Picked up a passing news item on the BBC texting tv news re the NI part and it stated the impressive increase in passengers on Northern Ireland Railways. Its good they are doing that like the rest of mainland GB and especially being the worst of rail reduced many decades ago. The main line between Belfast and Londonderry with the modernisation that sees a train hourly has a big increase. My only disappointment as a regular visitor to over there is the new rather odd change of name from what has been Belfast Central. Head shaking!
Impressive passenger growth in Ulster
- Thread starter rjhowie
- Start date
amigacooke
Well-known member
Perhaps some of those closed lines can be bought back into operation, as exampled by Scotland 
cyberdongreen
AKA: cyberdonblue
The important thing here, though, is the political will; and in Northern Ireland the politicians seem to think of railways as the enemy. The British Road Transport Lobby is probably near to being at its strongest in this neck of the woods.
Chers
Dave
You're right about freight Dave. There is zero railfreight in Northern Ireland and all the freight terminals are long gone with little chance of any return. I still remember seeing the Guinness train heading north from Dublin in the early 00s.
When you look at a map of Ulster, everything north of the purple line, it's the worst served province on the island, only 4 of the 9 counties having any sort of rail service and, except for Downings, Dunfanaghy, Kincasslagh and Glencolumbkille, every town marked on the map had a rail connection. This map shows all the remaining lines in Ulster, namely the main Belfast - Dublin route, Belfast - Bangor, Belfast - Larne and Belfast - Derry. There's next to no chance of any of the closed lines reopening as all the track beds were sold off almost immediately after closure to prevent any reopening.
*EDIT*
I've included a map of historical railways which shows the entire province was once well served by rail. Given Co Donegal is the least populated on the island, it fared well in terms of railways. A number of the lines in the west were narrow gauge, namely the County Donegal Railways Joint Committee (pink) and Londonderry & Loch Swilly Railway (yellow). Although L&LSR stopped operating trains in the late 50s, the company continued up until 2014 and, as far as I know, was the oldest railway company of that era to continue trading so long.
For visitors to the island, there is a small section of the CDRJC preserved at Fintown. Although a fairly short trip, the scenery is exceptional on a good day.
on Flickr
When you look at a map of Ulster, everything north of the purple line, it's the worst served province on the island, only 4 of the 9 counties having any sort of rail service and, except for Downings, Dunfanaghy, Kincasslagh and Glencolumbkille, every town marked on the map had a rail connection. This map shows all the remaining lines in Ulster, namely the main Belfast - Dublin route, Belfast - Bangor, Belfast - Larne and Belfast - Derry. There's next to no chance of any of the closed lines reopening as all the track beds were sold off almost immediately after closure to prevent any reopening.
*EDIT*
I've included a map of historical railways which shows the entire province was once well served by rail. Given Co Donegal is the least populated on the island, it fared well in terms of railways. A number of the lines in the west were narrow gauge, namely the County Donegal Railways Joint Committee (pink) and Londonderry & Loch Swilly Railway (yellow). Although L&LSR stopped operating trains in the late 50s, the company continued up until 2014 and, as far as I know, was the oldest railway company of that era to continue trading so long.
For visitors to the island, there is a small section of the CDRJC preserved at Fintown. Although a fairly short trip, the scenery is exceptional on a good day.
Last edited:
I think PFX we should let folks know that there is still a rail line from just past Lisburn which runs up through Crumlin (not on the map folks) to the Londonderry line at Antrim. It has been withdrawn since the early 2000's and I was fortunate in getting a film made in a cab to help on my present off and on NIR and IR project. The line is still intact and there is a kind of distant wish that one day it could be in use again. Has been mentioned elsewhere has been used re driver training. Unlike mainland GB there is no Network Rail. The petition for Portadown-Armagh brought back was in goodly numbers and the appropriate government minister gave waffle and I knew would get nowhere.
While building he NIreland Railway stsem I had a problem on one of my fly overs from Glasgow. Took the train to Lisburn and walked to the bus station as planned to get as reasonable a view as could. Buses from lisburn and Antrim are spaced out but got the first wee village and vwalla there was a road bridge overlooking the wee former station. When I took a picture and elderly man going for a bus came to speak to me as missed the trains and thought I was there to see about them coming back! Then I had to hang around for ages to get abus to the next staion and here had a problem in that the lane up to the station had long high fences and an equally high gate so no access. So another long wait eventually getting to the last station at Crumlin which was fine as the central road in the town passes over the railway right at the station.
Had got to know a staff member well and through her got a contact with someone else who linked me to a former staff member at Queen's Uni, Belfast. Discovered he had a film oc a cd taken in a cab not long before the line was suspended and wrote to him. On an assurance that obtaining a copy was not for commercial purposes the copy was a big help. had I stuck with my original intention and just the NIR the next stage was to have a second edition with a couple of lines pretending they had been brought back! However stopping at Newry and the end of a board on the cross Border Line was too tempting hence the project is taking ages!
Such a dashed shame that nearly three quarters of the rail system was taken away and the worst part of Britain for that. That the railways has went very much up the way passenger wise is excellent.
While building he NIreland Railway stsem I had a problem on one of my fly overs from Glasgow. Took the train to Lisburn and walked to the bus station as planned to get as reasonable a view as could. Buses from lisburn and Antrim are spaced out but got the first wee village and vwalla there was a road bridge overlooking the wee former station. When I took a picture and elderly man going for a bus came to speak to me as missed the trains and thought I was there to see about them coming back! Then I had to hang around for ages to get abus to the next staion and here had a problem in that the lane up to the station had long high fences and an equally high gate so no access. So another long wait eventually getting to the last station at Crumlin which was fine as the central road in the town passes over the railway right at the station.
Had got to know a staff member well and through her got a contact with someone else who linked me to a former staff member at Queen's Uni, Belfast. Discovered he had a film oc a cd taken in a cab not long before the line was suspended and wrote to him. On an assurance that obtaining a copy was not for commercial purposes the copy was a big help. had I stuck with my original intention and just the NIR the next stage was to have a second edition with a couple of lines pretending they had been brought back! However stopping at Newry and the end of a board on the cross Border Line was too tempting hence the project is taking ages!
Such a dashed shame that nearly three quarters of the rail system was taken away and the worst part of Britain for that. That the railways has went very much up the way passenger wise is excellent.