List of railway abandonment orders?

end of the road wrote: »

any examples?



would these have been lines heading across the border? or just random lines?

http://www.steamtrainsireland.com/IRFN/IRFN0104.pdf has a list of several lines which were closed under Exemption Order's. If you have the time to trawl through their excellent archive of old railway news articles or either the IRRS library or the NLI on Kildare you may find reference to other abandonment orders but be warned, it will take you a lot of time.

The majority of the cross border lines closed were the GNR lines. The GNR was co-owned by CIE and the UTA from 1952 until 1958. The closure of these lines came when the Ulster Transport Authority, under instruction from the NI Government, informed Ireland that it was withdrawing from the cross border arrangement and formally abandoning most of these lines within the 6 counties. This left CIE with little option but to close the landlocked sections within the State at the same time; the last private line in the Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties line were also forced to close as a result of this. A few sections on this side of the border (Belturbet for one) and the CDR remained open till 1959, it's ownership being a more complex situation between CIE, the UTA and British Rail; alternative road improvements were also required in the area. Somewhat OT I know but it's interesting in it's own way

Lastly, I understand that the Portumna line may have been abandoned via the 1850 act but I happily remain open to correction on this. Certainly several projects were abandoned pre construction with it.

Judgement Day wrote: »

A great deal of that type of information is contained in the "Irish Railfans News" available online here:http://www.steamtrainsireland.com/IRFN/

brilliant

Losty Dublin wrote: »

The orders were provided for under the 1950 Transport Act. It set up a Transport Tribunal that CIE could apply to for an order. The order absolved CIE of the legal obligation to run passenger and freight services on lines or services if they were uneconomic and to begin to dispose of the lines and assets accordingly if need be.

so it effectively was the act that allowed the destruction of parts of the peoples railway such as the stealing of the infrastructure

end of the road wrote: »

so it effectively was the act that allowed the destruction of parts of the peoples railway such as the stealing of the infrastructure

Not at all and please don't assume it was step one on the road to culling all of our lines.

At the time, CIE had formally been nationalised with the rather misguided intention of transport becoming very profitable again before being flogged off for a tidy profit. The tribunal was intended to be an independent body who would make calls on services (And buses, lorries and canals, it wasn't limited to railways.) that CIE wanted to close through necessity of economics but were legally obliged to run. If the services were found to be without hope of even wiping it's arse then CIE would be "exempted" from the obligation to run services on the line and the process of abandonment could proceed.

Of the many lines for which applications for exemption orders were made, some were refused and stayed open before being abandoned years later. A few even had Indian summers and, with the introduction of the C and G glass locomotive classes, managed to stay in traffic for as long as 20 years afterwards; Loughrea, Castleisland, Fenit being good examples of same.