Category: General

A few weeks ago, I noted that I had visited about half of the CVR route to photograph the remains of the stations/halts on this line that closed in 1941, expressing the view that it would be 2026 before I’d do the other half.

The Indian summer I conditionally tied this to never came, however, opportunity knocked and I spent Sunday and today in Northern Ireland, knocking off a fair few locations from my list of un-visited stations.

Sunday started in Newry where I got to all 5 former station sites in the city itself. I then availed of the NIR £10 Sunday day tracker ticket to travel to Whitehead in Co. Antrim, where there had been two different station locations south of the now disused tunnel.

On my return from Whitehead, I alighted at Lanyon Place station and walked to the site of Central Junction, taking in the restored Belfast Corporation Tramways location case on Linenhall Street en route. After returning to Newry, I drove to Ballygawley in Co. Tyrone, via Glaslough, Co. Monaghan and overnighted there.

Today saw me visit the western end of the CVR (all stops except Maguiresbridge, which I had already covered) as well as Enniskillen (nothing left) and a re-visit to the SL&NCR line from Enniskillen to Collooney, last visited by me in 2009.

This is probably the last trip in 2025 as the short days and autumn/winter weather sets in.

Before you run to Googlemaps and tell me that Kells is inland and doesn’t have a lighthouse, you are correct.

What is located just outside of Kells is the Spire of Lloyd, a folly constructed in the late 18th century in the form of a doric column with a glazed balcony at its head, giving the appearance of a lighthouse.

Meath County Council have been running tours on Friday mornings over the last few months (ending this month) and as I was heading north last Friday to take part in Heritage Open Days in Northern Ireland (spent the full weekend there), I took the opportunity to pay a visit.

There exist service providers that provide access to the records maintained by the Companies Registration Office for a fee (that this data is not available free to the end user is a disgrace, but not surprising in this kakistocracy).

I came upon this entry on the record for Irish Rail:

From my limited legal knowledge, I understand that the Plantiff is the person/entity initiating legal action (the person/entity on the receiving end of a legal action is the defendant).

As with most Government entities, Irish Rail tends towards fascism when enforcing laws in their favour whilst not applying a similar standard to rules that apply to them (I’d cite the closure of Dunleer station in 1985 without the requisite 2 months notice required by law, but on a technicality, that would fail as it was CIE that did that – Irish Rail only came into existence in 1987).

I recently commented on the report by the RAIU on track access by passengers at Navan Road Parkway. One of the points raised in this report was that information posters which could have allowed imprisoned passengers to contact Irish Rail, contained a phone number which was no longer in use.

I spotted the information poster below on a train recently and checked out what EC Regulation 1371 states. According to the eur.lex.europa.eu site, this regulation was repealed in 2023, stating:

“No longer in force, Date of end of validity: 06/06/2023; Repealed by 32021R0782“

Makes you wonder what other misinformation about the law is put out.

Over the decades of taking photos of Ireland’s railway built heritage, I noticed that different periods see station buildings and other paintable structures in one particular colour across the network, which would suggest that Irish Rail buy their paint in bulk.

Looking back across my archive (over 15,000 railway images), there was a period where yellow was the norm and another where grey took over.

Passing through the walkway in Connolly Station from Amiens Street to the IFSC, I noticed a section of the wall painted in pink. Any bets on pink station buildings in the second half of this decade?

I finally got around to setting up a ChatGPT account, one of the features of which is the ability to create AI generated images. The issue of copyright in such images is unclear, with advice veering towards copyright not been held by the person who initiated the request.

I asked Chat GPT to produce 2 images and to be fair, it did a middling job.

Nothing to do with roadside features – just a post to note that my image collection has, in recent days, hit 15,000 railway digital images and 3,000 canal images.

To commemorate this, digital railway image 15,000 and digital canal image 3,000 are below:

Another weekend, another trip to Northern Ireland. Due to the realpolitik of driving a Republic of Ireland registered car, I have tended to prioritise taking photographs of historic station locations in the Republic of Ireland over Northern Ireland.

This weekend, through combination of bike and train, I successfully visited many former station sites on the railway between Belfast and Larne Harbour.

However, this post is about Grand Central Station. I had the need to use the facilities in the station and, notwithstanding that the station is only open for 4 months, one of the 5 stalls in the gents was out of order, the lock on the door of another stall was missing and the stall I used, the hi tech “button” to flush the toilet did nothing (i.e. failed to flush).

Therein lies the problem with State investment. Governments will provide a lot of money for one off investment in capital projects, but not a red cent towards ongoing maintenance costs. Having said that, I’d have expected the facilities in Grand Central to still be operational 4 months after opening.