This abandoned shot is a piece of Hollywood history - in Ireland. It's also about the only time you are likely to find a connection with John Wayne on RP. This is Ballygunin station in County Galway, Ireland, on a closed section of the line from Limerick to Claremorris. It has been closed since 1975, but it's claim to fame is that it is the station that masqueraded as Castletown for the John Ford film, "The Quiet Man". In June 1951 the cast and crew started filming in typically rainy summer weather. What appears for less than five minutes in the film took almost three weeks to shoot. The film opens with the arrival at the station by train of Wayne playing Sean Thornton, a returning emigrant. This was a memorable scene, in which all the locals try to explain how to get to Innisfree. A special old steam loco with two 1920s type carriages left from Tuam railway station each day for filming. The second scene shot there was with Maureen O’Hara. She is leaving by train when her new husband, Wayne rides in and finds her in the last carriage and drags her away to get her ‘fortune’ from her brother. Ballyglunin station was opened in November 1860 by the Waterford, Limerick and Western Railway. In 1903 the line was taken over by Great Southern and Western Railway, who revamped Ballyglunin and built a second platform with a canopy and a single storey residence, waiting room, office & toilets, and lamp room and with a footbridge spanning the tracks. The bridge has now been moved to Ballinasloe. These improvements also included an enlarged roods store, a run-through goods store for two wagons and a cattle loading siding. This was much used from 1935 to 1975 for loading beet wagons for Tuam Sugar factory. During the War of Independence the Limerick to Sligo goods train was raided here. The items taken included two barrels of Guinness, 56lb of butter, 5,000 cigarettes, four bags of flour, two sides of bacon, and 48 Christmas cakes. The goods store was raided on several occasions, spirits and bacon being the prime targets. On Christmas Eve the evening mail train was held up here and the passengers’ identities checked. These incidents led to the station being protected by an army guard on a 24-hour basis. The station is being slowly restored by a local charitable group. As part of the rationalisation of the rail network by CIÉ in the 1960s and 1970s, the station was closed along with the rest of the line for passenger services in 1976. The line remained opened for short periods each winter for the beet traffic until it finished in June 1980. The Irish Government's plan is to re-open the Limerick-Claremorris line, under the name Western Railway Corridor. The re-opening is intended to occur in three stages. The first section between Limerick and Athenry opened in 2010. The second stage will restore the section between Athenry and Tuam, with Ballyglunin as an intermediate stop. Unfortunately, Government money for investment is now very tight in Ireland, so the restoration of this section is indefinitely postponed. However, Irish Rail's Rail Vision 2030 report recommends Galway-Tuam to be a priority for review when finances become available
