Industrial heritage news for 2025
The BBC reports on an innovative bye product of the sewage treatment business undergoing trials in Blackburn in England.
United Utilities is extracting glucose from toilet paper passing through the treatment plant, which they advise could be used as biofuel and other materials.
They also advise that the glucose will not enter the food chain.
I could see this one coming a mile away (even if the track it was on is not straight!). Two separate groups in two separate parts of the country calling for the restoration of rail services on lines that have been converted to greenways.
The first in Westmeath with Westmeath County Councillors have called for the railway from Mullingar to Athlone to be re-opened.
That would be the one that is now a greenway.
Similarly in Cork, a group calling themselves the East Cork Rail Alliance are calling for restoration of rail services to Youghal, the line from Midleton to Youghal now also a greenway.
Dear boys and girls, once a greenway, never a railway.
The Irish News reports on a proposed masterplan for Belfast City Airport, which apparently wants to have a railway station on the adjacent railway line to Bangor.
But not this one for some reason:
Personally, I can’t see Translink building a new station when Sydenham is already on the airport’s doorstep. If money were no object, there would be an argument to close Sydenham and build a new station further east as well as re-opening Victoria Park. However, the Cost Benefit Analysis of such a proposal would be negative.
Due to a fire under the bridge carrying the LUAS Red line at George’s Dock, there are no trams running between Busaras and The Point, with the authorities advising that the George’s Dock bridge will need to be demolished and rebuilt.
As a result of this, there is a replacement bus in operation between the Point and Amiens Street, using former London Transport buses, complete with roundel logo.
This makes for a interesting juxtaposition of LT roundel and LUAS branding on buses in Dublin
The Belfast Telegraph reports on the restoration of an in situ ‘isolation pillar’ which was part of the tram network in Belfast. These allowed engineers to isolate part of the network for maintenance whilst keeping the rest of the network running.
The box is located on Linenhall Street and has both the city coat of arms and “BTH” for “British Thompson Houston”, cast into it.
The latest railway station in Ireland has opened. Woodbrook Station on the DART line, between Bray and Shankill, opened on 10th August 2025.
I managed to get out there on the opening day and managed to nab a free ice cream cone (courtesy of Irish Rail or the developer of the adjacent residential development, I don’t know).
I also spotted Irish Rail’s Barry Kenny and CEO Jim Meade in conversation on the concourse outside the station. I did think of saying hello, but I don’t think either gentleman would have wanted their Sunday ruined by having one of their biggest critics identify himself.
The Irish Government has just published a new development plan for the country, proposing investment in many areas of infrastructure and services.
The images on the front cover of the report include an image of a train. However, an unfortunate error has occurred in that the image included is that of an NIR railcar and not a train from the Republic of Ireland.
Rather than the shibboleth of the Republic of Ireland taking over Northern Ireland, it looks like the National Development Plan is proposing the opposite.
The Irish Independent has a video interview with Barry Kenny of Irish Rail, going behind the scenes at Connolly Station. This includes a visit to the Central Traffic Control (CTC).
RTE (and others) are reporting that the High Court objections to DART+WEST to Maynooth have been dropped and the project can now proceed.
Having said that, the lack of a depot stymies the plan and Irish Rail need to progress this latter urgently. I remain of the view that the appropriate location of this is west of Kilcock (adjacent to the Musgraves depot) with a Park & Ride site and new station on the Sligo side of the old N4 road overbridge.
I would also suggest another station to the east of the present one, opposite Millerstown with a footbridge over the Royal Canal to facilitate greater access to same. This would allow for the closure of the current town station, facilitating track realignment on an easier curve than presently permitted at this location, as well as overcoming the difficulty of having 2 platforms at the current station site.
The Railway Accident Investigation Unit (RAIU) has released a brief report on an incident that occurred in January 2025 at Navan Road Parkway Station in Dublin.
To cut a long story short (full report linked to above), the gates on Platform 2 (citybound platform) at Navan Road Parkway were left locked on the morning of 31st January 2025, resulting in a number of passengers crossing the tracks to exit the station from Platform 1, where the access gates were not locked.
Interestingly, the RAIU report notes that in such instances, those on the line are not trespassers in the legal sense of the term.
I recently had a letter published in the local media, accusing Irish Rail of incompetence, basing this assertion on 35 years of experience of criticising same. It looks like the RAIU agree.