The Harcourt Street Line: Back on Track

At the end of 1958, a double-track suburban railway-first steam, then battery, then diesel-known as the Harcourt Street Line that ran through Dublin since 1846 was abruptly closed and then abandoned. Forty years later, the Irish government has decided to invest in a new railway that would run along the same line. This extraordinary reversal of an earlier decision has drawn much interest to the earlier railway. The author, who rode this train innumerable times when he was growing up, revisits the train of his youth. He recalls the lines' patrons like Samuel Beckett (who wrote on, and about, this train) and Brendan Behan, to the thousands who thronged the Harcourt Street Station to join ""Sea Breeze"" excursions to the seaside towns at Bray and Greystones. More than just a story of a specific train, this is also about the people who used it and the times in which it ran. Brian Mac Aongusa, an amateur photographer-many of the photographs in this book are from his own collection-and train aficionado, recently retired after over forty years in public service.