Anniversary of last train to pull out of station in Downpatrick

18 January 2023

LAST Sunday marked the 73rd anniversary of the closure of the Belfast and County Down Railway's lines south of Comber to Downpatrick and to Ardglass, Newcastle and Ballynahinch.

Following a massive accident at Ballymacarrett just beside the Oval football stadium, the old BCDR was left near bankrupt and by 1949 asked the Stormont government for help, other the entire network would shut.

At the time, Westminster was already bringing "The Big Four" railways in Great Britain into state ownership eventually becoming British Railways — which included the Northern Counties line from Belfast to Larne and Londonderry and branches — and Stormont followed suit in line with previous recommendations for the future of transport.

However, the feeling on the ground was not good. The boom of the war years was over and the car and lorry were the up and coming thing.

Railways were seen by Stormont as "as obsolete as the stagecoach".

The BCDR was absorbed into a new Ulster Transport Authority in 1949, along with the Northern Ireland Road Transport Board which operated the buses, and Stormont bought the NCC lines off British Railways.

However, the cross-border Dublin lines of the GNR would be exempt for a further decade.

Soon the UTA announced that it would close all the BCDR, bar the heavily used commuter line to Bangor.

Today, such a decision would probably be met by protests, but back then it was more or less accepted on the ground as “inevitable and justified”.

Indeed, as startling as it seems now to the loss of a rail link through some of the most densely populated areas of Northern Ireland, there is evidence that the lack of protest took even the UTA by surprise.

The Comber/Donaghadee line was to be spared for another four months until April 22 1950 and, when the decision was taken to immediately “dieselise” the services on the Bangor line, too many railcars were order but oddly enough to operate the Bangor and Comber lines.

Even by 1953 when the lifting trains where starting their work there were calls to reinstate or trial services on the Comber line.

The theory was that Comber/Newtownards was supposed to be the olive branch to protests, but when it didn't happen, the decision had already been made and couldn't be reversed.

The Downpatrick and Co Down Heritage Railway is lucky to have in its collection some photos of the last trains to Newcastle and Ardglass.

But railway officials know there are more photographs and revealed the Belfast News Letter covered the closurem of the railway in 1950 and took photos and are certain that more copies of these prints have to exist somewhere.

Anyone who can help heritage railway officials track the photos down is asked to send a private message via Facebook or email info@downrail.co.uk.

The heritage railway recently hosted a successful diesel gala, with some former Irish Rail staff travelling to Downpatrick to sample the trains they used to work with. Some familiar Northern Ireland Railways officials were also among the visitors.

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