Overland travel ca. 1900

[Sinann]

"This train will shortly be arriving in Portarlington, will passengers for Portarlington please move forward up the train so as to alight at the platform" 

bet they didn't have to make that announcement in 1899, although to be fair I think most if not all platforms have been lengthened.

My grandmother told us when she was travelling to Egypt in 1900ish a lady always had to have a umbrella/parasol  because unlike today the lights didn't come on when the train went into a tunnel, so a lady quickly put up her umbrella to prevent a man stealing a kiss in the dark.

[tucson mike]

My grandmother told us when she was travelling to Egypt in 1900ish a lady always had to have a umbrella/parasol  because unlike today the lights didn't come on when the train went into a tunnel, so a lady quickly put up her umbrella to prevent a man stealing a kiss in the dark.

Sure an' you believed her, did ya?   

[tucson mike]

See here for a 1902 map but there are lots of other old rail maps online.

The map Aghadowey references is at Wikipedia, which in turn says the original is from a book available at Project Gutenberg. The book is The Sunny Side of Ireland: How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway. It's available here.

The book is a travel guide, not a railway history, but was published in 1902. Project Gutenberg has it in various formats, some of which contain images including maps. It includes this observation on Cobh (Queenstown):

Queenstown is the principal port through which the emigrants leave Ireland. Young and old, when the "emigration fever" is rife, the tides of people may be seen flowing oceanwards. Sometimes they have a little money, and are going to better themselves; but most usually they are going out penniless to relatives abroad, or "just trusting in God." Not an unfrequent sight is to see bare-footed peasant children waiting for their turn to cross the gangway which leads to the New World. Perhaps they have nothing with them but "a pot of shamrock," or a little mountain thrush or orange-billed blackbird, in a wicker cage, to make friends with "beyant the herring-pond." It is very curious, but very Irish, that they do not at all seem to want the sympathy that is lavished upon them by the onlookers. When they are leaving their native place, the "neighbours" hold an "American wake," and in the morning, with heartrending embraces and wild caioning, give them the last "Bannact Dea Leat"—"God's blessing be on your way"; but when they come to Cove, the sorrow is smothered; they are buoyed up by that trusting faith in the future which is the first fibre in the Irish nature. They may look melancholy to us, but they themselves make merry, and before the "big ship" is but on the "Old Sea," as the Atlantic is called, the girls and young men are slipping through rollicking reels to improvised music "to show their heart's deep sorrow they are scorning." Perhaps, as the Gaelic proverb expresses it, "'Tis the heavy heart that has the lightest foot." But a truce to trouble. They tell a story of an emigrant and a grand trunk merchant at Queenstown which shows alike the hapless condition and happy-go-lucky heart of the Irishman. "Pat," said the merchant, "you're going to travel; will you buy a trunk?" "A trunk," answered Pat, "an' for what, yerra?" "To put your clothes in, of course." "And meself go naked, is it? Och! lave off your gladiatoring; sure it's took up I'd be if I did that!"