Last train cancelled to thwart souvenir hunters

After a gap of 45 years, 41 days, 17 hours and 50 minutes - give or take a minute or two - trains ran again through south Dublin's Dundrum village and across the Nine Arches viaduct in Milltown yesterday.

There to watch the historic occasion, from a special vantage point on the new Taney bridge, were sisters Theresa and Maureen Maguire from Dundrum, regular travellers on the old Harcourt Street line, on which the last train left Dublin at 4.25 p.m. on December 31th, 1958.

The Maguire sisters, who still live in Dundrum, frequently used the line in the late 1950s and yesterday still had their December 1958 monthly tickets allowing unlimited travel on the route for the princely sum of 19 shillings. They had hoped to take the last train, but the scheduled final train was replaced by a bus.

"CIÉ were so worried about souvenir hunters tearing the train to bits, they cancelled the last train," Theresa said.

The final train left from Greystones, branching off the coastal route south of Shankill to join the Harcourt Street route, which included the then Shankill station, near the Catholic church, arriving in Harcourt Street at about 3.50 p.m. By the time the return journey came around, at 4.25 p.m., gardaí were needed to calm the crowds. Harcourt Street station was then closed down after the 4.25 p.m. departure.

There was probably less excitement yesterday, although a group of passers-by gathered at Taney junction to stare and point at the first trams crossing the new cable-stay bridge.

On the bridge itself, a small crowd of politicians, including the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, were telling reporters that the reopening of the Harcourt Street line had been the single issue they had promised to deliver when first elected. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown county councillor, Ms Mary Elliott, said it had been the issue she had campaigned upon in 1985, and it was appropriate that the line opened to the public as she retires this June.

Mr Ger Hannon, Railway Procurement Agency spokesman, denied the public opening date in June had anything to do with the local elections, scheduled for June 10th. "We are just a bunch of people doing our job," he smiled.

But it all might have happened earlier, and cheaper. In 1991, the then transport Minister, Mr Brennan, got Cabinet approval for the reopening of the Taney to Dublin section of the line, as a diesel service, for £12 million.