The Tralee Blog

As announced a few days ago the Tralee and Dingle Light Railway is back in operation, after it had had to cease scheduled travels in the midst of the 2006 season due to massive technical problems with the solitary steam engine. While 5T is still out of service the train is not, because the guys from the railway now managed to source a diesel engine. And today at 10:40 (two hours ago) the small train made its first journey from Blennerville to Tralee after almost three years downtime. It will now continue to travel between the two stations hourly, starting on the full hour from the Aquadome in Tralee and at the half hour from the Blennerville Windmill. [»]

Just a short, but rather great notice: The railway will finally be operational again after a break of 3 years. The steam engine 5T is still in dire need of repair, but at least it has been removed from the open yard and is now stored safe and dry inside the shed. The work will be done by two diesels instead, the first journey will commence on next saturday , 1. August at 10:30 am. And yes, I am talking about 2009. I’ll try to be there! More pictures after the break. [»]

Great news, the Kerry County Museum has just been named “Museum of the year 2009″ by the Heritage Council in partnership with the Northern Ireland Museums Council. Could there be any better reason to visit them this year? Furthermore I wish to remind you of the upcoming annual Tralee Garden Festival, which will take place from the 19th to the 21st June 2009 - next weekend!

The newly formed All Ireland Air Ambulance - a charity planning to provide dedicated air rescue services - held a first publicity demonstration on the helipad of Tralee General Hospital today. While the helicopter they showed is not at all a new machine (see below for details) the efforts of the people involved in the action are most welcome and everybody living in the often rugged southwest of Ireland will be glad about any new means for providing medical aid quickly whenever needed. [»]

I want to take the opportunity to thank all the readers of tralee.org and of this blog for their interest and contributions in the pages and to wish them and everybody a happy new year 2009! It is almost certainly going to be a challenging year for quite a lot of people around the world, but hopefully it will be a good and healthy year for many. [»]