Broken Rails: Crashes, and Sabotage on Irish Railways
Railway accidents have had a strange fascination for many people for generations. No matter how slight the damage caused or how few casualties are involved, the very fact that a train leaves the railway tracks and ploughs ahead uncontrolled by any guiding rails, tills the imagination with awe and wonder. Sensational headlines appear and people want to know what awful consequences followed, how much worse the accident could have been and, more importantly, why it happened in the first place. Frequently human frailty is the cause but, as revealed in this book. there are often less obvious reasons. Fatigue, intrigue, overwork, carelessness, stubborn animals, the elements, or even the longings of the heart have caused accidents on the railways of Ireland.
The selection of crashes and mishaps featured in this book provides a unique insight not only to railway working in Ireland over the past century-and-a-half, but also to the fortitude and ingenuity of Irish. people when confronted with unexpected difficulties. The accidents described in this book include the great railway tragedies that happened at Armagh, Camp, Cahir and Buttevant, as well as politically-inspired mishaps of the Civil War period and of more recent time:. in South Armagh and County Louth including the episode that became known as The Sallins Mail Train Robbery. 'Acts of God' such as the Owencarrow Viaduct disaster in Donegal are included with other lesser-known incidents caused by wind, snow, goats, a steam-roller or a love tryst. All have one common feature in that the trains involved came to a sudden and :unexpected stop and this led to stories that make for interesting, and often fascinating, reading.
Hardback with dust jacket, 256 pages, black & white photographs
Condition: Very Good
ISBN: 9781856079259
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