The Marconi Railway was a

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...

railway with a gauge of at the

Marconi Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquess of Marconi ( ; ; 25 April 1874 – 20 July 1937) was an Italian electrical engineer, inventor, and politician known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based wireless telegraph system. This ...

Wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...

Station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

near

Clifden Clifden () is a coastal town in County Galway, Ireland, in the region of Connemara, located on the Owenglin River where it flows into Clifden Bay. As the largest town in the region, it is often referred to as "the Capital of Connemara". Frequen ...

in the Irish

County Galway County Galway ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Northern and Western Region, taking up the south of the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht. The county population was 276,451 at the 20 ...

. It operated from 1907 to 1922.

Location

The route ran from the gate of the site over bog and rocks to the main buildings of the Marconi Wireless Station. There was a turntable at each end of the track, of which ruins are still visible. There were no passing loops on the single-line track. Several manually operated cranes along the route could be used to load the waggons with peat, which was burned as fuel by the on-site power station.''Marconi Station Railway.''
3 November 2016. Retrieved 7 October 2018.Shane Joyce
''Clifden Marconi Station, c. 1915, Scale 1:6000.''
2012.

History

Construction and inauguration

The track and the steam locomotive were designed and built from 1905 to 1907 by Dick, Kerr & Co. in Scotland. Initially it was used to transport construction material and electrical equipment. On 17 October 1907, the first passengers were transported to the Wireless Station. Later it became useful for transporting peat to the power station and for employees and visitors to various points. In 1919, the pilots John Alcock and

Arthur Whitten Brown Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Arthur Whitten Brown, (23 July 1886 – 4 October 1948) was a British military officer and aviator who flew as navigator of the first successful non-stop transatlantic flight with pilot John Alcock in June 1919. Biog ...

, who had crash-landed on 14/15 June after the first 16-hour trans Atlantic non-stop flight, drove with the Lancia railcar from the capacitor building to the receiving house and the social club.

Closure

When the Marconi Wireless Station burnt down in 1922 due to political unrest, the locomotive and waggons became useless. Subsequently, the railway line was taken out of use, lifted and probably scrapped.

Gallery

File:Men standing on Guglielmo Marconi's locomotive in Ireland.jpg, Steam locomotive built by Dick, Kerr & Co. File:Marconi Calling NLI.jpg, "Marconi Calling" File:Dick Kerr steam locomotive of Marconi Station Railway.jpg, Steam locomotive built by Dick, Kerr & Co.Dan McDonald
''Picture Parade.''
In: The Industrial Railway Record, No. 28, pp. 166-168, December 1969. File:2ft gauge Lancia railcar of Marconi Station Railway.jpg, John Alcock and

in the

Lancia Lancia Automobiles S.p.A. () is an Italian car manufacturer and a subsidiary of Stellantis Europe, which is the European subsidiary of Stellantis. The present legal entity of Lancia was formed in January 2007 when its corporate parent reorganise ...

railcar File:Marconi Transmitter Site - geograph.org.uk - 817095.jpg, Ruins of Marconi Wireless Station, 2003

References

External links

* Amanda Crowley
''Gugliemo Marconi – Connecting the World.''
Vie Magazine. *
''CRHnews - Marconi's World First Wireless Telegram Service Clifden.''
BBC. {{coord, 53.44626, -10.0249, region:IR_type:landmark, display=title 2 ft gauge railways in Ireland Defunct railroads Rail transport in Ireland