The Tralee Blog

A newly written comment by Stevie regarding my post about the conversion of the old Tralee-Fenit railway line showed me that there might easily be a confusion of two quite different things mentioned on this page. Currently two major tourism related projects are going ahead in and around Tralee, both involving old railway lines. [»]

In one of my earlier posts I wrote, that the newly built cycleway running alongside the Big River near the Brewery Road junction will eventually end in front of the Dunnes Store on North Circular Road. Wondering why I didn’t see any progress with this way I did some research and it turns out that I was wrong. The cycle way will not “break through the wall” near the Dunnes entrance, in fact it is to follow the old railway line towards Edward Street and will (probably) end/start right opposite the railway station. And I was also wrong in assuming that the building works in Castle Street will lead to the immediate widening of the footpath. Although it is still planned to do that it has not happened yet.

 It’s that time of the year again with the sun shining and the birds singing, and one more thing to note: the Kerry Bicycle Festival will be back! Starting Thursday, 13th of May, we will see more bike related events than ever. After the huge successes of the festivals in 2008 and 2009 I certainly won’t miss this years event! If you want to know please visit http://kerrybicyclefestival.org. See you there!

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. [»]