Dalkey Atmospheric Railway

The Dalkey Atmospheric Railway was a short extension of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway to Dalkey in County Dublin, Ireland, and it operated from August 19, 1843 to April 12, 1854. It was the first commercial atmospheric railway in the world, using vacuum powered propulsion to pull trains uphill and gravity to bring them back down. The line was about 9,200 feet long and used a 15 inch vacuum pipe that could move trains at speeds up to 40 miles per hour, drawn by a 100 horsepower steam engine at Dalkey that produced the vacuum. James Pim the Younger championed the atmospheric system, the engineer Charles Vignoles designed it, William Dargan built it, and Samuel Clegg and the Samuda brothers supplied its equipment. After the line closed, part of its route was later absorbed into the modern Dublin Area Rapid Transit system. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/