Dublin and Kingstown Railway

The Dublin and Kingstown Railway was the first passenger railway in Ireland, established under an 1831 act of Parliament and opening in 1834 an 8.41-mile line between Westland Row in Dublin and Kingstown Harbour, now Dun Laoghaire. Costly to build, at nearly 60,000 pounds a mile, the company was nonetheless an innovator, operating an atmospheric railway system for a decade and becoming the first railway company to build its own locomotives. It transferred operations to the Dublin and Wicklow Railway in 1856 while remaining an independent lessor company for decades more, before being absorbed into the Great Southern Railways in 1925.