The contracts for the construction of the Burtonport Extension Railway (and the Carndonagh extension) lines were given to George Pauling, an English born engineer who emigrated to Africa and whose company subsequently built railways all over the world. His autobiography “Chronicles of a Contractor”, published shortly after his death in 1919, outlines the various railway projects he was involved with and makes only a brief mention of the problems experienced in the construction of the extensions, duee not only to the nature of the terrain but also dogged by bureaucracy and his dealings with the Board of Works: “I was persuaded to tender for two light railways in Co. Donegal, from Carndonagh to Buncrana and from Letterkenny to Burtonport. We got these contracts and, if we had been treated fairly and allowed to make deviations, without the severe conditions imposed on us, which would have improved the railway while greatly reducing the cost, we should have made money. We were, however, held to the absolute letter of the contract, specifications and surveys and the result, I am sorry to say, was the purchase of experience at very heavy cost. We also had a bit of ill luck on the Burtonport line. About half a mile of railway, after it had been laid and while being ballasted, suddenly disappeared into an underground lake, the crust of bog overlying it having given way. As we could not build a railway over a bottomless bog it was necessary to provide for a detour to skirt the edge of the morass and link up further on with the line as originally surveyed. We found that it was a much more difficult matter to arrange a deviation in Ireland than in Africa. It took us a long time to get permission to make this deviation and the delay was to us costly. When ultimately we did obtain the necessary authority we had, at our expense, to make the line through very heavy and very hard rock, which added greatly to the loss we sustained on the contract. The work was originally under the supervision of Mr. Elliott and, later on, in the hands of Mr. James Butler. All our united experience and advice was of no avail and, owing to the exacting terms of the contracts and the extremely literal interpretation placed upon them by the authorities concerned, both jobs resulted in very considerable loss to the firm”.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 18:36:03 +0000
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