The Thomas Cook international railway timetables have been published regularly for over 130 years. They include a section listing scenic railways, including the Settle and Carlisle line in England, Innsbruck to Salzburg in Austria, Bilbao to Santander in Spain and numerous lines in Switzerland.

And there in the list is a line much closer to home. One which perhaps we don’t appreciate and use enough and which we have nearly lost on more than one occasion.

For the first programme in this series, John Bennett travelled that line, along Northern Ireland’s beautiful north coast.

John began his journey in Londonderry which, nowadays, is very much out on a limb as far as the Irish railway system is concerned. But at one time the city was very much a hub of railway activity.

One of Translink’s sleek new trains at Londonderry Waterside station
Photo:Translink

There were no fewer than four termini. There were two routes to Belfast –the much lamented Great Northern line through Strabane, Omagh and Dungannon to Portadown and then on to Belfast and Dublin, closed in 1965, and the Northern Counties line to Belfast via Coleraine and Ballymena which at one time was owned by the London Midland and Scottish Railway.

Then there were two narrow gauge networks. There was the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway which at one time linked the city with Letterkenny, Burtonport, Buncrana and Cardonagh. It is over 50 years since the last train ran, but the company still exists and operates bus services from Londonderry into northern Co. Donegal.

And finally there was the Co Donegal Railways Joint Committee line to Strabane, actually owned by the LMS, which connected with the rest of the Co Donegal network to places such as Letterkenny, Glenties, Donegal town, Ballyshannon and Killybegs at Strabane. These other lines were jointly owned by the LMS and the GNR(I).

Today only the Northern Counties line survives and that forms the first part of John’s journey.

Listen to John talking about his journey

Go to next page >