seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Great Northern Railway (Ireland)


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Founding of Córas Iompair Éireann

Córas Iompair Éireann (Irish for Irish Transport Company), or CIÉ, a statutory corporation of Ireland, is founded on January 1, 1945. CIÉ is answerable to the Irish Government and responsible for most public transport within the Republic of Ireland and jointly with its Northern Ireland counterpart, the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company for the railway service between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The company is headquartered at Heuston Station, Dublin. Its members are appointed by the Minister for Transport.

Córas Iompair Éireann is formed as a private company by the Transport Act 1944 and incorporates the Great Southern Railways Company and Dublin United Transport Company, initially adopting the logo of the latter company. Great Southern Railways (GSR) is incorporated in 1925, having been Great Southern Railway since 1924. Essentially the GSR becomes – especially as it starts to broaden its business interests into road transport – a monopoly transport operator. The Transport Act 1950 amalgamates CIÉ and the Grand Canal Company and formally nationalises CIÉ, changing its structure from that of a private limited company to a corporation under a board appointed by the Minister for Transport. The Northern Ireland Great Northern Railway Act, 1958 transfers the lines of Great Northern Railway Board south of the border to CIÉ. Until 1986 CIÉ operates as a single legal entity, although it is internally organised into rail services and two bus divisions – Dublin City Services and Provincial Services. The vast majority of services are branded CIÉ, although long-distance provincial buses are branded “Expressway” and Dublin electric trains DART. In 1987, CIÉ reorganises into a holding company and three operating companies. In 1990 it sells its nine Great Southern Hotels, including its hotel in Derry, Northern Ireland, to Aer Rianta, the airports authority.

Since the enactment of the Transport (Re-organisation of Córas Iompair Éireann) Act, 1986 CIÉ has been the holding company for Bus Éireann, Dublin Bus and Iarnród Éireann/Irish Rail, the three largest internal transport companies in Ireland. It was originally to have operated the Luas tram system in Dublin, but that project was transferred to the newly created Railway Procurement Agency.

CIÉ is responsible for the overall strategy of the group. It owns all fixed assets used by the three companies, such as railway lines and stations, the latter being dealt with through the Group Property division. It also operates an international tour division, CIÉ Tours International. CIÉ’s vast number of advertising sites are organised through Commuter Advertising Network (CAN), since the mid-1990s employing an external company (currently Exterion Media Ireland) to manage them. There are also a number of shared services provided by CIÉ to its three operating companies.

Other than in the railway sector CIÉ is not a monopoly provider of public transport services as a number of other operators exist. However, under the Transport Act, 1932, these may not compete directly on any route for which CIÉ has been granted a licence. Legislation is enacted in 2013 to provide for the tendering of 10% of routes operated by Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann. This public competition includes these two operators, along with private operators such as Go-Ahead Ireland, and is completed in January 2019.

(Pictured: “The Broken Wheel” logo introduced in 1964 and modernised in 2000)


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The Armagh Rail Disaster

armagh-rail-disaster

The Armagh rail disaster occurs on June 12, 1889, near Armagh, County Armagh, when a crowded Sunday school excursion train fails to negotiate a steep incline. The steam locomotive is unable to complete the climb and the train stalls. The train crew decides to divide the train and take the front portion forward, leaving the rear portion on the running line. The rear portion has inadequate brakes and rolls back down the gradient, colliding with a following train. Eighty people are killed and 260 are injured, about a third of them children. It is the worst rail disaster in the United Kingdom in the nineteenth century and remains Ireland’s worst railway disaster ever.

Armagh Sunday school organises a day trip to the seaside resort of Warrenpoint, a distance of about 24 miles. A special Great Northern Railway of Ireland train is arranged for the journey, intended to carry about eight hundred passengers. The railway route is steeply graded and curved.

Asked to provide a train to take 800 excursionists, the locomotive department at Dundalk sends fifteen vehicles however instructions provided to the engineer are that the train is to consist of thirteen vehicles. The engineer objects to the use of fifteen vehicles. Witnesses say that the engineer asks for a second engine if the additional carriages are added but his request is refused by the station master as no additional engines are available.

Initially, the train progresses up the steep gradient at about 10 mph but stalls about 200 yards from the top of the gradient. To prevent the train from rolling back, the brakes are applied. The chief clerk directs the train crew to divide the train and proceed with the front portion to Hamilton’s Bawn station about two miles away, leaving it there and returning for the rear portion.

After uncoupling the rear portion, the engineer attempts to proceed on with the front portion. Initially, it rolls back slightly, jolting the rear portion which begins to roll back and gathers speed down the steep gradient back towards Armagh station. The train crew reverses the front portion and tries to catch the rear portion, but this proves to be impossible.

The line is operated on a time interval system so there is no means at Armagh of knowing that the line is not clear. The following scheduled passenger train leaves Armagh after the required 20-minute interval. It is proceeding up the gradient at about 25 mph when the engineer sees the approaching runaway vehicles at a distance of about 500 yards. He brakes his train and has reduced speed to 5 mph at the moment of collision. The two rearmost vehicles of the excursion train are utterly destroyed, and the third rearmost is very badly damaged.