Family connection

I was delighted to read the article regarding Andy’s ‘Courtmacsherry’ layout (July 2020). My wife and I know Courtmacsherry very well and have researched a lot of the Cork Bandon & South Coast Railway, in particular the line from Clonakilty Junction. We have a family connection to this line as my wife’s grandfather was once the stationmaster at Clonakilty junction, and that is where my wife’s mother and father met.

The village of Gaggin was extensively photographed and I used these to model the church and stationmaster’s house, plus I had old photos from which to work out how to build the station. There is a track plan for the junction in Ernie Shepherd’s Cork Bandon & South Coast Railway book. All that remains in the village of Gaggin, where the junction was, is the main road which had been the track bed and the stationmaster’s house and an old lamp shed which is now a garden shed. The houses opposite are very much the same but the village itself has many new houses. The pine trees that are in the old photographs are still there by the road side. That is the side where the station shelter is, with the main building opposite and the signal box also on the platform.

I followed most of the track bed from the junction to Courtmacsherry and photographed what’s left. There is a mile marker in the wall by the church in Courtmacsherry and, of course, the station buildings and some platform. The old locomotive shed is still there but is now a boat store.

David Beck