Nice surprise on getting to the office this morning - two books from Gill & Macmillan. 'Irish Railways - a new history' by Tom Ferris and 'Weather Eye - the final year' by the late Brendan McWilliams, whose Irish Times columns were much-loved.
Did you know that during the second and third weeks of September, the evenings shorten more rapidly than at any other time throughout the autumn? Or that the shortest day of the year is on or about September 17th, when it is 23 hours and 28 seconds long?
There's an entry in the 'Weather Eye' book for tomorrow, September 3rd, from 2007, and it's certainly upbeat - "it will become increasingly obvious tha thte year is on the turn, and that the slow and sad decline into the aches and pains of winter has begun." Yes, batten down the hatches . . .
The blurb for the 'Irish Railways' book is positive on the outlook for the railways in recent years, saying that towards the end of the 20th century investors were turning their attention to the tracks with "passenger numbers in turn rising with frenzied enthusiasm". Must have missed that bit at Waterside railway station, although to be fair numbers on the Belfast line have been growing well despite the fact that the journey seems to take a wet week. More work is needed on the route.
I see it's still 2 hours and 20 minutes to Belfast by rail, although the benefits of the recent upgrading between Coleraine and Ballymena should see faster times soon.
This year marks the 175th anniversary of what Tom Ferris calls the real beginning of the railway age in Ireland, the opening of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway.
In his conclusion to the book, first published in hard cover last year, Tom, an Omagh man, seems to almost lose it eventually when he comments:
"At the time of writing (autumn 2007), the line to Londonderry north of Ballymena is peppered with speed restrictions which add to journey times and make the railway uncompetitive against road transport, and again Translink has the begging bowl out looking for funding with the threat of closure always in the background if this fails to materialise. This is no way to run a railway system in the twenty-first century when almost every sentient being knows that railways are the only viable green alternative if car culture is ever to be controlled."
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