That it once had its own railway station is the kind of detail that tends to stop people mid-sentence, and yet the record of a station at Ballinamought West, the townland that underlies this part of Montenotte, is enough to confirm that the infrastructure of rail once reached into this unlikely corner of the city.

The Cork, Blackrock and Passage Railway, which opened in 1850, ran along the eastern bank of the Lee and served communities between the city and Passage West, with Montenotte among the stops that brought the line into hilly terrain unusual for early Irish railway engineering. The line was later converted to a narrow gauge in 1900, one of the more technically involved re-gaugings carried out on an Irish passenger railway, and continued operating until its closure in 1932. The station building at this location would have served a relatively compact catchment, given the steep topography of the area, and its presence reflects the ambition of Victorian-era rail promoters to connect suburban and semi-rural communities that might otherwise have remained a considerable walk from the city centre.