Railways in Ireland have been around for almost 180 years. When they first arrived they brought Ireland to the forefront of cutting edge technological change. The railways took over from canals as the new means of mass transportation of people and goods.
Having once enjoyed a Golden Age, railways were to enter a long period of decline - but today their revival is being championed once again.
The early years of the New Millennium witnessed the greatest investment in the Irish rail network since railways first came to Ireland. A sort of renaissance has taken place right across the network and, despite the current recession, is set to continue albeit slowly into the future..bringing the railways out of decades of neglect and into line with 21st Century expectations.
Towards the end of the last Century. an exception to decades of rail neglect was the Dart...
The arrival of the Dart in 1984 so happened to be exactly 150 years after the launch of Ireland's first Railway - The Dublin to Kingstown (Dunlaoire) - and like the Dart today proved a great success....the Dart travels along the same route that Ireland's first rail commuters used...
After the success of Ireland's first Railway - rail mania gripped the nation and Investors decided that rail services should extend to the far reaches of the country, first north and then west of Dublin...Kingsbridge (Now Heuston Station) was built with ambition of extending railways to the entire south and west of the country....The Golden Age of the railway had begun and railways became an integral part of everyday life ultimately surviving famine, two world wars and Civil war.
But the 1st and 2nd World Wars also brought the development of the combustion engine... the motor car became the preferred mode of transport across Europe...
Also the Irish Civil War destroyed much of the railway network. The golden age of the railway in Ireland was coming to an end and the new revolution in transport - the motorcar - took
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