Thieving a Railroad.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11, 11 September 1912, Page 59

Thieving a Railroad.

No stranger theft, writes a ;*, was ever committed than the ‘tit ’.114’ of an entire railroa I, twelve in I <: • half miles in length, which omollll.* rd Birr ami Portumna in Ireland. I’h? line had cost L'BO.IMIO. and for vears it did service tor the Great ind W’estcrn Hail way Company until the year IS7G, when tin* company, which ha I been running it at a loss, washed its hands of it. The line was derelict. Nobody wanted it. For a few years it stretched its uselesri length through North Tipperary; thru its neighbours began to turn covetous eyes on it. Bolls ami screws and other portable t rilles be gau to vanish. \ few pr iseciit ions w *re instituted, but the charges were vithdrawn. Nobody scemei! to care. The •thieves, thus encouraged, grew bolder. Farmers brought I heir carl- uid horses ami loaded them with spoil >f .ails, sleepers, switches, and semaphores, lit - goodly station vanishe.l, to it< last brick and door, in a single night. I hey were great times for Tipperary. Boafloads of booty, hundreds of tons of rails, yvere sent away from Portumna by unlicensed “contractors,” and the work of spoliation went on until not as much as a turntable was left.