Above, the real thing;  Blennerville (left) and Tralee Aquadome (right).  

NEWS - DEC 2007

The operators of the Jeanie Johnston have now also taken over the
Blennerville Windmill and the T&D Steam Train.  The comments from Brendan
Dinneen are as follows "we know that people were disappointed that the
the Steam Train did not run in 2007, however a major overhaul was
required. A back up diesel is being acquired in order to assure
continuity of service from April 2008.The steam engine is being
stripped down for survey and will be back in operation by May
2008.Winter maintenance of track and fencing is also under way."

Thanks to Dewi Lewis for this information.
 

 It is worth contacting Blennerville Windmill for detail.  

Windmill is:

Open Daily: April-October 10.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.

Telephone: 066 7121064

This will probably be the correct timetable, but phone to check!

On the 28th May we were visited by The Kevin and Mary Ann Cunningham from Boston.  Mary's mother came from Baunogue near Garrynadur on the Dingle peninsula.

Left and centre; No2T approaches Lispole station with a short relief train.  Pictures taken on Paul Titmuss's diorama, which he kindly brought over on the Monday night.  Right;  Paul is on the left, with John, Robert, Kevin and Mary Ann.

Above; colour version of the above picture.

A more Cultra'd view (sorry couldn't resist).  Taken at the show at Cultra on 18th November 2006.

Left; A view of Dingle station had the line lasted a bit longer and perhaps been dieselized?  Wishful thinking maybe.  There was some discussion over whether the railcars would have made it up Glenagalt!  Next three; views from various angles showing the layout and surrounding artifacts - what a joy it was to point out the C&L loco and coach - "they're models of that loco and coach over there!" - and "see that CDR loco behind you ....".  What an experience.  

  For more pictures of us at  Cultra click here.  There are some pictures of an earlier visit here.

Two pictures from Merseyside Show;

Left; Double headed train at Skylough Crossing.  Right; a Donegal railcar approaches Dingle!

Above; One, two, three, five, six!  Five Hunslet's at Dingle station, whilst at Dingle.  Actually, from left to right,  3T, 5T and 2T to the rear, with 1T and 6T in front.

Above, The gang at Dingle, left to right; Tom (trip co-ordinator for Dingle Historical Society), Jim, Andy, Robert, Simon, John, Steven

Sadly not all our pictures can fit on this site so many of our tour to Dingle have been transferred to another.  Please click here to view them!  There is another set here.

Left;  the corner board with level crossing closed to CDR No14 railcar.  Left centre;  the Lispole express!  Centre;  overall view of Dingle station.  Right;  this train will never get over Glenagalt - looks impressive though!  

Above left;  a blurred view, but nevertheless closer to the model view!   Centre;  a traveller's eye view!  Right;  from the Western end of the station, by the crossing gates.

Left & Middle; The 'barn' and layout at Dingle - the real thing in the 1950's (courtesy D. Rowlands)  Right;  A corrected far end of the layout - Dingle town end.

Above left;  5T about to leave the station, a view with the 'new' barn behind.  Above middle; The barn at Dingle in both model and real form (taken August 2003).  Right; A slightly gloomy roadside tramway view on the road out of Dingle.

Please contact me if you do not wish any of the 'real' photos on this page to appear for copyright reasons and I will remove them. Hopefully you will agree though, that they are only here to enhance the model rather than for any unscrupulous reason!

The 3ft gauge Tralee and Dingle Railway was opened in 1891 and was 371 miles long. The railways’ closure in 1953, was inevitable given the onslaught of road traffic, though to its dying day was considered to be the ‘last great adventure in railroading’ by Pat Whitehouse amongst others! Having read accounts of hair-raising journeys along the line in the late 40’s and 50’s, it seemed you were lucky to manage the journey in one piece, the Irish Railway authorities demanding you sign a disclaimer of responsibility for injury, before travel!

For historic maps  (1905) of the line click here.

Above left; My model of No.2 next to the crossing keepers cottage which is almost right but not quite! Right;  From The Dingle Train, Rowlands and McGrath and published by Plateway Press; the same position but in the 1950's with dumped lorry cabs!

We as a group decided to model part of the railway back in 1994, partly as a challenge to improve our own modelling skills and also to exploit the growing availability of high quality etched brass, whitemetal and plastic kits from such manufacturers as ‘Backwoods Miniatures’, ‘Branchlines’, ‘Parkside Dundas’ and ‘Worsley Works’. The stock is therefore constructed mostly from kits, often with some modification, though there are a few scratch built items. All of the buildings and structures however have had to be carefully researched and then scratch built. The track is also hand made and is code 60 rail either glued, or soldered to rivets located in plywood sleepers, to the correct gauge of 12mm.

To get a longer run and a better feel for the prototype we decided to extend the layout into an L shape. This has been a time consuming process and we have nearly finished apart from some final scenic work.

Above far left;  A somewhat reluctant donkey is dragged towards the farm crossing as the Iron Horse takes a light train back to Tralee.  Above left;  Train and carriage, though hardly at any pace, along the roadside section.  Above right;  Sitting peacefully overlooking Dingle bay on a warm summer evening as a train quietly drifts into Dingle Station...such are dreams!  Above far right; The shadows lengthen and an evening train returns to Tralee.

This project has been an experimental one as far as we are concerned and we have all learned a great deal, whether it has been in making stock, buildings, baseboard construction, trackwork, a working turntable or working level crossing gates interlocked with a further set of signals. We don’t claim to be particularly good at modelling or we would know the answers straight away, but we do believe we have progressed a long way and most importantly, we enjoy what we are doing.  Of course what we do next could be interesting!

Below left and middle;  Double header on Lispole viaduct - real one in 1934.  Middle right;  Lispole viaduct close up of girder work.  Right two;  the real Lispole viaduct undressed (D. Rowlands) and mine (May 2005)!

Below - from the pages of Railway Modeller (Peco publications) and famed camera of Len Weal;  

We are not the only ones modelling the T&D.  You may be interested in looking at this developmental site base on Annascaul station.

There are two other good sites for information on the T&D and one for general information on Irish Railways.

Great pictures of the new line from Ted Polet - very photogenic

Site with links for all Irish railways

Tralee and Dingle Railway discussion group

3ft gauge modellers discussion group

A site by Steve Flanders who has written a couple of books on Irish Narrow Gauge railways, CDR & L&LSR devoted to the Trainz Railway Simulator. His aim is to recreate the Irish narrow gauge lines.

David Rowlands is probably the inspiration for most modellers of the Tralee and Dingle because of the books he wrote so eloquently.  If you are interested in the background to these books please visit;

http://www.tdlr.org.uk/davidrowlands.htm

Need a reference for Irish Narrow Gauge Railways and somewhere to download a ‘true’ Gaelic font?  

See us at the virtual narrow-gauge exhibition, hit the tram!

Or at real ones;  

'Dingle'  Huddersfield Show - 27th / 28th October 2007 (dates provisional)

'Dingle'   Porthmadog - May 2008

Please note that we have invites to other exhibitions but at present we are unable to staff them.  If we can resolve this problem or we retire early (!) then you may see more of us.  

We appeared in Railway Modeller in December 2002, January and February 2003.  The pictures were excellent, especially in the second issue and third!  There was also an article on the building of No. 5T in November's Issue (2003)  Our last appearance was in November 1993 and February 1994 with Upton Dale.  

Left  picture courtesy of D. G. Rowlands - the goods shed after closure.   Below centre is a picture from Railways in Camera 1860-1913 by Robin Linsley, Budding Books 2000.  This is the only picture I have seen showing the river clearly and this was a damaged print which I have repaired to the best of my ability.  Right;  Lispole Viaduct today (May 2005)

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