Cumha November 2005

Dublin, as befits a capital city, has always been of interest to the railway enthusiast, and at no time more than now, at the dawn of the 21st century. The new millennium opens with both suburban and main-line services flourishing as never before.

But the renaissance of rail travel around Dublin is of fairly recent origin. Through to the 1970s many aspects of the system were basically unchanged from decades before, lack of funding leading to ingenious but essentially short-term solutions to the problems of updating suburban stock. As the city continued to grow, suburban rail travel, chronically overcrowded at peak periods, was not a pleasant experience.

However, in 1981 the first new suburban service for many decades other than along the coast began when push/pull units were introduced between Connolly and Maynooth on the former MGWR main line to the West, stopping at stations long derelict but now rebuilt.

This was the beginning of the revival of suburban rail travel in the Dublin area, which continues to this day and which features on many of the pages of this book. The biggest advance of all was the inauguration on 23 July 1984 of the ingeniously named DART - Dublin Area Rapid Transit. Helped by funding from Europe, this electrified system running from Bray to Howth has utterly transformed Dubliners' attitude to railway travel. New stations have been opened, and the system is being extended north and south.

Further suburban re-openings followed, and the very latest development is LUAS, a light rail system, running over the trackbed of the old Harcourt Street line from Dundrum into the city, then down through the heart of Dublin to the tram terminus of long ago at O’Connell Street. Further lines are to follow.

All these varied developments are reflected in the more than 250 photo-graphs selected by Michael Baker, from the golden days of steam to the advent of the diesels and the modern electric age. Including photographs of long-closed lines, Dublin’s docks, ferry services from Dun Laoghaire, the Howth trams, goods and passenger rolling-stock and an extended section on Inchicore Works, this is a wide-ranging survey of a century of railways around Ireland's capital city.