I was born in 1941 in the townland of Bunaman, in the parish of
Annagry in northwest Donegal. My birth came one year after the closure
of the Gweedore to Burtonport section of the Letterkenny & Burtonport
Extension Railway which was visible from my home, so that I never had
the joy of seeing a train passing by. During the years of my primary
schooling, I passed over the railway twice daily and often joined with other
schoolchildren in searching for little lumps of coal along the permanent
way. In later years, the same track bed became one of my favourite walks
and set me wondering about the story behind so large a development at a
time when few monuments of progress left much impression on our local
landscape. My interest in the Letterkenny & Burtonport Extension Railway
was aroused.
Most studies of railways tend to concentrate heavily on the
locomotives, rolling stock, technical details and the accepted railway
enthusiast’s cherished minutiae of locomotives, timetables, horsepower,
manuals, specifications, signalling, gradients and memorabilia. Little
reference to any of the above will be found in this study for the simple
reason that this author is not a railway enthusiast, has little knowledge of
such detailed items and has set out a different analysis of the chosen
subject
