BOOK
REVIEW OF THE MONTH
The Tralee & Dingle Railway
Michael Whitehouse Lightmoor Press, Unit 144B, Lydney Trading Estate, Harbour Road, Lydney, Glos GL15 5EJ. Tel 01993 773927. Web: www.lightmoor.co.uk. Description: Hardback, 275 x 215mm, 352 pages. ISBN9781915069214. Price: £60.00.
The short lifespan of the unsuccessful 31 ½-mile 3ft gauge Tralee & Dingle Railway in picturesque and remote western Ireland is eruditely summed up in the opening pages in this comment: “The capital invested in such a project would be equally productive if flung into the crater of Mount Etna”.
A party of visiting enthusiasts from the UK in the early 1950s – Birmingham author and photographer Patrick Whitehouse amongst, them – discovered unsafe track, worn out engines and near-derelict rolling stock. Yet the trains were still running.
Their recollections and magnificent photographs have been brought together by his son Michael in this much-expanded second edition that has many entertaining anecdotes – such as when a chimney fell off
