Limerick Jct. and the ladies from Cork

When Fritz Plous learns I am in Dublin, he emails at once that I should go to Limerick Junction, a rail crossing about 120 miles southwest of the capital, on the line to Cork. "It’s a station where four railway routes cross in the form of a hollow square," he says. "There’s a set of platforms on each of the four sides and, I believe, a set of foot bridges to allow passengers to cross the tracks and reach the connecting platforms. Nothing else like it in the world (just like Chicago Union Station’s double-stub track layout)."

I think to myself, now that would be a sight to behold. As it turns out, I have all the time in the world, and this explains why, on a rainy, chilly summer afternoon in Ireland, I find myself almost alone at Limerick Junction.

The last time I'd been in Ireland was 18 years ago. I took a train to Cork and back that time, passing Limerick Junction twice, and don't recall a thing about the station. I do remember that the Irish Railways cars were old and a bit gone to seed, like Amfleet cars, in fact. The entire Irish rail infrastructure seemed to be receding.

Well, much has changed. Ireland has invested prodigiously in its railway, as reported two years ago by Andrew Dow in a splendid Trains Magazine writeup (August 2011). With a capital improvement budget of half a billion Euros a year, IR has virtually replaced its passenger train fleet while opening dormant routes, particularly on the island's west coast.

Armed with this bare body of information, off I go to Dublin's Heuston Station. The noon train to Cork is advertised as having first class seating and a dining car. When I can find neither on Platform 7, I'm told by the woman supervising loading of the train that it had just been downsized. So I find a seat in a three-car, all-coach DMU (diesel multiple unit) train on which every seat is occupied by people or backpacks. Soon we are off.

Amtrak would be smart to invest in trainsets like these. The new DMU trains range up to eight cars in length. They are comfortable, smooth riding, quiet, and fast. I clock my train doing 90 mph, and the driver (engineer) tells me when I reach Limerick Junction that parts of the line are authorized 100. "I'd like to do better," he says, waiting for his signal to depart.

Anyway, on the 90-minute trek, I review Mr. Dow's article. In it, he had this to say about my destination: "Writer E.L. Ahrons memorably described the junction as 'a sort of four-sided Irish triangle, the chief geometrical property of which is that the longest way around is the shortest way there.' This came about because the junction was a flat crossing of north-south and east- west lines, and the single station platform was placed on the west arm. For trains travelling on the east-west line this was adequate, but trains travelling on the north- south line had to either back into the station on one of the curves between the lines, or to run out backward and then run forward on its own line."

While interesting, this description does not seem half as alluring as that provided by Fritz Plous. So which is the real Limerick Junction? On the PA system, my stop is announced, so I get up, prepared to find out. We clomp over an at-grade crossing of the Galway-Limerick-Waterford line and brake shortly thereafter to a stop.

What am I doing here, I wonder? This can't be Limerick Junction! But yes it is, and obviously that "four-sided Irish triangle" described above had gotten straightened out in the rebuilding of Irish Railways. Gone (if it was ever there) was any semblance of a track arrangement resembling a giant tic-tac-toe, with parallel tracks far apart. Nor are north-south (Dublin-Cork) trains required to perform any gymnastics to reach the station other than to negotiate a crossover at either end. What exists today is the essence of simplicity: The station sits on the Cork line, half a mile south of the crossing of the other route. West of the crossing, a track peels off from the east-west line to bring trains from Galway and Limerick (the latter about 30 miles west of the namesake junction) to a stub track on the other side of the platform used by Dublin-Cork trains. There are no passenger trains east of Limerick Junction to Waterford.

Needless to say, I'm a bit let down. I enjoy going in search of unlikely stories, and accept that some don't work out. At least, I say to myself, the return train to Dublin has first class seating and a dining car. Well, yes and no. The first class seats and the dining car are the same thing, but "dining" as defined on Irish Railways is cold sandwiches and coffee that even the cafe cars on Amtrak's short-distance trains beat by a mile. The only luxury is to have the sandwich and coffee brought to your seat, your seat being indistinguishable from a regular coach seat.

When I get back to Heuston Station, the rain has intensified. I am two miles from my hotel and without an umbrella. Still, in the taxi I compose a limerick to commemorate the day. It's not perfect, but neither was my adventure.

The ladies from Cork are aghast.

Their train has arrived at last.

But instead of delay,

they leave right away

as Limerick Junction flies past.--Fred W. Frailey