Monday, May 16, 2011

book on Irish railways


Although people here have displayed as much interest in Irish railways as people in Ireland have displayed in ours, namely about zero, this recent book from Ian Allan is a nice colour coffee-table style pictorial survey of Irish railways (mostly in the republic but a little in the north) from the last 25 years or so, with about the right mix of technology and scenery.  Suffering from under-investment until the emergence of the "Celtic Tiger" the range of equipment shown on IR dates back quite a bit further than 25 years.

Irish railways are probably most noted here for their peculiar broad gauge of 1,600 mm or 5'3" which, of course, was used by the Canterbury Provincial Railways until they were absorbed by the central government in 1876.  It was also used (and still is) in Victoria and South Australia, and in some of Brazil.

The book has 128 pages in landscape A4 format, hardcovered.

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