The Harcourt Street Line

At the end of 1958, a double-track suburban railway popularly known as The Harcourt Street Line that ran from Dublin through Dundrum and Foxrock to Bray was abruptly closed and abandoned shortly afterwards. Forty years later, in May 1998, the Government decided to invest substantially in a new railway LUAS LINE B that would run along the identical trackbed of The Harcourt Street Line as far as the Sandyford Industrial Estate, a distance of some eight kilometres. This extraordinary reversal of the earlier decision to close and abandon a public transport corridor through the South Dublin suburbs has prompted the present book. The author revisits The Harcourt Street Line of his youth and reviews its operation through steam, Drumm battery and diesel trains. He recalls the Line's patrons from 'Boss Croker' to Samuel Beckett and from Brendan Behan to the thousands of men, women and excited children who thronged Harcourt Street station to join the 'Sea Breeze' excursions to Wicklow and Arklow. Illustrated by many of his own photographs, the author captures a bygone era when Station Masters had plenty of time to tend their prize-winning hedges and workers were able to travel home from Dublin and back again during their lunch-break. The author poses the question 'Why was the Harcourt Street Line closed in 1958?' An answer is suggested in the context of that time, but the validity of that answer was continually questioned up until 1994 when LUAS was born. Few would have believed forty years ago that any kind of train could ever again run along the trackbed of The Harcourt Street Line. Yet, by 2004, LUAS LINE B will have been built along half its length as far as Sandyford, in what is hoped to be the first stage in the re-opening of most of the old railway route by 2008. This is truly a story of 'back on track'.