Marconi Railway

The Marconi Railway was a 1+1/2 mi long narrow gauge railway with a gauge of 2 ft at the Marconi Wireless Station near Clifden in the Irish County Galway.

Location
The route ran from the gate of the site over bog and rocks to the main buildings of the Marconi Wireless Station. There was a turntable at each end of the track, of which ruins are still visible. There were no passing loops on the single line track. Several manually operated cranes along the route could be used to load peat onto the waggons, which was used as fuel for the on-site power station.

Construction and inauguration
The track and the steam locomotive were designed and built from 1905 to 1907 by Dick, Kerr & Co. in Scotland. Initially it was used to transport construction material and electrical equipment. On 17 October 1907, the first passengers were transported to the Wireless Station. Later it became useful for transporting peat to the power station and for passenger transport of employees and visitors.

Well-known passengers
The pilots John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, who had crash-landed on 14/15 June 1919 after the first 16-hour trans Atlantic non-stop flight, drove with the Lancia railcar from the capacitor building to the receiving house and the social club.

Closure
The railway operated from 1907 to 1922. When the Marconi Wireless Station burnt down in 1922 due to political unrest, the locomotive and waggons became useless. Subsequently, the railway line was taken out of use, lifted and probably scrapped.

Gallery
 File:Men standing on Guglielmo Marconi's locomotive in Ireland.jpg|Steam locomotive built by Dick, Kerr & Co. File:Marconi Calling NLI.jpg|"Marconi Calling" File:Dick Kerr steam locomotive of Marconi Station Railway.jpg|Steam locomotive built by Dick, Kerr & Co. File:2ft gauge Lancia railcar of Marconi Station Railway.jpg|John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown in the Lancia railcar File:Marconi Transmitter Site - geograph.org.uk - 817095.jpg|Ruins of Marconi Wireless Station, 2003 