SCHOOL EDITION 29 MAY 2024 - Flipbook - Page 4
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WEDNESDAY JANUARY 22 2020
www.irishnews.com
NEWS
newsdesk@irishnews.com
70 years since rail network
reached end of the line
In 1950 Stormont
ministers closed a large
part of Northern Ireland’s
railway network in favour
of investing in roads. Seventy
years on a Co Down heritage
railway is hoping to reignite
memories from the era of what
was considered the golden
age of rail travel. Marie Louise
McConville reports
O
N JANUARY 15 1950 the
first part of Northern Ireland’s railway network
came to an end with the
axe falling on a large part of the
old Belfast and County Down Railway (BCDR), marking the end of
100 years of railway transport in
east Down.
Having viewed railways as being
a thing of the past and too costly,
the government decided to shut
down stations south of Comber,
resulting in a once key transport
corridor falling silent.
The decision meant that no
longer would trains and their passenger-filled carriages, on their
way to Castlewellan or Newcastle, call at Ballygowan, Saintfield,
Ballynahinch junction, Crossgar,
or Dundrum, or branch off after
Downpatrick for Ardglass.
Later that year services from
Belfast to Comber also ceased.
Stormont ministers had taken
LEAVING: The
Belfast train leaving
Downpatrick on
June 6 1949
the decisions in the belief that
it would be cheaper to move
everything to the roads rather
than invest in railways.
Robert Gardiner, chairman of
the Downpatrick and County
Down Railway, a heritage railway
set up on the former Downpatrick
Belfast and County Down Railway
terminus, said: “It seems incredible today to think that such a
vital transport link could be
easily discarded, but in
1950 the ministers in
the devolved Stormont government
took the view that
railways were as
obsolete as the
stagecoach.
“In a way,
they
were
right that the
lines were
Edwardi a n
relics and the BCDR in particular
still operated obsolete Victorian
carriages but investment since
then in new technologies in track,
signalling and rolling stock over
those years have showed what we
could have had throughout Northern Ireland,” he said.
In 1948, the Stormont government decided to nationalise the
network and amalgamate the network providers with the bus operator, the Northern Ireland Road
Transport Board, to form the
Ulster Transport Authority, a predecessor to Translink.
Mr Gardiner said a tribunal was
set up to “consider how this could
be best achieved and provide an
integrated transport system”.
“Rail chiefs, who had been hoping for investment after the railways had proved so crucial to the
war effort a few years earlier and
that the buses would be barred
from competing with the trains
and instead provide a feeder service to stations, were devastated
at the outcome,” he said.
“The recommendation, accepted
by Stormont, was that the entire
Belfast and County Down Railway
main line from Belfast to Newcastle, including the branches to
Donaghadee, Ballynahinch and
Ardglass, should be closed. The
only route to be saved was the
Belfast to Bangor connection.
“The attitude of Stormont was
that it would be cheaper to move
“It seems incredible
today to think that
such a vital transport
link could be easily
discarded, but in 1950
the ministers in the
devolved Stormont
government took the
view that railways were
as obsolete as the
stagecoach” Robert Gardiner
everything to the roads than to invest in railways that had been run
down during the Second World
War. People would use the buses instead. They developed huge
road building schemes [and] most
were never completed but closed
the railways first before these
were even started.”
The 1950 closures were the first
steps in a plan which was to see
the reduction of the Northern Ireland’s railway network from 754
miles to 297 miles, a decrease of
61 per cent.
Seventy years on and to mark the
demise of the BCDR, the Downpatrick and County Down Railway is
keen to make contact with anyone
who had any connection with the
network, including former employees or their families, or people in
possession of railway memorabilia such as photographs, tickets,
timetables or even carriages.
Mr Gardiner said they were particularly keen to track down a
BCDR uniform or tunic.
“So far, we have been unable to
track one down,” he said.
“Perhaps you have something in
your loft?”
n Anyone with information or
who can help can contact DCDR
by email at info@downrail.co.uk
or message at www.facebook.
com/downrail
CHANGE: The
track being lifted at
Tullymurry Station
in 1953
FAREWELL:
From left, station
master James
Taylor, engine
rosterer Walter
Paton, fireman
James Hill and
driver Barney
Malone in 1950