Ballylickey man Tim Rowe was on his way this week to constructing the longest working railway in West Cork since 1961 on his 12-acre farm in the Ouvane Valley near Ballylickey.

BY HELEN RIDDELL

Tim’s wife Sandra runs Hairy Henry, a small care farm offering therapeutic riding and farming activities for children and adults with additional needs, whilst Tim grows approximately 10,000 bulbs of elephant garlic annually, and also produces charcoal.

In addition to this he runs his own YouTube channel, ‘Way Out West - Workshop Stuff’, showing casing his workshop and various projects he’s engaged in.

Speaking to The Southern Star, Tim explained that as the couple don’t have a tractor on the farm, he needed to come up with a method to transport the large quantities of manure generated by his wife’s business, which is also beneficial to his garlic growing, and also move timber around for use in the charcoal producing operation. ‘I had to work out how to transport all this muck around the farm along with the timber so I decided to lay a narrow gauge railway and it’s been a huge success.’

Tim initially laid railway tracks the length of his workshop, and realising how practical this was in moving items around the workshop, he decided to extend the railway outside connecting various parts of the farm.

‘It’s been progressive. I’m taking it step by step, and each step has made sense.’

To date, Tim has laid over 400 yards of track: ‘I’m getting close to the muck heap now and I hope to find out within the next month if it’s actually practical.’

Tim constructed special wagons to transport the woodchips to a drying shed which were designed to be hand-pushed along the railway tracks, however, he has since built his own locomotive.

‘It’s powered by a small 1963 petrol engine and I’ve made a CVT (continuously variable transmission) system. It’s very simple, you can make it yourself, and basically it means you can accelerate and reverse all with the one lever.’

The railway currently covers three fields and the orchard, with the majority of it built by Tim.

He is keen to involve railway enthusiasts and anyone with an interest in seeing how his system works, and has held a volunteer day for people to come and help out.

A Go Fund me campaign has also helped to raised €7000 to help with construction costs.   

Despite the novel idea of having a narrow gauge railway on a farm, Tim explained it’s all entirely practical and has helped solve his transport issues.

‘These small railways are good fun, but they’re also really practical and relatively cheap to construct and they do make sense.’

Commenting on the extensive rail network that was once in West Cork and what a loss it was to the local area, he feels his small railway will go some way to keeping that history alive.

Tim is planning on holding another volunteer day in the coming months.

Anyone who is interested in helping out can contact him at [email protected]