{"product_id":"one-hundred-and-fifty-years-of-irish-railways-9780862811174","title":"One Hundred and Fifty Years of Irish Railways","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe year 1984 is the 150th anniversary of the first railway in Ireland, the Dublin and Kings-town, and also sees the opening of the first major electric railway in the country, between Howth and Bray. Yet Irish railways have had a chequered, if colourful past, reaching their peak in the early years of the century, before contracting, under economic pressures, political division and civil war, to their present state.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFergus Mulligan's highly readable and fully illustrated account of the history of Irish railways devotes chapters to each major railway company, plus the independent standard and narrow gauge lines, and includes a section on that marvellous eccentricity, the Listowel and Ballybunion, or the Lartigue, as it was known. He places the emphasis on the men and women involved, rather than on the more technical aspects of rail operations, on the activities and conditions of travellers, workers and the railway visionaries, whose ambitious schemes were often matched only by rail-way company bankruptcies. The frenetic activity of those earlier years was certainly a far cry from one passenger's description of a halt at Belcoo, Co. Fermanagh, in 1952, as 'one of those long, silent contemplative pauses during which, without the sound of steam escaping from the engine, you felt you ought to be saying your prayers'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHardback with dust jacket, 19x25cm, 192 pages, black \u0026amp; white photographs\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCondition: Good\/Very Good\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Appletree Press","offers":[{"title":"Secondhand (285)","offer_id":56617313632639,"sku":"9780862811174","price":6.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1910\/7111\/files\/9780862811174.jpg?v=1766426289","url":"https:\/\/rail-books.co.uk\/products\/one-hundred-and-fifty-years-of-irish-railways-9780862811174","provider":"Rail Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}