The train that came through the wall
On 14 February 1900 a train from Enniscorthy failed to stop at Harcourt Street, ran through the buffers and the end wall, and left its engine hanging over Hatch Street below. It is the most dramatic moment in the life of a line that ran for just over a century and has been gone for longer than most Dubliners have been alive, yet its route is still under your feet every time you take the Luas Green Line south.
A Victorian commuter line
The Harcourt Street line opened on 10 July 1854, a 12.5-mile (20km) run from Harcourt Road out to Bray, built by William Dargan, the engineer behind much of Ireland’s early railway network. Two companies shared the work: the Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford Railway built the southern stretch from Dundrum to Bray after a smaller firm set up to build the city end ran out of money. The terminus on Harcourt Street itself came later, opening on 7 February 1859 to a design by George Wilkinson, with a central arch flanked by a colonnade of Doric columns.
For a hundred years it carried workers into town and families out to the Wicklow coast, and it is a large part of why Bray grew into a seaside resort. The end came on 31 December 1958, when CIÉ closed the line on grounds of operating costs, a decision still remembered with regret in Irish transport history. RTÉ’s archive records the last day of service. A year before that, on 23 December 1957, two trains collided in thick fog near Dundrum, killing the driver, Andrew Larkin.
What’s left to see
If you see one thing, make it the Nine Arches Viaduct at Milltown (the Milltown Viaduct), a stone arcade striding across the River Dodder. It survived the closure intact and the Luas now crosses it; Transport Infrastructure Ireland’s heritage strategy identifies it as a surviving feature of the line. View it from public streets and paths. Further south, the five-arched Bride’s Glen Viaduct spans the Loughlinstown River valley near Cherrywood.
The terminus building survives too, at 57 Harcourt Street. The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage records the 1859 building by George Wilkinson. After the trains stopped it served as a Dunlop store and a garage, and it is now a bar, The Odeon. Look from the public pavement at its central arch and stone columns. The Luas Green Line, which reopened along the trackbed from Charlemont to Sandyford on 30 June 2004 (later extended to Brides Glen), gives the whole thing a neat irony: the line was closed as uneconomic, then rebuilt half a century later because the corridor it left behind was too useful to waste.
Retracing the line
One honest caveat: this is not a continuous walking-and-cycling greenway, whatever some guides suggest. Most of the old trackbed now carries the Luas, which you can’t walk on, so the practical way to follow the route is by tram, stepping off where there is something to see. Around Milltown, Dundrum and the southern parkland near Carrickmines and Shankill you may spot remnants such as embankments and bridge abutments, but they come in fragments rather than one unbroken path, and the former railway does not provide a continuous walking route.
Getting there: the northern end is at the Harcourt Luas stop, a short walk from St Stephen’s Green. Use the TFI rail and tram map to travel between Harcourt and Milltown on the Green Line, and onwards to Dundrum or Brides Glen. There are no opening hours, tickets or guided tours; the public sections are free to see from streets and paths. Stay off tram tracks and follow crossing signals.
Parking: street parking around Harcourt Street is limited and may be restricted, so public transport is the sensible choice.
Accessibility: surfaces vary along the route and near old platforms and crossings, so check the ground and your route before bringing a wheelchair or buggy.