sabotage

Could it be an MGWR train?

www.westmeathcoco.ie/en/ourservices/planning/conservation...

Oretani Wildlife (Mike Grimes) Certainly could. We're in Westmeath. And is that MGW on the sides of the nearest car?

The world has always been a very dangerous place, although teeming with UNRECOGNIZED UNACKNOWLEDGED beauty. B/o the hominids. Will this ever change before it's too late?

Athlone-Mullingar-Dublin was double track at this time.

Athlone-Clara-Tullamore was not MGW.

Mullingar-Longford was double track.

It could be the Clara branch from Streamstown junction, or the Cavan branch North of Inny Junction.

The vulnerability of the local railways was demonstrated in the early hours of 9 November 1922, when anti-Treaty IRA units burned down the signal cabins at Streamstown, Castletown Geoghegan, and Horseleap on the main line of the Midland Great Western Railway. On the same night, the anti-Treaty IRA used explosives to destroy rail lines at a place called Ballinabarna Bridge between Moate and Streamstown, before commandeering a train. They set the train moving towards Athlone before jumping from the engine. Fortunately, it did not meet any other traffic on the line and came to a stop about two kilometres from Athlone.

A more serious incident followed on Sunday 14 January 1923 when an anti-Treaty IRA unit removed a long section of the railway track on the Streamstown-to-Moate line, at a point in which the line ran over a high embankment and across a bridge. Afterwards, the armed men went to Streamstown station where they boarded a goods train, towing 25 waggons and a second engine from Mullingar to Athlone. At gunpoint, they forced the driver and crew to disembark and then sent the train towards Moate. When it reached the bridge, the point at which the tracks had been removed, the engine crashed into the embankment and most of the carriages were derailed.

Despite the damage, railway workers repaired the line within a day although the Westmeath Examiner reported that the repair crews were ‘approached by unknown persons’, presumably members of the anti-Treaty IRA, who warned them that their efforts were futile. Such threats were, seemingly, common at that time and newspapers reported that multiple drivers and firemen working for the Midland Great Western Railway had received notices warning them not to convey National Army troops. Threats turned to actions on Tuesday 16 January when armed men ripped up another section of the track before hijacking a train travelling between Clara and Mullingar, They subsequently derailed that train by running it over the section of damaged track.

Aftermath of the Black Tom munitions explosion of July 30, 1916. That's Ellis Island in the background: "Now a section of Liberty State Park (along Morris Pesin road including the park office and Flag Plaza), Black Tom was originally a small island in New York Harbor not far from Liberty Island. Between 1860 and 1880, Black Tom was connected to the mainland by a causeway and rail lines terminating at a freight facility with docks. The area between the island and the mainland was filled in sometime between 1905 and 1916 by the Lehigh Valley Railroad as part of its Jersey City facility. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Black Tom was serving as a major munitions depot. Before the United States entered the First World War, American businessmen would sell their supplies to any buyer. However, by 1915, the British Navy had established a blockade effectively keeping the Germans from being able to buy from the American merchants. The German government, on July 30, 1916, orchestrated the sabotage of freight cars at Black Tom, which were loaded with munitions for the Allies in Europe. The wreckage after the Black Tom Explosion. According to a recent study, the resulting explosion was the equivalent of an earthquake measuring between 5.0 and 5.5 on the Richter Scale. Windows within a 25-mile radius were broken, the outside wall of Jersey City’s City Hall was cracked and pieces of metal damaged the skirt of the Statue of Liberty (it is because of this explosion that the Lady's torch has been closed off to visitors). Most of the immigrants on Ellis Island were temporarily evacuated. Losses were estimate at $20 million and seven people were killed." www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/liberty_state_p...

To get an idea of the force of the explosion, that's the Ellis Island castle in the background. Since the powerhouse smokestack is to the right of the castle, and the east and west castle towers are nearly in line, that indicates that this picture is taken EAST of Ellis Island. Black Tom Island was a good mile the other side of Ellis Island Would you believe . . . Google Street view? goo.gl/maps/WZBT6

Amazing.. I suppose that means that shells and debris fell all over Ellis Island as well.

Aftermath of the Black Tom munitions explosion of July 30, 1916. See notes under
A very similar shot, titled "Diving for Shells", ran in the The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.), August 27, 1916. oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn83045782/1916-08-27/ed-1/se...

Thanks for providing context for this image. We'll add information to the catalog record when we update.

Though the Navy introduced its classic Mark V diving helmet in 1916 and the early evaluation work had been done in nearby Long Island Sound in preceding years, this diver appears to be wearing an earlier commercial model AJ Morse 3 light helmet