Castlerea Railway Museum, formerly known as Hells Kitchen Railway Museum, is a private railway museum on Main Street, Castlerea, County Roscommon in Ireland. [1] [2]
Castlerea Railway Museum, formerly known as Hells Kitchen Railway Museum, is a private railway museum on Main Street, Castlerea, County Roscommon in Ireland. [1] [2]
This small, privately-run, museum displays the collection of railway enthusiast Sean Browne, who began to collate railway memorabilia in the 1950s: Exhibits include signals, lamps, bells and tokens over warning plaques, posters, timetables and station boards. The first centrepiece of the museum was a Metropolitan-Vickers A Class locomotive, introduced in 1955 by Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ) as part of the "dieselisation" programme that helped eliminate steam on Irish railways by April 1963, and was acquired in 1994.
Browne purchased CIE 001 Class diesel locomotive no. 055 (earlier called A55), withdrawn as a result of the introduction of Iarnród Éireann 201 Class locomotives. As this locomotive is 51 ft (15.50 m) long and 14 ft (4.25 m) high and weighs 61 tonnes, it required major re-construction to bring this into the building. [3] [4] The locomotive, which would have cost £100,000 at the time of construction, was acquired from CIÉ by Sean Browne, as the only bidder, for a scrap value of £1,600. On 7 July 1998, the locomotive went on its last trip from Dublin to Castlerea, before it was installed in the Hell's Kitchen bar. [2] [5] At the time of its installation it was the "only pub of its kind in Ireland to uniquely feature a full-scale train within the bar". [2]
One of the exhibits is the junction staff of the railway line from Ballaghaderreen to Kilfree Junction, the last piece of track on which steam locomotives were used, until it was closed in 1963. [6]
On 10 January 1992, Seán Doherty, TD gave a television interview in the adjacent pub, which ultimately lead to the resignation of Taoiseach Charles Haughey. [7]
As of 2012, the pub and bar on the site was reportedly closed. [3]
The history of rail transport in Ireland began only a decade later than that of Great Britain. By its peak in 1920, Ireland had 3,500 route miles (5,630 km). The current status is less than half that amount, with a large unserviced area around the border area between Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland.
Rail transport in Ireland is provided by Iarnród Éireann in the Republic of Ireland and by Northern Ireland Railways in Northern Ireland.
Iarnród Éireann or Irish Rail, is the operator of the national railway network of Ireland. Established on 2 February 1987, it is a subsidiary of Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ). It operates all internal InterCity, Commuter, DART and freight railway services in the Republic of Ireland, and, jointly with Northern Ireland Railways, the Enterprise service between Dublin and Belfast. In 2019, IÉ carried 50 million passengers, up from 48 million in 2018, and a record peak.
Castlerea is the third largest town in County Roscommon, Ireland. It is located in the west of the county and had a population of 1,992 at the 2016 census. Roughly translated from Irish, Castlerea is generally thought to mean 'brindled castle'. An alternative translation is 'castle of the king'. The town is built on the banks of the River Suck and the River Francis, both of which are tributaries of the River Shannon.
The West Clare Railway (WCR) originally operated in County Clare, Ireland, between 1887 and 1961. This 3 ft narrow-gauge railway ran from the county town of Ennis, via numerous stopping-points along the West Clare coast to two termini, at Kilrush and Kilkee, with the routes diverging at Moyasta Junction. The system was the last operating narrow gauge passenger system in Ireland and connected with the mainline rail system at Ennis, where a station still stands today for bus and train services to Limerick and Galway. Intermediate stops included Ennistymon, Lahinch and Milltown Malbay.
The Downpatrick and County Down Railway (DCDR) is a 5 foot, 3 inch gauge heritage railway in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is operated by volunteers and runs passenger trains using steam and diesel locomotives, diesel railcars, and vintage carriages. The railway has approximately three miles (4.8 km) of track in a triangular-shaped layout, which connects the town of Downpatrick with the historical sites of Inch Abbey to the north and King Magnus’ Grave to the south. It also houses a museum of railway artefacts and rolling stock originating from both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, dating from the 1860s to the 1980s.
The Córas Iompair Éireann 001 Class locomotive was manufactured by Metropolitan-Vickers at their Dukinfield Works in Manchester. The 001 Class locomotive was the backbone of mainline passenger and freight train services on the Irish railway network for forty years from 1955 until the mid-1990s when they were replaced by the new 201 Class.
The Córas Iompair Éireann 121 Class was a railway locomotive which was manufactured by General Motors Electro-Motive Division. These locomotives were in regular service on the Irish railway network until 2002, with the last two remaining in service until early 2008.
A wide variety of steam locomotives have been used on Ireland's railways. This page lists most if not all those that have been used in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Irish railways generally followed British practice in locomotive design.
The MGWR Classes F, Fa and Fb are a group of similar classes of 0-6-0 steam locomotives of the Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland which were designed and built between 1921 and 1924. The locomotives could be used to handle goods and also for passenger traffic.
The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) (GNR(I) or GNRI) was an Irish gauge (1,600 mm (5 ft 3 in)) railway company in Ireland. It was formed in 1876 by a merger of the Irish North Western Railway (INW), Northern Railway of Ireland, and Ulster Railway. The governments of Ireland and Northern Ireland jointly nationalised the company in 1953, and the company was liquidated in 1958: assets were split on national lines between the Ulster Transport Authority and Córas Iompair Éireann.
The Railway Preservation Society of Ireland (RPSI) is a railway preservation group founded in 1964 and operating throughout Ireland. Mainline steam train railtours are operated from Dublin, while short train rides are operated up and down the platform at Whitehead, County Antrim, and as of 2023, the group sometimes operates mainline trains in Northern Ireland using hired-in NIR diesel trains from Belfast. The RPSI has bases in Dublin and Whitehead, with the latter having a museum. The society owns heritage wagons, carriages, steam engines, diesel locomotives and metal-bodied carriages suitable for mainline use.
Broadstone railway station was the Dublin terminus of the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR), located in the Dublin suburb of Broadstone. The site also contained the MGWR railway works and a steam locomotive motive power depot. A Luas tram station opened at the front of the station in 2017.
The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) class S was a class of five 4-4-0 steam locomotive that the Great Northern Railway introduced in 1913 to haul Belfast – Dublin express passenger trains. They were followed two years later by the three similar class S2 locomotives.
The GNR(I) class U was a class of 4-4-0 steam locomotives built for the Great Northern Railway (Ireland).
The Great Southern Railways Classes 372 and 393 were types of 2-6-0 ("mogul") steam locomotives exported to Ireland from Great Britain in 1924. They were designed by Richard Maunsell in 1914 for the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SECR) to be members of the SECR N class of mixed-traffic engines. The GSR 372 and 393 classes were part of a batch of N and U class locomotive kits produced under a UK Government contract at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich.
The Córas Iompair Éireann/Iarnród Éireann 071 Class or Northern Ireland Railways 110 Class or Serbian Railways JŽ series 666 is a General Motors Electro-Motive Division EMD JT22CW series diesel-electric locomotive used in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Serbia.
The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) JT class comprised six 2-4-2T locomotives, all built between 1895 and 1902 at their Dundalk Works. These were of a J. C. Park design, but introduced following his death. They were used on Dublin suburban services; then on branch lines, including operation of the Dundalk, Newry and Greenore Railway when taken over in 1933. Most were withdrawn shortly after 1955 between 1955 and 1957 but one remained passed to Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ) and remained in service until 1963.
The O&K CSÉT Shunting Locomotives were a class of nine small Irish steam locomotives built in Berlin, Germany, by Orenstein & Koppel for shunting wagons of sugar beet at the three Irish Sugar Company factories in Mallow, Thurles and Tuam. They were delivered in two batches, with the first six arriving in 1934 and the last three in 1935. The 1934 batch was paid for by barter, using cattle as payment. Each factory received three locomotives, and numbered them independently, leading to each factory having a No. 1, a No. 2 and a No. 3. Each factory applied their own design of number onto the tanks, and in some cases, bufferbeams, of their respective locomotives.
The Museum is located adjacent to the now closed Hell's Kitchen Bar in Castlerea, Co Roscommon. The Bar once formed part of the Museum, and famously was the only pub of its kind in Ireland to uniquely feature a full-scale train within the bar
