Tralee & Dingle Light Railway 0-4-2 Locomotives in Ireland

Class 4 (Locobase 10258)

Data from "Tank Engine for Tralee & Dingle Light Ry, Ireland", The Locomotive Magazine,Vol VIII (17 Jan 1903). 4T works number 514.

If ever Doctor Doolittle's double-llama pushme-pullyu took the rails, it was in the form of this little tank for the T & DLR. Both ends had an enclosed cab and little cow-catchers. Both reflected the alignment of the railway, which was along the roadside at various points and thus needed more alertness and defensibility against the stray cow or pedestrian. The dome stood rather closer to the front cab than the rear. Presumably when running footplate-first, the driver stood in the cab just ahead of the smokebox while the fireman continued feeding the firebox at the other end.

Under the slab-sided tanks, the running gear appeared to require an additional axle between the two driven axles and the trailing truck.

Locobase believes that this oddly proportioned locomotive simply didn't suit the T & DR after a while, which accounts for its scrapping in 1907.

The railway proudly styled itself as the westernmost railway in Europe because the line that began in Tralee ended at Dingle Pier, 32 1/4 miles away and on the western coast of Ireland. (There was a 6-mile branch from Castlegregory Junction at Milepost 10 to Castlegregory.) So hilly and curvy was the alignment that the maximum speed allowed was 12 mph. The railway never was profitable and with the Troubles, World War One, and rising coal prices, the line sank deeper into debt.

After the Great Southern took it over in 1925, the line carried both passengers and freight until 1939, when passenger service ended and the Castlegregory branch was closed. A once-daily then, from 1947, once-weekly freight service (which handled cattle) continued until 1953.