the rock face. It is the longest abandoned railway tunnel within the Republic of Ireland, measuring 906 yards (828 metres) end to end. Halfway Viaduct The Viaduct is located at Halfway, between Innishannon and Ballinhassig, c.30m above the valley floor. It is a three arch viaduct of masonry construction. Kilpatrick Tunnel The Kilpatrick (Innishannon) tunnel is 122 meters in length and located less than 1 km west of Inishannon, just before the River Bandon crossing. Services Passenger services on the C&BR and CB&SCR were of low frequency with most routes seeing up to a handful of trains each way a most, with connections being of poor quality at times. Regular diesel railcar operations began on the Cork to service from 28 May 1954 and permitted a reduction in journey time of 38 minutes. Railcars and the 550 hp C-Class diesel locomotives had replaced steam on all but a freight service to by July 1957. The large A class locomotives were used on 2 trial runs, one going to and another going to . 1948 Timetable On the right is the Cork to Bantry passenger timetable that was operational from 1948 until the closure in 1961. A few points may be noted from it: Travel time was about 2 hours. In 2008, a car journey (without the nine intermittent stops) is less than 30 minutes faster, according to the AA website. It was not possible to make a same-day return journey from Bandon to Dublin as the Cork express train left at 9:00 am (arriving at 12:00 pm) and departed at 2:25 pm from Heuston (which would have allowed the 6:00 pm connection to Bandon to be made though). Rolling stock Following the 1924 grouping the Great Southern Railway inherited 20 locomotives CB&SCR. At some point the CB&SCR was recorded as having 68 coaching vehicles and 455 goods vehicles. Locomotives Over 40 steam locomotives were used by the C&BR/CB&SCR, mostly of the tank variety though some early examples had tenders. The most notable are generally considered to be the bandon tanks build by Beyer, Peacock and Company between 1908 and 1920. Also of note are two Baldwin locomotives, the design of 1900 being the only instance of steam locomotives supplied from America to Ireland. Livery The locomotives and carriages were various shades of olive green often with yellow lining. See also History of rail transport in Ireland History of Durrus and