In 1759 Arthur Guinness (1725 – 1803) signed a 9,000-year lease on a brewery at St James’s Gate, Dublin. The brewery site covered four acres and there was stabling for twelve horses used in the production and delivery of the beer. Expansion continued and by 1833 the brewery at St James’s Gate had become Ireland’s largest, surpassing all others.
RAPID EXPANSION
By 1868 annual production had risen to 350,000 casks of Stout and in 1873 the size of the site was doubled, spreading north of James’s Street to bound the Liffey. This land provided access to the River Liffey (and from there onwards to Dublin Port), and also to Kingsbridge Station (renamed Sean Heuston Station in 1966) – the main terminus of the Great Southern and Western Railway, and a link to the Irish rail network.
This new expansion divided the Brewery in two, creating an ‘upper’ level and a ‘lower’ level, separated by James’s Street. Several departments were moved to the new ‘lower level’ including the Cooperage, washing and filling sheds. However, it became more and more difficult to move materials around the much larger site with horse-power alone. The Company’s solution was to construct a railway.
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THE ENGINEER
In 1874 the Brewery’s newly appointed Engineer-in-Chief was Dublin born Samuel Geoghegan (1845 – 1928), brother of William the Head Brewer and married into a brewery family, the Pursers who ran and managed the brewery in the 19th century. He held the position of Chief Engineer to Arthur Guinness & Son for 27 years and oversaw construction of the railway and spiral tunnel.
Samuel Geoghegan brought a wealth of railway and engineering experience following his time spent working in England, Turkey and in India where he had built a two-mile long railway bridge over the Chenab and Punjab rivers.
TWO GAUGES
In designing the railway, two difficulties had to be overcome. Firstly, the track needed to be narrow enough to navigate through the Brewery, but a connection was still needed to the broad gauge track in the nearby Heuston Station. The solution was to lay two different types of track – a 22” narrow gauge system for working within the Brewery boundaries, and a 5ft 3in broad gauge system to link to Heuston Station.
To avoid having to purchase broad gauge locomotives, Geoghegan came up with the idea of designing his narrow gauge locomotives that could be lifted by a crane-gantry and placed within a special ‘haulage wagon’, which was then propelled by the locomotive’s wheels driving intermediate wheels, which in turn drove the wagon’s wheels via a 1:3 reduction gearbox. This unique solution which operated from 1888 until 1964 allowed the brewery narrow gauge engine to become a broad gauge locomotive for the journey to Heuston Station along St. John’s Road.
SPIRAL TUNNEL
Secondly, there was the problem of how to link the track between the ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ levels – with a difference in height between them of 50 feet. This was initially overcome by using a hydraulic lift to lower the locomotives down to the lower level – this eventually proved too slow.
In 1875, Samuel Geoghegan proposed that a tunnel be built to bring the locomotives from the upper to the lower level. A spiral rather than a straight tunnel was built, to cope with the difference in height. The tunnel, similar in design to tunnels through the Alps, turned 2.5 revolutions underneath St. James’s Street. The spiral tunnel had a radius of 61ft 3” and cost £3,000. Locomotives were then used to haul malt-wagons, spent grains, casks, and hops around the Brewery from one level to the other.
LOCOMOTIVE DESIGN
The narrow gauge engines, which ran along the railway within the Brewery site, were initially all steam-powered. The first five narrow gauge locomotives were bought between 1875 and 1878. The two bought in 1876, No.2 and No.3, were known as ‘Malt’ and ‘Hops’, and weighed 5 tons each.
None of these engines proved entirely satisfactory and so Samuel Geoghegan set about designing the perfect Guinness narrow gauge engine by combining all of the design features of the first five locomotives. Geoghegan’s new design provided dirt protection with the sensitive components of the locomotive mounted far from the ground, as the absence of this feature of design on the previous five locomotives had caused a lot of problems.
His resulting design was an 0−4−0 side tank locomotive engine with horizontally mounted cylinders situated above the relatively small marine-type boiler driving through a crankshaft and vertical connecting rods, which in turn drove the wheels. His novel design was for the cylinders and side tanks to be bolted to the frame instead of the boiler. He designed an independent spring frame which consisted of eight steel leaves in pairs, with two pairs on each side of the locomotive and one pair each above and below the axle-boxes. Another novel feature was that by removing the pins and connecting rods, the locomotive could be lifted by a crane-gantry and the spring frame rolled out from underneath for ease of maintenance.
This design allowed for ease of access for maintenance, the sensitive components to be protected from dirt and a narrow gauge compact locomotive with a wheel base of just 3 feet yet able to pull a maximum load of 75 tonnes.
In 1880 Geoghegan patented his unique driving mechanism: ” Patent Number 226,230 – relates to improvements applied to locomotive-engines, tram-cars, and other vehicles propelled by gas, steam, or other motive power, whereby the driving mechanism is removed from proximity to dirt and dust, while it is rendered easily accessible and suitable provision is made for the use of springs.”
SUCCESSFUL RAILWAY
The first Geoghegan engine, the ‘No. 6’, was built by Avonside Engine Company in 1882. The design proved so successful that another seventeen were manufactured between 1887 and 1921, all built locally by William Spence at the Cork Street Foundry. These engines survived right through the Second World War and were only withdrawn gradually as the new ‘Planet’ diesel engines were introduced; numbers 23 and 24 lasted until 1957.
The narrow gauge railway was in use right up until 1975. Today Geoghegan engine No. 17 and a Planet diesel engine No. 47 both feature in the Transport display at Guinness Storehouse. No. 13 Geoghegan engine is preserved at the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum in Wales and no. 23 Geoghegan engine is preserved at the Amberley Working Museum in West Sussex. No. 22 Geoghegan engine along with several grain wagons was given on permanent loan by Robert Guinness to the Cavan & Leitrim Railway. This Geoghegan engine is currently in the planning stage to return to steam, requiring new connecting rods and a boiler and when completed No. 22 will be the only Geoghegan engine in steam anywhere in the world.
EIGHT MILE NETWORK
By the time the railway was complete in 1877, there was eight miles of track within the Brewery site. The development of the internal brewery railway was instrumental in streamlining the production and delivery process as a little over 9 years later in 1886 Guinness was officially the biggest brewery in the world with an annual production of 1.2 million casks.
THE STOREHOUSE
In 1997, it was decided to convert the Guinness Storehouse, replacing the Guinness Hop Store as the Brewery’s visitor centre. Built in 1902 the brewery Storehouse was constructed in the Chicago School of Architecture style and was the first multi-storey steel-framed building to be constructed in in the British Isles.
Spread across seven floors, the Guinness Storehouse interactive displays explain the history of beer including ingredients, brewing, cooperage, advertising, sponsorship and includes the history of transporting Guinness across the world. On display is the 9,000-year lease signed by Arthur Guinness on the brewery site and the Planet and Geoghegan narrow gauge engines.
If you have an idea for a story, please email Kevin Reid [email protected]
Sources of Information, Video & Photo Credits:
Credit: Images courtesy of Guinness Archive, Diageo Ireland
Credit: Cavan & Leitrim Railway
Credit: Graces Guide: Geoghegan Locomotives
Credit: Revd Roger Farnworth
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