North Kerry - Barnagh area

Grandeeod

I'm trying to get my head around the original grandient as the line ran across the Ferguson viaduct and approached Barnagh tunnel. Looking at it yesterday, the redevelopment of the N21 kind of skews things and its really hard to see how the alignment got from the height of the viaduct to the cutting approaching the tunnel. Anyone recall what the area look like before the road was upgraded?

Edit: I should add that this is a query for older hard nuts.:D

flyingsnail

A bit before my time but you can view the original alignment on the OSI map viewer http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V2,523356,630896,11,9

lottpaul

Am not sure if I'm answering what you need to know - I remember walking that part of the line in the early 80s - often stopped en route from Kerry to Limerick/Dublin to stretch the legs. The gradient was visibly steep. The line crossed the much narrower N21 on a bridge midway up the current climbing lane - a real accident black spot back in the day - and hugged the road closely on the left hand side (as you drove towards Templeglantine) falling away gradually as the road gradient was much steeper. All of that has now disappeared under the widened road. It then slipped away a little to cross another bridge on the back road from Newcastle to Barnagh and curved around to the summit, crossing under the N21 on another lethal bridge and on then towards Abbeyfeale. Sadly I never saw a train on it and there were bushes and saplings encroaching on it at the time, but it would still have been usable I'd say.

McAlban

flyingsnail wrote: »

A bit before my time but you can view the original alignment on the OSI map viewer http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V2,523356,630896,11,9

That map shows the height in feet in a lot of places, Bench Marks (Generally chiselled into masonary, so nearly every OB or UB will have one) There are Spot heights on the Road (Ranging from 444 feet to 630 on the crossroad just north of Barnagh Tunnell) frustratingly there are not spot heights on the railway. Now of course we have contour lines... According to OSI Maps, the viaduct is about 140 and the Tunnell around 190. Quite a Steep gradient in about 1.8km

Grandeeod

McAlban wrote: »

That map shows the height in feet in a lot of places, Bench Marks (Generally chiselled into masonary, so nearly every OB or UB will have one) There are Spot heights on the Road (Ranging from 444 feet to 630 on the crossroad just north of Barnagh Tunnell) frustratingly there are not spot heights on the railway. Now of course we have contour lines... According to OSI Maps, the viaduct is about 140 and the Tunnell around 190. Quite a Steep gradient in about 1.8km

A very steep gradient. Thats what Im trying to visualise against the current road and rail alignment.

Grandeeod

Between Lottpauls description and the OSI link provided by flyingsnail, I'm beginning to build a picture of the area. McAlban has alluded to the issue I had. Cheers.

McAlban

Well you could always take a trip down the GST and bring a GPS. Openstreetmap allows you to add your own GPS trails to trheir map. I've been travelling to killarney via this road for 20 years and the N21 has changed this stretch a lot though.

whisky_galore

The North Kerry was built on the cheap and compared to say, Dublin-Cork, was like the track of a roller coaster.