industrialheritageireland.info

The headline had me excited – I thought there was a hitherto hidden version of the Greenwich Foot Tunnel in Dublin that had escaped my attention. Sadly, no. Just a clickbait headline.

The “tunnels” referred to are the pedestrian underpasses that grace Sandwith Street, Upper Erne Street and Macken Street in Dublin, design features of the Dublin & Kingstown Railway that were insisted on by the Wide Streets Commissioners. The article references 3 other “tunnels”, however, these are standard road underbridges with no side arches for pedestrians.

The article calls for Irish Rail to engage in a regular cleanup of the underpasses. I would have thought that this was a Dublin City Council responsibility?

The Irish Examiner reports that Waterford City and County Council are to convert the former station building at Kilmacthomas on the Waterford – Dungarvan Greenway to tourist accommodation.

The plans (part of a bigger scheme to do likewise with a former bank building in Lismore) will see the station building have 2 units capable of hosting 4 people. A separate unit will also be built to house a model railway based on the former railway line. The ongoing management of the venture will be managed by third parties.

industrialheritageireland.info commends WCCC on these initiatives.

I was up in Belfast today, taking photographs of Yorkgate station building and Great Victoria Street station. The specific reason for an urgent trip to Belfast was the impending demolition of both.

In the case of the latter, Translink are developing a new bus/rail interchange station, to be called “Grand Central Station” and due to the layout of this, Great Victoria Street station (which only reopened in 1995) is to close on 10 May 2024, after which it will be demolished. Its replacement is not due to open until 2025.

Separately, Translink have built a new station building at the renamed Yorkgate Station (now York Street, although the platform signs as of today still said Yorkgate) and the old (1992) building and footbridge are to be demolished on 6 May 2024.

I also took the opportunity to take a photograph of the site of Queen’s Quay station and visit Magheramorne – the latter was the last open station in Ireland that I had never visited, a status it lost today.