Finn Valley Railway

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Finn Valley Railway
Industry railway
Fate taken over
Successor Donegal Railway Company
Founded 1860
Defunct 1892
Headquarters Stranorlar, Ireland
Area served
Donegal, Tyrone

The Finn Valley Railway (FVR) was an Irish gauge (5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm)) railway in Ireland.

History

Incorporation

The Finn Valley Railway Company was incorporated on 15 May 1860 with capital of £60,000 (equivalent to £5,030,000 in 2021).[1]

Personnel

The chairman of the directors was James Hewitt, 4th Viscount Lifford of Meen Glas, Stranorlar, and the deputy-chairman was James Thompson Macky of the Bank of Ireland in Londonderry.[2]

The other directors were:

  • Robert Collum, 1 Chester Place, Hyde Park Square, London
  • Edward Hunter, The Glebe, Blackheath, Kent
  • Maurice Ceely Maude, Lenaghan, Enniskillen
  • Sir Samuel Hercules Hayes, 4th Baronet, Leuaghan, Stranorlar
  • Robert Russell, Salthill, Mountcharles
  • Major Humphreys, Milltown House, Strabane

The other offices of the company were:

  • James Alex Ledlie, Stranorlar, Secretary
  • Peter W. Barlow, 26 Great George Street, Westminster, Consulting Engineer
  • John Bower, Engineer

Opening

They built a railway line to Irish gauge (5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm)) between Stranorlar and Strabane which opened on 1 October 1863.

Operation

The directors entered into a contract with the Irish North Western Railway to work the line for a period of 10 years. This company became amalgamated with the Great Northern Railway (Ireland)[3] in 1876.

Merger and gauge conversion

In 1892 it merged with the West Donegal Railway into a new company, the Donegal Railway Company. The line from Stranorlar to Strabane was reconstructed to (3 ft (914 mm)) gauge shortly afterwards.

Footnotes

  1. UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. Bradshaw's railway manual, shareholders' guide, and official directory. W. J. Adams, 1864
  3. The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland, William Alan McCutcheon, Northern Ireland. Dept. of the Environment, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1984