Sligo’s ‘Burma Road’
With the Western Rail Corridor back in the news following the publication of a new report on the viability of reopening a section of the closed railway line, John Bromley looks back at the history of the railway, known locally as “the Burma Road”, what it was like to travel on it and why Collooney had three railway stations
THE famous David Lean film, ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ tells the story of the building of a railway by the Japanese through the jungles and mountains of Burma (now Myanmar) during World War Two.
The railway, which was known as the Burma Road, was a tortuous undertaking and became notorious for the use of prisoners of war to build the rail line and the cruelty inflicted on them.
The rail link from Sligo to Limerick (which is now known as the Western Rail Corridor), and probably more particularly the Claremorris-Sligo section, also became known locally as the Burma Road.
There are a couple of theories put forward for this.
One is that it was because of the difficult terrain through which the railway runs, with bogland and rocky land, which, like the Burmese railway, would have required great engineering skills. When the rail line was being laid at the close of the 19th century the severe difficulties encountered by the first contractor of the day, eventually led to him going bankrupt.
The other more likely explanation, given that that nickname had to have originated in the 1940s or later, was due to the railway’s setting but also to its extensive number of level crossings which resulted in much reduced rail speeds along its length, with top speeds of 55mph for passenger trains and 35mph for freight trains (which often went just 10mph over bridges). This led to relatively short journeys taking a long time.
In a section on the railway in H C Casserly’s Outline of Irish Railway History the author writes: “The long trek from Claremorris to Sligo came in later years to be nicknamed after the notorious railway constructed by the Japanese, the ‘Burma Road’. The leisurely progress of the trains was undoubtedly extremely tedious to the ordinary traveller, as distinct from the railway enthusiast.”
The author stated that in 1910 the two daily trains each way between Sligo and Limerick, stopping at all the stations, took the “almost incredible” time of 6.5 hours for the 145 miles journey.
He goes on: “But perhaps it was not quite so difficult to understand in view of the leisurely way of life in the west of Ireland and the fact that the station time allowances had to be sufficently elastic to allow for dealing with general merchandise, not to mention the likelihood of having to attach or detach a van or two, or a cattle wagon or horsebox.
“By 1955 there was only one daily train throughout, in each direction, and the time had been reduced to six hours in the down direction (from Sligo) and 5.5 hours in the up. “Neverthless it was a journey to think about carefully beforehand, particularly as there were no refreshment facilities except for the possibility of popping into the buffet at Claremorris whilst the train was waiting for its connections.”
He wrote that when he did the journey in 1938 there was “a lavatory compartment in first class accommodation but not in the third class”.
Casserly also spoke about how ticket inspection was “very rigorous” and “probably had to be to stop fare evasion and prevent third class ticket holders from invading first class”. He said ticket inspection had been “successfully and sensibly achieved by having the guard also act as a travelling ticket inspector”.
“He would make several checks en route and even if the tickets had already been seen, make a fresh clip each time, so that by the end of the journey only half of the ticket might be left.”
Casserly also pointed that the 145 miles journey from Sligo to Limerick was the longest train journey you make in Ireland without changing train. Using the railway you could also travel on from Limerick to Waterford (with breaks at Limerick and Limerick Junction) completing the whole 222 miles of the line.
In 1910 you could leave Sligo at 8.45am but would not reach Waterford until 7.40pm (almost 11 hours later) and was as Casserly remarks,
“an enterprise not to be undertaken without due forethought and preparation”.
But by 1955 it was no longer possible to make this journey in one day as there was no through connection southwards from Limerick.
It was the opening of that railway between Waterford and Limerick in the mid-1850s that was to eventually lead to the Limerick to Sligo link. The first section of what is now known as the Western Rail Corridor opened between Limerick and Ennis in 1859.
It reached Athenry in 1869, where it joined the Athenry & Tuam Railway (opened in 1860).
The line was extended to Claremorris in 1894 and from Claremorris the final section to link to link up with the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) at Collooney Junction (from where it could connect to Sligo on the MGWR tracks) was opened on October 1, 1895. Collooney has a significant place in Irish railway history as, despite being a village of only around 600 inhabitants at the time, it had for many years three separate railway stations.
Between 1895 and 1957 it was served by three separate railways each with its own station.
There was the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) on its Dublin-Sligo line (which is the current station), the Great Southern and Western (GS&WR) on its Limerick/Claremorris-Sligo Line, and the Sligo Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway (SLNCR) by its Enniskillen-Sligo line which linked to Belfast via the Great Northern Railway.
As a result Collooney was connected to almost every part of the island served by rail and, by way of an agreement with the MGWR, both the SLNCR and the GS&WR connected to Sligo via spur lines and Collooney became an important centre for livestock traffic. On October 1, 1957, the SL&NCR’s Collooney station closed along with the company. The line to Enniskillen was lifted shortly afterward.
The GS&WR station closed on June 17, 1963 when CIÉ withdrew passenger services between Claremorris and Sligo.
The Grand Juries (the forerunners of county councils) were involved in the construction of last part of the extension of the railway to Collooney with the railway being initiated as relief works because of the level of poverty, in western counties particularly, at the time.
The line was to be built in two sections, Claremorris to Swinford and Swinford to Collooney, with guaranteed capital of £40,000 and £80,000 respectively for the sections, and a free grant of £146,042.
The grant also provided for four engines, nine carriages and 55 wagons.
By the time the extension was completed the original Waterford and Limerick Railway name was changed to the Waterford Limerick and Western on January 1, 1896. The last section of the line was unusual in that it was used by three different railway companies, the MGWR (which owned it), the WLWR (which became the Great Southern and Western Railway in 1901) and the Sligo Leitrim and Northern Counties, which was connected by a new loop line at Collooney and provided a connection to Enniskillen and beyond.
The line became part of the Great Southern Railways in 1924, with ownership transferring to Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ) in 1945. Passenger services ceased between Collooney and Claremorris in 1963 and between Claremorris and Ennis in 1976, although passengers returned to Ennis – Athenry on March 29, 2010, when that section of line was re-opened.
Freight services were withdrawn between Collooney Junction and Claremorris on November 3, 1975 and between Claremorris and Ennis on November 11, 2002.
May 1976 saw the last ‘train’ (a weed-sprayer) to operate over the whole line, which was followed by an inspection car trip in 1981. In 1988, a special train operated on the southern section from Claremorris to Kiltimagh to deposit two carriages there for a heritage and craft museum. This was the last occasion a train entered onto the “Burma Road”.