Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway

From the time that the Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway (L&ER) was completed in 1859 there was a number of proposals to connect the line with Sligo. A "Londonderry, Enniskillen and Sligo Railway" was proposed that would have run west from via Manorhamilton direct to Sligo. The Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway (E&BR) was incorporated in 1862, was opened from on the to Bundoran on the Atlantic coast in 1868 and had parliamentary powers to continue from Bundoran to Sligo, but failed to do so. in 1880, and Carrignagat Junction on the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) opened in 1882, completing a line of about . Beyond Carrignagat Junction the exercised running powers over the to and from Sligo. In 1895 the Waterford, Limerick and Western Railway (WL&WR) was extended to Collooney, forming junctions with the and . This gave access to a larger area of western Ireland, whose cattle exports formed a significant part of the 's traffic. The was one of the railways that the Irish Free State's Great Southern Railways did not absorb in 1925 because it crossed the border with Northern Ireland. It became the last privately-owned railway undertaking to survive in Ireland (although the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway still existed as a road transport firm). The company never prospered since the countryside it crossed was poor and sparsely populated, although at one time intermittent heavy cattle traffic used the line. Governments on both sides of the border subsidised the railway in its later years, but the closed on 1 October 1957 as a result of the Government of Northern Ireland making the GNR Board close its line through Enniskillen. ==Motive power==

locomotives had names, but were not numbered. The company had the use of only two turntables: its own at and the Midland Great Western Railway one at , and so tank engines were the preferred option. Pioneer and Sligo Its first two main line locomotives were a pair with an 0-6-2T wheel arrangement, Pioneer and Sligo, built by the Avonside Engine Company of Bristol, England and delivered in 1877. These were unsteady riders on the 's light track, but the company kept them in service until 1921. Leitrim class After the disappointment of the Pioneer class, the turned to the 0-6-4T wheel arrangement. In 1879 Beyer, Peacock & Company of Manchester, England had supplied the South Australian Railways K class, which was built to the Irish gauge and designed to run on lightweight track. As a result, the ordered an enlarged version of this design which became the SLNCR Leitrim class. Beyer, Peacock delivered the first two of this class, Fermanagh and Leitrim, in 1882. Proving reliable, the obtained further examples from Beyer, Peacock in 1895, Hazelwood and 1899, Lissadell All three survived until the closure of the line in 1957. There were only two locomotives of this type, Lough Melvin and Lough Erne, and they were built by Beyer, Peacock in 1949. When the line was closed in 1957 they were sold to the Ulster Transport Authority (UTA), with whom they remained in service until the 1960s. One of them, Lough Erne, is now preserved by the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland at Whitehead, County Antrim. Railbuses and railcars The was an early adopter of railbuses and railcars, which it introduced in the 1930s and 1940s. One of the latter, Railcar B, was built in 1947 and is now preserved by the Downpatrick and County Down Railway at Downpatrick. ==References==

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