Operations on narrow gauge peat railways continue to wind down

FOLLOWING the decision to close two peatburning power stations in December 2020, the once extensive 3ft gauge Bord na Móna (BnM) network continues to contract, leaving BnM Edenderry Power Station as the last remaining power station in Ireland to burn peat. It is expected it will cease burning peat in August 2023 when it switches totally to biomass.

Currently, it is supplied by rail from the vast Derrygreenagh System with just two bogs, Daingean near Tullamore and Derrylea near Portarlington where there remains already harvested peat stockpiles. This requires BnM train crews to do a 30-mile round trip to transport peat to the power station.

The Derrylea bog is part of the former Clonsast System, the first large railway system developed by BnM in the mid-1940s. Three peat burning steam locomotives were bought in 1949 by BnM and built at the Caledonia works in Glasgow by Andrew Barclay to haul wagons of sod turf to the now defunct Portarlington Power Station, until replaced by diesel locomotives and withdrawn in 1953. The Clonsast system was a self-contained system until a link line was constructed in the late 1970s.

Today, the Derrylea branch runs for 10 miles from the Junction at Ballycon through uninhabited woodlands which have reclaimed the former Clonsast bog.

BOTH SEAN CAIN Below: On September 5, No. LM422 departs from the final stockpile at Derrylea Bog, which is already returning to nature near Portarlington. Once the peat stockpile is cleared, the whole of the 10-mile branch to Ballycon will be redundant, including the old Clonsast main line and it is expected that lifting the line could start once the last trains run towards the end of September. Above: No. LM303 is seen crossing Cloncreen Bog with an empty rake on September 5, heading for Derrylea Bog 13 miles away, under the backdrop of the new Cloncreen Windfarm. Edenderry Power Station can be seen in the distance, three miles away by rail.