David Tucker looks back on the history of CIÉ, Ireland’s national transport company, which has been an integral part of the fabric of everyday life for a large part of the population for the past eighty years.

 

CIÉ has been an integral part of Irish life for the past 80 years and, despite many challenges over past decades, it is now stronger and better equipped to cope than ever before and, perhaps more importantly, ready for the Green future too.

With 11,726 employees , the CIÉ Group encompasses four companies whose names are familiar to all those using our national bus and rail services – Bus Átha Cliath, Bus Éireann, Iarnród Éireann and Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ).

Founded on 1st January 1945 under the Transport Act 1944, CIÉ was originally an amalgam of the Great Southern Railways (GSR) and the Dublin United Tramway Company (DUTC) and went on to take over the running of the Grand Canal Company (1950) and the services of the Great Northern Railway (1958).

Its early years were fraught, with ageing rolling stock and ambitious plans to convert from steam – to diesel-powered locomotives announced in 1946 confounded by the harsh winter of 1946/7 which dramatically reduced passenger to four night mails and largely curtailed freight services trying to recover after the privations of World War Two and the Emergency.

To help it cope with a shortage of coal, CIÉ found succour in an unlikely source – converting 97 steam locomotives to burn oil. This lifeline, without which Ireland’s rail services would have been virtually non-existent during this period, was the result of bold engineering and a desire to keep CIÉ on the rails whatever the challenges.

Relief came in March 1947 with the arrival of coal from the United States. However, it was June before supplies had built up sufficiently to allow services to be returned to normal.

By this time CIÉ’s finances were deteriorating rapidly and the small profit of 1945 had by 1947 turned into a loss of £1 million, a not inconsiderable sum back then.

On July 1, 1948 the government asked Sir James Milne, last General Manager of the Great Western Railway, to investigate the state of internal transport in Ireland. His report, published before the end of the year, suggested that the use of large main-line diesel locomotives in Ireland was unwarranted and that their introduction would not be the answer to CIÉ’s problems.

Milne considered that the present train service, both passenger and freight, was inadequate to meet the needs of the community. He suggested that speeds should be brought up to pre-war levels as soon as possible and that a more frequent passenger service, operated by lighter trains, would be more suitable to meet needs and recommended that a small number of railcars be acquired.

The report also noted that branch lines ‘are part of the national system of highways’ and recommended that they should not be closed ‘if their retention is necessary or desirable in the public interest’. Milne noted that the average age of the locomotive fleet was 51 years and that 25 per cent of the fleet was out of service at any one time awaiting repairs. The carriage stock had an average age of 47 years, with again more than a quarter awaiting repair.

Goods stock was in a better position, the average age being 32 years and only seven per cent out of service. He recommended that the size of the locomotive fleet be reduced by 100 and that by judicious selection of locomotives for scrapping the number of classes in the fleet could be substantially reduced. He also recommended that 50 new steam locomotives be built over a five year period.

Following the publication of the Milne Report, the Government announced that all public transport services operating entirely within the state were to be amalgamated into a single nationalised undertaking. Before this happened, the last CIÉ trams had run in Dublin with the termination of services on the No. 8 route to Dalkey on July 3, 1949 marking the closure of the system.

The new company, which retained the title CIÉ, came into being on 1st June 1950 and was charged with providing an efficient, economical, convenient and fully-integrated transport system.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own