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