere was a siding. (A siding in railway parlance means a parking area where wagons or trains would be parked overnight). That was quite a long siding. Likewise then from Mrs Den Keane's house down to Mossy Murphy's, on the northern side was another siding. Down where Jim Kiely's house is now was another parking area for goods wagons; that would be wagons with loads of stuff, manure, sand for the farmers and other sundries. They would be parked there and lorries and horses and carts would back into them and unload the stuff. In Railway working the staff are divided into three categories or three departments. The Loco Department meant the people having to deal with the engines; that would be the driver, the fireman, the cleaner, the steam riser, the coal man etc. These would have been Jim Twomey (the driver), Mick Minehane (fireman) John Twomey was the coal man and a hard job
it was because there was no coal in Bantry and each train that came from Bantry had to get a few baskets of coal. That meant John Twomey would have to fill a basket with coal and climb up a ladder (you may see this in a photo taken in the 30's with a previous coal man called "Tim the Coal". So the Bantry train, along with the Drimoleague train itself would have to be coaled in Drimoleague. Other names associated that time with the Loco
Department would be Ronnie Kingston and Mick Collins (Mick Patsy), Sean Hennessy, Bertie Harrington, Denny Bob O'Sullivan, Jimmy McCarty and Mickie Connor.
The Traffic Department, to which I belonged was headed by the Stationmaster, Jerh Cotter. Next in seniority would be the Guard of the local train which was Den Keane at the time. Then there were two signalmen who were Johnny Minihane and Florry McCarthy. Then the three porters, there was Donal Collins (John Vs brother), Denny Collins (Paddy the Post's son), and me. Later came Sam Kingston, Dendy O'Brien, Jackie Collins, Tim, Crowley, Mick Minihane and Mick Twomey.
All the infrastructure, the tracks and the buildings etc would be under the department called The Permanent Way. At the head of The Permanent Way was Inspector O'Donovan. He was the only Inspector outside of Cork. He was over all West Cork from Ballineen to Bantry and to Baltimore. He was stationed in Drimoleague itself and under him were three gangers. From Drimoleague to Aughaville was under Dan Hurley.From Drimoleague to Madore was under Barney Deane. From Drimoleague to Knockbue was under Bill Thady (Bill Sullivan). Each ganger then had two permanent men who were on the Eastern side, Paddy Lordan and Donie McCarthy and Jim Fehilly at times. On the Western side were Paddy Horgan and Mick Brennan and Curly Sullivan. On the Madore side was Con O'Leary and Con Barry and I can't think of the others now. Also on the Permanent Way there was seasonal work like painting bridges and re-laying tracks and there would be lots of temporary men taken on for these purposes, too many to mention.
Other people permanently employed in the railway at the time would be the gatekeepers. On the west side you had Dinneen's Gates, Gurrane's Gates with Bob Lynch minding those, Knockane Gates minded by old Mrs Reilly, later occupied by Mrs Thade Mc Carthy and at Inchingearig there was Corney Reilly and in Aughaville there was Horgans. On the Skibb side there was Jerh Brien's at Gurranes and at Madore you had Jenny Leary. Going east you had Lordan's gates and after that you had McCarthy's gatehouse at the road going up to Clodagh, then Den Long Thady's and further east you had Knockbue gates which were manned by Mamie Donovan and later by Paddy Collins the postman.
The station itself in Drimoleague was a very large one compared with the surrounding towns. You will see on the diagram that Drimoleague Station had three platforms whereas Bantry and Skibbereen had only one each. It also had a goods platform and Cattle Pens. The three platforms were known as the DOWN, the UP and the BACK. The back platform was where trains came in from Bantry. You will also see on the diagram how the
trains managed there. Even though Skibbereen to Cork was the main line, for operational purposes they usually operated to Bantry. So the Bantry train came in on the back platform. The Skibbereen train came in on the UP platform. The engine of the Skibbereen train detached itself and the Bantry train went up under the bridge and back down and connected with the Skibbereen train and off to Cork it went. A similar operation took place in the evening on the DOWN platform.
There was quite a lot of shunting went on in Drimoleague station, that was arranging the wagons of a train. For instance a train would come in from Bantry with 20 wagons. There would be 10 for Dublin, 5 for Cork and the other 5 for Bandon. Well then the train would come in from Skibbereen with a similar kind of load but it wouldn't do to tie the two trains together, all the Dublin wagons would be put together and all the Cork wagons would be put together and all the Bandon wagons would be put together. So that entailed quite a lot of movement going up under the bridge, backing down, going up again and backing down and this noise added to the atmosphere of the village. The puffing and the whistling of the steam engine and the clanging of the buffers between the wagons made a very nice sound indeed.
On the goods side, you can see on the diagram where there was a store siding and the wagons were left down there. Some would stop at the goods store, there were three doors at the north side of the goods store and you could stop the wagons flush with those doors. There was nothing to do only wheel the bags from
the wagon into the goods store. Then on the south side facing the village you had three more doors where the lorry or the horse and cart could back in and load from the store, so it was very modern for the time. Then further down from the goods store, down to Den Keane's house was the store siding as we called it. This was there for wagons to be parked, opened and loaded direct into lorries. Most of the traffic there would be for Drinagh Co-op.
Drinagh was by far the largest customers of Drimoleague station at the time. The lorry would come and back into the wagon and take mostly manure and cement and bulk loads like that. The names of the Drinagh drivers them days calling for their loads were Christy Grace, Jim Con Dan, Paddy Hourihane, Jim Calnan, Paddy Hurley, Patjo Connolly and one or two others I can't remember. They were in almost every day and sometimes two or three times a day drawing the stuff away. There was also a big trade in sea sand which came from Courtmacsherry and of course that wasn't
measured in any way. The only way we had of measuring it was to stick the handle of a shovel down and see how far up the handle it would go and take a chance that you had 9 ton or 12 ton, as the case may be.
Fair days were a big day in town. There was always a special train for the fairs and as you can see on the diagram, the cattle pens were just above the bridge behind Mossy Murphy's Pub. There were loading bays for three wagons to pull up simultaneously and load. There was a special man came from Cork, known as a loader to help the regular staff in loading the cattle. The special train left for Cork usually around lunchtime. Familiar names of staff from other stations passing through Drimoleague were brothers Timmy & Denis Donoghue (Creagh), driver Ned Farrell and fireman
Jack Cronin, Skibbereen, Dan Dineen, Skibbereen, driver John O'Connell, Bantry, guards Frank Bennett and Jer Cadogan, Bantry, drivers Jack Leahy and Dan Halihane, Cork and guards Tom Philpott and Ching Cork.
The first train was run by a company called the Cork & Bandon Co. and obviously that ran from Cork to Ballinhassig and Bandon in 1849. A separate company was formed in 1866, a company called the West Cork Railway Co. operated from Bandon to Dunmanway. There were several
meetings then in order to get an extension further to Skibbereen with various failures and then a new company was formed called The Ilen Valley
Railway Co. so the first train ran from Dunmanway to Skibbereen on the 21st of July 1877. It would be 1881 before they built a branch from Drimoleague to Bantry.
In 1888 the three smaller companies that I mentioned; The Cork & Bandon, The West Cork railway and The Ilen Valley Railway amalgamated and became known as the Cork Bandon & South Coast Railway. Then in 1925 they in turn amalgamated with the rest of the railways in Ireland and became The Great Southern railway. They were nationalised in 1946 and became Caras Iompar Eireann.
Now the whole system of the West Cork line was of the gauge (that's the distance between the tracks) 5ft 3ins. This was the standard Irish gauge so consequently trains from Drimoleague could have run to Dublin or to Limerick or Youghal or Midleton, but they never did so. People had to get off at the station at Albert Quay in Cork and trudge all the way across to the station on Lower Glanmire Rd for to go to Dublin or any other destination.
This was a terrible drawback especially in the later years when I was there. There were trains that ran from Bantry to Knock and at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning to walk from Albert Quay near the City Hall over to the Glanmire Rd station was quite a walk and back againat night when it might be raining.
Drimoleague itself was one ofthe most important stations in the West Cork System. It had the biggest signal cabinoutside of Cork City itself, comprising of 31 levers. Tothose who don't know much about Railways, the signal cabin is like the control tower in an airport. The signalman has levers for to move the points, that is the switch of a track. We'll say No.19 when it was in the normal position, the train at the platform at Drimoleague at night would go to Skibbereen, but if you pulled the lever 19 then you switched the track and the train would go to Bantry. Each point or switch was controlled by a signal and they were also operated from the cabin. Drimoleague cabin had 31 levers. The layout of Drimoleague Railway Station would be a Railway modeller's dream. It started up across the road from Mike Sullivan's garage and extended to the Quarry Rd where Mossy Murphy's Sculpture works are now. The Skibbereen branch crossed the Main Rd. where Mrs Eileen Hayes' house is now and that
roughly would be the confines of the station. From Mike O'Sullivan's garage down to the bridge going up to the churchthere was a siding. (A siding in railway parlance means a parking area where wagons or trains would be parked overnight). That was quite a long siding. Likewise then from Mrs Den Keane's house down to Mossy Murphy's, on the northern side was another siding. Down where Jim Kiely's house is now was another parking area for goods wagons; that would be wagons with loads of stuff, manure, sand for the farmers and other sundries. They would be parked there and lorries and horses and carts would back into them and unload the stuff. In Railway working the staff are divided into three categories or three departments. The Loco Department meant the people having to deal with the engines; that would be the driver, the fireman, the cleaner, the steam riser, the coal man etc. These would have been Jim Twomey (the driver), Mick Minehane (fireman) John Twomey was the coal man and a hard job
it was because there was no coal in Bantry and each train that came from Bantry had to get a few baskets of coal. That meant John Twomey would have to fill a basket with coal and climb up a ladder (you may see this in a photo taken in the 30's with a previous coal man called "Tim the Coal". So the Bantry train, along with the Drimoleague train itself would have to be coaled in Drimoleague. Other names associated that time with the Loco
Department would be Ronnie Kingston and Mick Collins (Mick Patsy), Sean Hennessy, Bertie Harrington, Denny Bob O'Sullivan, Jimmy McCarty and Mickie Connor.
The Traffic Department, to which I belonged was headed by the Stationmaster, Jerh Cotter. Next in seniority would be the Guard of the local train which was Den Keane at the time. Then there were two signalmen who were Johnny Minihane and Florry McCarthy. Then the three porters, there was Donal Collins (John Vs brother), Denny Collins (Paddy the Post's son), and me. Later came Sam Kingston, Dendy O'Brien, Jackie Collins, Tim, Crowley, Mick Minihane and Mick Twomey.
All the infrastructure, the tracks and the buildings etc would be under the department called The Permanent Way. At the head of The Permanent Way was Inspector O'Donovan. He was the only Inspector outside of Cork. He was over all West Cork from Ballineen to Bantry and to Baltimore. He was stationed in Drimoleague itself and under him were three gangers. From Drimoleague to Aughaville was under Dan Hurley.From Drimoleague to Madore was under Barney Deane. From Drimoleague to Knockbue was under Bill Thady (Bill Sullivan). Each ganger then had two permanent men who were on the Eastern side, Paddy Lordan and Donie McCarthy and Jim Fehilly at times. On the Western side were Paddy Horgan and Mick Brennan and Curly Sullivan. On the Madore side was Con O'Leary and Con Barry and I can't think of the others now. Also on the Permanent Way there was seasonal work like painting bridges and re-laying tracks and there would be lots of temporary men taken on for these purposes, too many to mention.
Other people permanently employed in the railway at the time would be the gatekeepers. On the west side you had Dinneen's Gates, Gurrane's Gates with Bob Lynch minding those, Knockane Gates minded by old Mrs Reilly, later occupied by Mrs Thade Mc Carthy and at Inchingearig there was Corney Reilly and in Aughaville there was Horgans. On the Skibb side there was Jerh Brien's at Gurranes and at Madore you had Jenny Leary. Going east you had Lordan's gates and after that you had McCarthy's gatehouse at the road going up to Clodagh, then Den Long Thady's and further east you had Knockbue gates which were manned by Mamie Donovan and later by Paddy Collins the postman.
The station itself in Drimoleague was a very large one compared with the surrounding towns. You will see on the diagram that Drimoleague Station had three platforms whereas Bantry and Skibbereen had only one each. It also had a goods platform and Cattle Pens. The three platforms were known as the DOWN, the UP and the BACK. The back platform was where trains came in from Bantry. You will also see on the diagram how the
trains managed there. Even though Skibbereen to Cork was the main line, for operational purposes they usually operated to Bantry. So the Bantry train came in on the back platform. The Skibbereen train came in on the UP platform. The engine of the Skibbereen train detached itself and the Bantry train went up under the bridge and back down and connected with the Skibbereen train and off to Cork it went. A similar operation took place in the evening on the DOWN platform.
There was quite a lot of shunting went on in Drimoleague station, that was arranging the wagons of a train. For instance a train would come in from Bantry with 20 wagons. There would be 10 for Dublin, 5 for Cork and the other 5 for Bandon. Well then the train would come in from Skibbereen with a similar kind of load but it wouldn't do to tie the two trains together, all the Dublin wagons would be put together and all the Cork wagons would be put together and all the Bandon wagons would be put together. So that entailed quite a lot of movement going up under the bridge, backing down, going up again and backing down and this noise added to the atmosphere of the village. The puffing and the whistling of the steam engine and the clanging of the buffers between the wagons made a very nice sound indeed.
On the goods side, you can see on the diagram where there was a store siding and the wagons were left down there. Some would stop at the goods store, there were three doors at the north side of the goods store and you could stop the wagons flush with those doors. There was nothing to do only wheel the bags from
the wagon into the goods store. Then on the south side facing the village you had three more doors where the lorry or the horse and cart could back in and load from the store, so it was very modern for the time. Then further down from the goods store, down to Den Keane's house was the store siding as we called it. This was there for wagons to be parked, opened and loaded direct into lorries. Most of the traffic there would be for Drinagh Co-op.
Drinagh was by far the largest customers of Drimoleague station at the time. The lorry would come and back into the wagon and take mostly manure and cement and bulk loads like that. The names of the Drinagh drivers them days calling for their loads were Christy Grace, Jim Con Dan, Paddy Hourihane, Jim Calnan, Paddy Hurley, Patjo Connolly and one or two others I can't remember. They were in almost every day and sometimes two or three times a day drawing the stuff away. There was also a big trade in sea sand which came from Courtmacsherry and of course that wasn't
measured in any way. The only way we had of measuring it was to stick the handle of a shovel down and see how far up the handle it would go and take a chance that you had 9 ton or 12 ton, as the case may be.
Fair days were a big day in town. There was always a special train for the fairs and as you can see on the diagram, the cattle pens were just above the bridge behind Mossy Murphy's Pub. There were loading bays for three wagons to pull up simultaneously and load. There was a special man came from Cork, known as a loader to help the regular staff in loading the cattle. The special train left for Cork usually around lunchtime. Familiar names of staff from other stations passing through Drimoleague were brothers Timmy & Denis Donoghue (Creagh), driver Ned Farrell and fireman
Jack Cronin, Skibbereen, Dan Dineen, Skibbereen, driver John O'Connell, Bantry, guards Frank Bennett and Jer Cadogan, Bantry, drivers Jack Leahy and Dan Halihane, Cork and guards Tom Philpott and Ching Cork.
The history of The West Cork Railway and Drimoleague Railway Station is relayed by
Jim Collins of Drimoleague
Jim Collins of Drimoleague
PATIENCE & PERSEVERANCE.
The first two locomotives on the Dunmanway run were called Patience & Perseverance, reminders of the inexhaustible patience with which the people of west of Bandon waited for their turn to be served by a train and their never failing perseverance in fighting for it. They were rewarded on 12th June 1866. Gradually westward from Dunmanway, over the rising pass at Gleanndaw, skirting the lakes at Gurranes and travelling almost hand in hand with the Main Road towards the west, the Railway slowly made it's way in the next eleven years until on 21st July 1877 the line from
Dunmanway through Drimoleague and south westwards to Skibbereen was finally opened with small substations at Knockbue and Madore.
By Jim Collins
The first two locomotives on the Dunmanway run were called Patience & Perseverance, reminders of the inexhaustible patience with which the people of west of Bandon waited for their turn to be served by a train and their never failing perseverance in fighting for it. They were rewarded on 12th June 1866. Gradually westward from Dunmanway, over the rising pass at Gleanndaw, skirting the lakes at Gurranes and travelling almost hand in hand with the Main Road towards the west, the Railway slowly made it's way in the next eleven years until on 21st July 1877 the line from
Dunmanway through Drimoleague and south westwards to Skibbereen was finally opened with small substations at Knockbue and Madore.
By Jim Collins
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