An Irishman’s Diary on the Dublin to Kingstown rail line

On December 17th, 1834, a train moved slowly out of Westland Row railway station. The carriages were built of iron and wood. They were pulled by a small steam-engine that puffed smoke from its tall narrow chimney. It began the 10km journey to Kingstown, as Dún Laoghaire was then known.

This was Ireland’s first train, on its first day open to fare-paying passengers. It was also the world’s first dedicated commuter railway line.

Trial runs during the previous weeks had attracted hundreds of curious onlookers. They stood beside the recently constructed stone bridges that carried the newly laid iron rails on raised ground over the little streets at the back of Westland Row station.

Children and adults could see and hear the engine and carriages rumbling past.

Spectators gathered where the line crossed the coast road at Merrion. People in stagecoaches, drays and other vehicles, as well as those on foot, watched this phenomenon moving past. Its speed was about 20 miles an hour, a very impressive momentum at the time.

This was the introduction to this country of a new form of transport. It was a novel experience for people to sit in carriages being pulled forward by a locomotive that burned coal or wood to produce the steam that drove the wheels. It passed over rails held in place by wooden sleepers set into the ground.

The Dublin and Kingstown Railway company had been formed by three years before by businessmen who saw the potential of such an undertaking, They had done a careful study of the route in terms of passengers. They looked at the existing volume of road traffic, horse-drawn carriages, people on horseback and pedestrians.

The directors knew that houses along the coast facing out to Dublin bay, with its wide panorama of sea and sky, had become much desired by the well-off. Some houses in the Booterstown, Blackrock, Salthill and Kingstown areas were second residences, seaside homes for those who lived in the elegant squares in the city.

Shops and supply businesses were beginning to burgeon. Servants were employed. The railway directors thought the time was ripe. A railway would be more comfortable than travelling by horse-drawn vehicles. And it would be faster.

The contract was given to William Dargan, son of a tenant farmer from near Carlow, who had already established a reputation as a road and canal builder. Work began in April 1833.

Hundreds of men with picks, shovels and wheelbarrows began work in several places along the designated route of the railway. Skilled stone-cutters chipped away at the granite blocks that had to be fitted in place for bridges, thick parapets and sea walls as well as the embankments between Merrion and Salthill that still protect the railway today. Granite for much of this work came from the quarries at Dalkey.

At one stage 1,800 men were toiling away. Work at the Dublin end went on around the clock. At night the scene was lit by coal and wood fires and blazing tar barrels.

Cliffs at Salthill had to be demolished but fortunately a bed of granite discovered nearby helped provide blocks for the workings. From Merrion to Blackrock the line was laid on a raised embankment that ran over the strand. This led to the eventual formation of the salt marsh of Booterstown Nature Reserve.

As with any new or intrusive enterprise, the railway aroused opposition. The most powerful objector was Lord Cloncurry. His land at Blackrock bounded the sea and the railway would pass along its edge. He demanded access to the shore. After tortuous negotiations, Dargan undertook to construct a footbridge over the railway between two impressive stone towers. To further mollify the lord, he built a classic bathing place of granite in the Italian style. These remain one of the features of the line today.

To accommodate deep-rooted class attitudes, there were first, second and third-class categories with fares of one shilling, eight pence and six pence respectively. This railway, with trains running back and forward along the new line from dawn until dusk, was a success. The trains were reliable. They may have been bumpy by today’s standards but they were far better than swaying and grinding over poor roads in a horse-drawn carriage.

Over the years since then the line has been improved and developed, new tracks lain, new stations added. It’s a busy route, with Dart, commuter and mainline trains passing up and down constantly. Yet near Blackrock there are still traces of the original granite roadbed and the brown rusted remnants of the first iron bolts that held the sleepers in place.

These vestiges of the past are a largely unseen tribute to investors who put their faith in the enterprise but principally to the hundreds of workers, skilled and unskilled who constructed the line. They are also a tribute to those who worked on the railway – train drivers, guards, inspectors, linesmen, station staff. The line remains a testimonial to William Dargan, who introduced a means of travel and transport that transformed the land to the benefit of all.