Notes: Carrickmore station was one of the intermediate stations opened by the Londonderry & Enniskillen Railway (L&ER) when they opened the first section of their single track line between Derry/Londonderry and Strabane on 19 April 1847. The L&ER had been authorised to build their 59 mile line between Derry/Londonderry and Enniskillen in 1845 and work had begun in October of that year.

Carrickmore station was located in a remote spot about a mile to the east of its namesake settlement. No maps or photographs of the station are known to exist so it is not known what facilities it had. It is likely to have been a very simple affair.
 
At the time of opening there were four trains in each direction Monday-to-Saturday and owing to the line’s limited reach (Strabane being the southern terminus) it did not live up to its financial expectations which caused delays with the southward construction from Strabane.

The March 1850 timetable showed four trains in each direction from Carrickmore. In the up direction (to Strabane) there were trains at 7.00am, 9.30am, 2.00pm and 4.30pm. The 7.00am train was titled the ‘Sligo Mail’ and the 4.30pm service was the ‘Dublin Mail’. In the down direction there were trains at 7.55am, 10.30am, 3.00pm and 5.25pm. The 7.55am train was the down ‘Dublin Mail’ and the 5.25pm the down ‘Sligo Mail’.

The original terminus at Derry/Londonderry was about a mile from the centre of the city and therefore inconvenient for both passengers and goods. To address this the L&ER opened an extension to a new station closer to the city centre (at Foyle Road) on 18 April 1850.

Carrickmore was not a successful station as it served an isolated area. On 1 May 1848 the L&ER had opened a station at Porthall, just 1.75 miles to the south of Carrickmore. By 1853 they clearly considered that it was more capable of handling the sparse traffic in the local area.  Carrickmore was closed to regular services from 1 February 1853 but it remained open as a flag station for market days and other special occasions.

It took until 19 August 1854 for the L&ER to reach Enniskillen and it wasn’t until 15 February 1859 for a connection to be made through to Dublin.

In 1861, only 14 years after it had been opened, Carrickmore station was closed completely.
The line went on to become a major trunk route, that became known as the ‘Derry Road’, of the Great Northern Railway Ireland (formed in 1876), a company that lasted as a private concern until 1953 and within public ownership until 1958.

Route map by Alan Young

Sources:

• Bradshaw, G Bradshaw's Rail Times for great Britain and Ireland - March 1850 (Middleton Press, 2012)
• Challoner, E Fairwell the Derry Road (Colourpoint, 2010)
• Johnson, S Johnson's Atlas & Gazetteer of The Railways of Ireland (Midland Publishing, 1997)
• Patterson, E The Great Northern Railway Ireland (The Oakwood Press, 2003)

To see the other disused stations on the Londonderry Foyle Road - Omagh line click on the station name: Londonderry Foyle Road,
Londonderry (Gallows Strand), Carrigans, St Johnston,
Porthall and Strabane (GNRI)