PEOPLE may have thought inventor Tim Rowe was going off the rails when he said he was going to build a working locomotive on his farm in West Cork.
But the Ballylickey man set his plans in train and is now raising funds to make the track the longest in West Cork.
Tim has built the railway and a working air locomotive at the Hairy Henry farm in Ballylickey, and it already measures 200 metres.
Tim has started a GoFundMe drive to raise funds to extend the track to 500m.
‘Trains always look nice and I never had a trainset as a child but I always wanted one. But this isn’t a model railway. This is a real working railway on our farm,’ explains Tim.
‘Railways started as a cheap way of moving heavy things around. These days railways are very high tech but in the old days they were used for things like mines and they were practically homemade. I realised you can make a very useful one without spending too much money.
‘Most of the ideas are very basic woodwork and metalwork. The technology is basic but we’ve lost sight of how simple these solutions can be.’
Tim used the railway for moving timber, first using a hand-pushed wagon to run along the rails. ‘Then I decided I’ll make a locomotive, so I built a compressed air locomotive.’ The locomotive was created using a tractor piston and a furze cutter ‘bodged up’, says Tim.
Tim has started a GoFundMe as he now looks to build his next locomotive, and to extend the rail track to 500m, making it the longest railway in West Cork.
Most of his materials can be bought in hardware shops.
Already the GoFundMe has passed €7,000.
Tim will use funds to pay for the next 300m of railway track and also to pay for another locomotive, whether steam or electric, with leftover funds.
Visitors to the Hairy Henry farm will then be able to see the railway in action, says Tim, to demonstrate ‘how easy, how useful, and how cost-effective’ narrow-gauge trains can be.
‘If we can get insurance, we hope to let visitors ride the locomotive,’ said Tim.
The golden age of West Cork’s railways will never return. Nevertheless, Tim believes the technology could be used by community groups, in forestry, or in schools, or potentially for moving people between villages and towns. ‘We hope to inspire people and communities everywhere to build their own light railways when they see it in action,’ says Tim.
The railway isn’t innovator Tim’s first idea which has captured the imagination.
Last year, he built a three-wheeler wooden pedal car using marine plywood, cycling wheels, and a 250-watt electric motor, and which Tim uses to drive from Ballylickey to Bantry.
‘I made four of the cars altogether and I hope to make more,’ said Tim. Indeed he sold plans for his car online for €50 so that people could make the car themselves.
‘I’ve sold about 120 sets of plans,’ said Tim.
• See Tim’s YouTube page at WayOutWest WorkshopStuff.
