rails (section of)

Cobbled street, comprising granite setts laid around cast-iron Dublin Corporation tram tracks, laid c.1900. Cast-iron point to north of tracks. Stone kerb, flush with surface of tracks, crossing south of tracks.

These tram lines formed part of Dublin Corporations waste disposal system for the city in the opening decades of the twentieth century. Rubbish and street sweepings were collected by horse-drawn carts and brought to a Destructor Plant at Stanley Street, with the waste from this subsequently loaded into specially-constructed tipping wagons, which travelled along track laid from the North Quays up Queen Street, Redcow Lane and North Brunswick Street and carried to the Fairview sloblands, working at night to avoid pedestrians and traffic. Although the tracks and 70 specifically-designed tipping wagons were supplied by Dublin Corporation, DUTC provided power for the lines at a reduced rate. The layout at the Stanley Street Depot incorporated sidings, turntables and point work. The system ceased to operate in 1925. This site is of considerable social and technological significance, as the last vestiges of an early waste-disposal service in Dublin city, and one of the few remaining sites in the country where early tram lines remain in situ. The use of granite setts secured the positioning of the rails, which were laid flush with the street surface, and are testament to the skill and aptitude of civil engineers in the early twentieth century.