There’s something aspirational about the romance of luxury rail travel; for many, images of the Orient Express and its associated opulence spring to mind. Ireland may not be the first country one thinks of when asked to name a luxury train, but it has had its fair share of luxury and first-class vehicles over the years. Today, the principal luxury offerings are 1st class carriages on the Dublin-Belfast Enterprise and Dublin-Corks services, branded as ‘City Gold’ on the latter. Indeed, much has been written about the Enterprise and its offerings, but did you know that there have been several other luxury and 1st class journeys on Ireland’s railways in times past? Let’s take a look at some of the ones that are no longer with us today, and the carriages that were used on them.
The ‘Tourist Express’ Dining Car
For the commencement of its Tourist Express service from Dublin to Achill in 1903, the Midland Great Western Railway outshopped a one-off twelve-wheel dining car from its Broadstone Works. Furnished in a special livery of blue (lined in white), it certainly would have stood out from other services on the MGWR’s lines. Sadly, this fine vehicle didn’t make it into preservation, being destroyed by a fire in Athlone in the 1940s.
The Waterford Mail’s First Class Saloon
When the Dublin Wicklow & Wexford Railway opened its extension to Waterford in 1904, a new express train was introduced: The Waterford Mail. While this route is not one often associated with luxury, the DWWR saw fit to outshop a new All-First Clerestory saloon, serviced by a brake vehicle with a kitchen. The train called at Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire) on the way to meet the mail boat. Unusually for such a relatively prestigious train, it was worked by a tank engine from Westland Row (now Dublin Pearse) to Bray, from where a tender engine would take over for the journey to Waterford. At Macmine Junction a connecting portion was attached/detached to serve Wexford town, although initially these were non-corridor coaches so their occupants could not access the catering facilities. In 1914, third-class carriages were added to the train along with a composite Restaurant car (complete with kitchen). Around this time corridor vehicles were made available for the Wexford portion, enabling its passengers to also enjoy the catering services on offer. While by no means to the same luxury standard, as one might find on other lines, the Waterford Mail was probably the closest thing the Dublin, Wicklow & Wexford Railway, (later Dublin & South Eastern Railway), had to what we could call a luxury train. For a brief period an express with restaurant car from Dublin to Rosslare operated in 1908, but this quickly disappeared.
The Great Southern Railway Pullman Cars
An official photograph of Great Southern Railways Pullman Car No.100 as built.
Pullman cars were well established as a means of luxury rail travel in the UK, Continental Europe, and America, but are perhaps less associated with the railways of Ireland. However, the Great Southern Railways introduced 4 such cars to their services in 1926 (though owned and staffed by the Pullman Car Company). By Pullman standard, these vehicles were third class, but there was nothing substandard about their service, which included in-seat catering from their on-board kitchen. A dedicated attendant, employed by the Pullman Car Company, travelled with each carriage.
Official photo of the interior of one of the luxury Pullman carriages used by the Great Southern Railways in Ireland.
They are known to have been included on trains to Cork, Killarney, and Galway, as one might expect for key tourist destinations, but are also known to have worked to Sligo and Limerick. Unlike examples in the UK, the Great Southern Railways Pullman cars did not carry names, only numbers (Nos.100-103). In 1937 the agreement with the Pullman Car Company ended and the GSR purchased the vehicles outright, branding them as "Great Southern Pullman". They operated as ordinary carriages (with a change of seating) into the 1950s before being withdrawn, with one of them being converted to a flat for carrying cars. Sadly, none of these vehicles survived into the preservation era.
The Cork Mails and Great Southern Railways All-First No.1144
Apart from the Pullman cars, and, unlike most of its contemporaries in the UK, the GSR only built one All-First vehicle in-house, that being No.1144 which emerged from Inchicore in 1935 and is now preserved at the Cavan & Leitrim Railway Museum in Dromod. This was part of the Harty-designed (sometimes erroneously attributed to E.C. Bredin) ‘steel set’ of carriages for the Dublin-Cork Mail trains, the remaining carriages of which were third-class vehicles and diners but with the same ‘modern’ steel paneling.
A Luxury Train for 1990s Ireland: Iarnród Éireann’s Executive Train
In the early 1990s, Inchicore Works refitted two mk3 carriages, Nos.7161 and 7162, as a luxury ‘Executive Train’ for prestigious charters. One of these vehicles fitted with a magnificent bar, and was undoubtedly the last example of a homegrown Inchicore-designed carriage fit-out using local craftsmanship and materials. Externally, they wore a distinctive maroon version of the more familiar black & orange livery, with the ‘Executive’ branding in gold rather than white. These proved popular on private hires such as those for the Harp brewery in Dundalk and operated all over not only the Iarnród Éireann system but also to parts of the Northern Ireland Railways network. They were also a feature of several enthusiast railtours operated by the Irish Railway Record Society in the 1990s and early 2000s. In the 2000s they were repainted in the standard orange & black paint scheme but remained popular vehicles for charters, and even saw use as Presidential vehicles from time to time, their 100mph capacity making them preferable to the mk2 Presidential saloon, which could only do 75mph. With the demise of the mk3 fleet in the late 2000s, the pair were withdrawn, but thankfully the bar vehicle has been preserved by the Limerick Greenway.
The above is but a brief overview of the various 1st-class and luxury train services that have operated on the railways of Ireland over the past few centuries. It is by no means exhaustive, and we may cover more of them in a future article.
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