Diesel will do in the meantime!
WITH the Covid-19 crisis having temporarily curtailed plans to run a steam train on the recently laid 3ft gauge track at Maam Cross station, Connemara Railway chairman Jim Deegan has drafted in a diesel locomotive and two carriages from his own same-gauge Crooked Valley Railway which runs around the grounds of his home.
“Diesel will do in the meantime!” Jim quipped.
Former Bord na Móna Deutz locomotive No. LM194, and two fourwheel carriages finished in CIE livery, complete with ‘flying snail’ logo, were brought to Maam Cross near the end of December as a positive statement of operational intent.
“We brought the locomotive and coaches across and have run them just as a private trial over the trackwork,” said Jim. “That was highly successful, and it was the first passenger train at the station since the line closed in 1935.
“By having the locomotive and coaches here, we’re also saying to the local community, the tourism industry, and the heritage railway world that we really mean business, and will go ahead with steam as soon as we possibly can.”
Work has begun on the method statements, risk assessments, and paperwork required by the Commission for Railway Regulation (CRR) to allow public services to start. Maam Cross has been visited by a CRR staff member who met Jim to discuss the plans, and to ensure that all requirements will be met by the Connemara Railway Project before the steam train can operate.
Presence
The diesel and the carriages will now stay at the site until current Covid-19 restrictions are lifted. Further work on the buildings and track will carry on as and when volunteers are able to attend the site under current travel rules.
Opened in 1895, Maam Cross station, on the former Galway to Clifden branch of the Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland, has been acquired for restoration by a not-forprofit company under the banner of the Connemara Railway.
Plans include reinstating railway track along around 450 yards of available trackbed with associated trackwork largely in keeping with the original layout, refurbishing the platforms, rebuilding the signal cabin and down platform waiting shelter, restoring the goods store, and replacing the water tank to recreate a typical Irish country station.