Londonderry Foyle Road 1945 to 2020

After the war ended in 1945 the railways of Northern Ireland were subjected to even more competition from road transport.

In 1949 Nationalisation came to the railways of Northern Ireland, with the notable exception of the GNRI. As the GNRI operated in two separate countries nationalisation of only part of it, that which was in Northern Ireland, would have proved to be difficult. The Ulster Transport Authority (UTA) was set up to run transport services within Northern Ireland (including buses and road haulage) and it very quickly showed itself to be a pro-road entity. On 15 January 1950 the entire system of the Belfast & County Down Railway was closed down on the same day, with the exception of branches to Bangor and Donaghadee. Other closures came thick and fast in 1950 when many former NCC lines were closed such as their narrow gauge lines in County Antrim and the former County Down branch to Donaghadee on 22 April 1950.

The GNRI had introduced diesel powered trains onto its network as early as 1932 in the form of railcars. In 1948 the GNRI had ordered twenty diesel railcars from AEC Ltd. They started to operate on services to and from Belfast and Dublin in particular from their introduction in June 1950 until all were in service by April 1951. One set of these new AEC Railcars were used to operate the 2.10pm Belfast Great Victoria Street to Londonderry Foyle Road and the 6.40pm Londonderry Foyle Road to Belfast Great Victoria Street services.

The GNRI, having avoided nationalisation in both parts of Ireland by 1950, did not face the same levels of closure as the other railways of Northern Ireland but financially it was struggling and by 1953 it could no longer continue. From 1 September 1953 the governments of the Republic of Ireland (the Irish free State had become a full republic on Easter Monday 1949) and Northern Ireland formed the Great Northern Railway Board (GNRB). The board included equal representation from both governments. The Republic had nationalised all its railways under Córas Iompair Éireann (CIE) in 1950 (with the exception of the GNRI, CDRJC, L&LSR and the SL& NCR).

The GNRB timetable that came into effect on 27 June 1954 showed eight departures Monday-to-Friday. Three of the departures were fast trains for Belfast Victoria Street which included a restaurant car. On Saturdays there was an additional departure at 11.10pm which ran to Victoria Bridge. On Sundays there were two departures both of which went to Belfast Great Victoria Street. In 1955 the GNRB introduced a second AEC Railcar set on the Derry Road services which still required three steam hauled passenger services in each direction. Goods traffic to Derry/Londonderry remained busy especially cattle traffic, but was starting to decline due to road competition.
 
On 1 January 1955 the UTA closed Londonderry Victoria Road station and the 3ft gauge   CDR line to Strabane for all public traffic.
 
The GNRB invested £528,000 in another twenty four diesel railcars ordered in 1956, which would directly benefit Foyle Road as they would be put into service on the Belfast – Derry/Londonderry services.  These became known as the BUT railcars. They were based upon the earlier AEC railcars and were put into service between July 1957 and October 1958. One of the first services operated by the new BUT railcars, from September 1957, was from Foyle Road to Belfast Great Victoria Street on the former Mail train bringing to an end the last through carriage workings between Derry/Londonderry and Dublin.

Despite these attempts at modernisation, the GNRB continued to make losses, the Northern Ireland government was not of a mind to sustain them and economies started to be made. In 1956 Stormont had announced that there would be more closures, which included the route between Omagh and Enniskillen (part of the original route of the L&ER) and these lines, 115 miles in total, were closed during September/October 1957. These severe closures were opposed by the Dublin Government and the GNRB as being unrealistic and economically damaging.

The political issues of 1921/22 had not gone away. In 1956 the Irish republican Army (IRA) launched its ‘border campaign’ directed at the Northern Ireland government. Initially attacks were made against police stations and customs posts but other targets quickly followed. At 3.31am on 3 March 1957 the Enniskillen to Derry/Londonderry goods train left Strabane with SG3 Class locomotive number 13 at its head. The train travelled 3 miles up to the McKinney’s bridge where detonators went off underneath it and a red light was seen ahead. The train crew brought it to a stop and shortly after they had done so armed ‘Derry Unit’ IRA men with blackened faces climbed onto the footplate and into the guards van. They ordered the railwaymen off the train and told them to walk back to Strabane. The IRA men then started the train and set off for Derry/Londonderry. At 3.52am the Strabane North Cabin signalman realised that it had taken a long time for the goods train to clear his section of line. At 4.30am the signalman at St Johnston Cabin called Strabane North and explained that he had seen the train pass with several men on the footplate and their faces were covered. He explained that he had alerted Londonderry North Cabin that something was wrong and heading their way. At that point the train crew walked into Strabane North Cabin and explained what had happened. At Carrigans station the goods train had slowed down and the IRA men jumped off just before the border (about a mile north of Carrigans). The last person to jump off had opened the regulator and sent the train on towards Derry/Londonderry out of control. The signalman at Londonderry North Cabin set the points into the empty arrival platform at Foyle Road. The runaway goods train went into the arrival platform at speed and crashed into the buffers. The train of 400 tons demolished the buffers and wrecked the station forecourt and some offices. The noise of the crash could be heard throughout the city. At the same time fires were deliberately started in the goods yard. Seven wagons had been totally wrecked but fortunately there had been no loss of life. It took two weeks to repair the track and station.

On 1 October 1957 Londonderry Foyle Road lost its services to Enniskillen, Clones and Dundalk. Later that same year the Northern Ireland government at Stormont announced that it was going to end the agreement with Dublin that had created the GNRB in 1953.

In the summer months of 1958 a through working between Londonderry Foyle Road and Dublin Amiens Street (Dublin Connolly after 1966) was introduced using the new BUT Railcars. The up service departed from Foyle Road at 3.50pm and arrived at Dublin at 8.15pm. The through service to Dublin was not continued with by the UTA, once it took over part of the GNRB in October 1958. The new BUT Railcars also offered the fastest journey times between Belfast Great Victoria Street and Londonderry Foyle Road since 1939. Passengers could leave Foyle Road at 7.15am and arrive in Great Victoria Street at 9.55am. The fastest train from Belfast left at 8.25am arriving in Foyle Road at 11.10am and nearly all BUT operated services included at least a buffet car service.

At midnight on 30 September 1958 the GNRB ceased to exist when the ‘Board’ was wound up and the assets of the company were divided between the UTA of Northern Ireland and the CIE of The Republic of Ireland. The rolling dock of the GNRB was also divided between the two government owned transport companies, so for example the CIE got 12 of the new BUT railcars and so did the UTA. Foyle Road was affected by the change when the UTA withdrew one train in each direction of the through Belfast – Derry/Londonderry services.

The 8 mile long section of the Derry/Londonderry – Strabane line that lay within the Republic of Ireland was isolated from the rest of the CIE network. Despite this situation the stations did pass into the hands of CIE. The local trains however were operated by the UTA. Those services, of which there were only 4 local trains in each direction, serving Carrigans, Porthall and St Johnston, were often provided using ex-GNRI railcar A.  These services operated from Foyle Road to Strabane or Omagh with a Saturday only evening local to Victoria Bridge. In 1959 when the UTA introduced a new timetable some local services to and from Derry were cancelled and there was one less through service in each direction from Belfast to Derry/Londonderry. There was still in 1959 a daily local goods service from Foyle Road to Strabane on weekdays, with a return working serving the intermediate stations.

In 1961 the Londonderry South Cabin was closed and replaced by a ground frame due to a steady decline in goods traffic since the early 1950s. With the increased use of railcars and declining goods traffic, fewer steam locomotives were now required. In 1962 it was noted that both the locomotive shed and goods shed had become neglected in appearance. The LP&HC announced the official closure of all the quayside lines from 31 August 1962 but, in reality, after 1959 they had seen few goods trains from the former GNR lines for various reasons. City Goods station would have also closed at this time.

The weekday passenger service of 1962 consisted of four arrivals and departures to/from Belfast Great Victoria Street (services that were diagrammed to be worked by BUT railcars), a service to and from Strabane and a service to and from Omagh (worked by railcar A which had been renumbered by the UTA to 101). Three of the Belfast services in each direction included a restaurant or buffet car. Goods traffic remained steady and there were 2 trains to and from Belfast on weekdays. Photos from this time show a variety of goods traffic was being handled at Foyle Road including fuel oils and substantial goods traffic from the Irish Republic to St Johnston in particular.

To operate the 1962 summer timetable, goods and passenger services, between Foyle Road and Portadown, required 3 railcar sets, 8 steam locomotives and a single railcar (number 101). Most of the steam locomotives used were based at Portadown but one steam engine was based at Londonderry Shed for local services and to act as a pilot at Strabane. The engine was usually a U Class 4-4-0.

In 1962 the Northern Ireland government commissioned an enquiry into its railways. The enquiry was carried out by Colonel Henry Benson and on 17 July 1963 he published his report (which became known as the Benson Report). The report recommended the closure of the ‘Derry Road’ route. Tyrone County Council supported by other local authorities along the route attempted to stop the closure through dialogue with the Northern Ireland government and when that failed they resorted to court action against the plans of the UTA, who were following orders from Stormont.

With the threat of closure hanging over the line services to and from Londonderry Foyle Road continued much as they had done in 1962. The June 1964 working timetable (with details of changes from September 1964) shows the last months of the Derry Road.  Even at this late stage there were still goods trains running between Londonderry Foyle Road and Belfast six nights a week (Sunday night being the exception). There were also 2 passenger trains between Belfast Great Victoria Street and Foyle Road on Sundays which did not serve any stations between Strabane and Derry/Londonderry. Mondays-to-Fridays there were 5 departures from Foyle Road to Belfast Great Victoria Street all operated by diesel railcars except for one summer only steam hauled service to Belfast Great Victoria Street which departed at 10.15am. Services departed Foyle Road from 7.05am to 8.30pm Mondays-to-Saturdays. On Saturdays there were just 4 trains to Belfast Great Victoria Street and two local services to Strabane. Of the two locals the 6.10pm from Foyle Road was the only train of the week that called at Carrigans, Porthall and St Johnston which was booked to be steam hauled. Saturdays also saw empty stock trains to Omagh.

There were 5 trains from Belfast Great Victoria Street to Londonderry Foyle Road Mondays-to-Saturdays. One of these services was summer only and it was the only service from Belfast not operated by diesel railcars. Services arrived at Foyle Road from 11.25am to 11.02pm on weekdays. There were 3 local services from Strabane that ran on Saturdays only; two of these trains were booked to be steam hauled. All of the local trains from Strabane called at the three intermediate CIE stations along with a service from Belfast.

Special services also ran in 1964 including heavily loaded steam hauled trains which ran on Wednesday 12 August 1964 for the annual Apprentice Boys Demonstration.

In the end the court action that was taken by Tyrone County Council was to fail and closure was announced for 4 January 1965. A second hearing merely staved off the closure for another 6 weeks for passengers only until 14 February 1965. Goods services however officially ceased on 4 January 1965 as originally planned by the UTA.

In the run up to Christmas 1964 extra services were put on (many of them steam hauled) to cater for the large numbers of people travelling home for the festive season.

On Saturday 13 February 1965 most of the passenger services were operated using steam haulage. Many people came out to see the trains and to bid them farewell. The last through service to Belfast on that day was hauled by locomotive 170 Errigal which had been purchased from CIE by the UTA as late as 1963.

On Sunday 14 February there were only two scheduled services in each direction and both were operated using BUT railcars. The very last departure from Foyle Road was the 6.30pm train for Belfast Great Victoria Street. It departed from the station with 100 people on board. The last arrival came into Foyle Road station 29½ minutes late at 11.45pm. The train had been delayed by the throngs of people who had turned out to see it along the route from Portadown. The BUT railcar which had operated the final passenger service departed from Foyle Road for Belfast as an empty stock working shortly after midnight.

After the train had left Londonderry North signal cabin was closed and the passenger station was locked up for the last time.

A special train was run on 17 February 1965 to collect items of rolling stock that had not been removed when goods services had ceased from Foyle Road to Portadown.

The UTA removed the GNRI Great War memorial from the station and placed it into safe storage and parts of this were later used to repair bomb damage to the similar GNRI War Memorial at Great Victoria Street in 1974.

Track lifting was carried out in the late autumn of 1965 and after that date the station concourse was used as a garage for buses. This continued through to September 1970. when demolition of the station was completed and the site cleared. Foyle Road was widened and realigned and a connection was made to the lower deck of the Craigavon Bridge, which had been converted for road use by October 1968.

The site of Foyle Road station became a car park during the 1970s.

On the other side of the Craigavon Bridge the site of the former goods yard lay derelict for many years after 1970. In 1989 the Foyle Valley Railway Museum, which included a 3 foot gauge heritage railway operated by the NWIRS, was opened on the site of the former goods station.  In July 2000 Derry City Council closed the Museum and the heritage railway and although the Railway Museum has been re-opened since 2000 on an occasional basis it has remained closed since 2018.