Qualla: Connemara Railway https://qualla.com/connemara-railway en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/0/connemara-railway-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Connemara Railway https://qualla.com/connemara-railway Connemara Railway: Introduction https://qualla.com/connemara-railway/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The new signal cabin had been standing for less than a year when it burned. December 2025, accidental fire, total loss. Eleven months earlier, in January 2025, Storm Éowyn had torn through the same site and inflicted what the volunteers called significant damage. And yet in July 2025, just six months after the storm and five months before the fire, the Connemara Railway had opened to the public for the first time. Trains ran on narrow-gauge track around the resurrected Maam Cross station, ninety years after the original Galway-to-Clifden line shut down. The volunteers had been working since 2017. They have been rebuilding ever since.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/0/connemara-railway-wp/gc90-connemara-railway-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Connemara Railway: The Ghost of a Line https://qualla.com/connemara-railway/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Galway-to-Clifden Railway opened in 1895, ran tourists and locals through the wild beauty of Connemara for forty years, and closed in 1935. The Midland Great Western Railway had marketed it as a tourist line, but the modest income could not survive the rise of road traffic. I...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/0/connemara-railway-wp/gc90-connemara-railway-the-ghost-of-a-line.mp3 0:06 2 full Connemara Railway: Eight Kilometres at Maam Cross https://qualla.com/connemara-railway/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The plan, when access to the Maam Cross site was secured on 14 February 2017, was straightforward in concept and complicated in practice. Restore the buildings: the water tower, the gatekeepers' hut, the goods shed, the platforms. Lay an isolated 8 km stretch of track. Build an a...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/0/connemara-railway-wp/gc90-connemara-railway-eight-kilometres-at-maam-cross.mp3 0:06 3 full Connemara Railway: Two Gauges, A Working Railcar https://qualla.com/connemara-railway/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Connemara Railway operates rolling stock in two gauges: 3-foot narrow gauge for the pop-up demonstration line that the public actually rides, and the 5-foot-3-inch broad Irish gauge that the original MGWR used. On the narrow gauge they have two Bord na Móna locomotives, the s...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/0/connemara-railway-wp/gc90-connemara-railway-two-gauges-a-working-railcar.mp3 0:06 4 full Connemara Railway: A Quiet Man Story That Wasn't https://qualla.com/connemara-railway/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Maam Cross is sometimes claimed as a filming location for John Ford's 1952 The Quiet Man, the John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara romance that did more than any other film to fix the visual image of Ireland in the international imagination. The truth is more interesting. Maam Cross was...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/0/connemara-railway-wp/gc90-connemara-railway-a-quiet-man-story-that-wasnt.mp3 0:06 5 full