Something on rail across the Irish Sea in Ulster

[rjhowie]

The situation over in N.I. tends to be overlooked here in Britain. I have often used N. Ireland Rlys when I go on breaks over there from Glasgow. It also tends to be overlooked in the rail sim world too! However that will change sometime, hopefully in 2011 if I can get my present project done on Trainz where I am building the whole of the NIR.

Anyway rail has a sad history over there. At one time trackage reached nearly 900 miles but today around 215 or so and one line is mothballed due to lack of finance. It is kept intact though as an alternative route to Londonderry. In 1948 at Nationalisation the new Ulster Transport Authority took over bus and rail. Heavily weighted in management b bus people right from the word go it started savaging the railway networ. The former Belfast & County Down lost 5 of it's 6 lines and the same happened in the old areas that had been run by the Great Northern (Ireland) and the Northern Counties Committee (LMS in Ireland). Decades later the UTA was replaced by the NIR, Ulsterbus and Metro Bus in Belfast. Today they are under the Translink umbrella. NIR was starved of support for years and as the railway down south prospered and extended the NIR was clinging on. In the last decade there was strong danger that all that would be left would be the Belfast-Dublin and Bangor commuter.

However there was some improvement in more recent times with clapped out rolling stock replaced by a fleet of CAFs and more to come. Stations were done up and with better trains, timetabling and facilities passenger numbers soared by as much as 30%. Targets were reached early. The Londonderry Line is at long last being improved with new passing places as the line is singled beyond Antrim (originally doubled to Ballymena).That line faces stiff competion from road as it is more semi-circular than road but again numbers have got better since modernisation. Now the trains on the Larne Line are to replaced and two years ago the NIR won the best operator award in the UK. There are still niggles. It gets less of a subsidy than the IE down south gets and the train companies over here on the mainland. It is not covered by Railtrack either and therefor has the added matter of being responsible for everything unlike here. Moves by Town Councils to get some rail re-instatement have fallen on deaf ears and in these straightened times even more of a dream. Vast ares of West Ultster have been trackless since Beeching and the nasties on the old UTA. Today the NIR has the following...
Belfast-Bangor
Belfast-Portadown - and Dublin Enterprise Expresses shared by N. Ireland Rlys and Irish Rail).
Belfast-Larne.
Belfast-Londonderry.
Coleraine-Portrush.
Lisburn-Antrim Junction. This line is mothballed but is being kept in place by the NIR and a short part is used for training purposes. It passes one of Belfast's two airports the International (right up the boundary fence) and airlines have asked why a line is not extends from that mothballed route for a Belfast link.

So now you know something more of the rail world in Ulster. The NIR may be a small outfit but it is doing what it can and improved it's reduced historical circumstances. Oh and I am not an Ulsterman but Glasgow born and bred (!). In building the NIR on Trainz I will be furthering rail matters from there that wee bit further!