Northern Ireland Railways Updates

[Steddenm]

Translink have announced that the line between Belfast and Derry~Londonderry is to be upgraded to 90mph working and the possibility of a new station halt near to Derry~Londonderry Airport.

This will coincide with the works at Yorkgate railway station, which is currently being rebuilt, and renamed York Street.

Also happening is the continued roll-out of the new six car Class 4000 CAF units which are so far used exclusively on the Derry~Londonderry line.

A completely new transport hub, Grand Central, is also being built behind the current Great Victoria Street station and Europa Buscentre. The new station will have six platforms, extensive bus bays and retail, residential and office use. The first opening phase will see the railway station side open, and then GV will be demolished making way for the new buscentre.

The Dublin-Belfast crossborder Enterprise service will then serve Grand Central rather than Lanyon Place. A new "Enterprise" lounge will be built to facilitate passengers.

There are also talks of extending the currently half-hour Bangor-Portadown via GV service to Newry, with a call at Poyntzpass. This isn't confirmed yet, or is the Glider route being extended down the Shore Road towards Glengormley, albeit some of the Glider buses have been seen on test there and parked up near the McDonalds with "G3 Bus on Test" on the matrix. G3 isn't a current route.

 

[hexagon789]

Translink have announced that the line between Belfast and Derry~Londonderry is to be upgraded to 90mph working and the possibility of a new station halt near to Derry~Londonderry Airport.

Given it already has 90mph running (indeed the first two such sections were inaugurated in 2004 and Castlerock to Derry was upgraded from 70 to 90mph during the last tranche of improvement works), I assume Translink actually mean increasing the amount of 90mph running further.

 

[bib]

Improvements and Projects

Information on work Translink engineering projects and work to improve existing bus and rail infrastructure

www.translink.co.uk

Seems to be a fair bit of work planned for the Portrush branch with platform extensions to take 6-car units, and I think there is signalling work planned to enable more trains to be run in busy periods eg the Open, NW200. It's still uses semaphores as far as I know.

There's a few options being explored for Glider BRT extensions although no proper budget allocated AIUI

O’Dowd announces preferred route for North-South Glider extension

Infrastructure Minister, John O’Dowd, has today announced the preferred route for Phase 2 of Belfast Rapid Transit (BRT2), which will see the Glider

www.infrastructure-ni.gov.uk

 

[busestrains]

Translink have announced that the line between Belfast and Derry~Londonderry is to be upgraded to 90mph working and the possibility of a new station halt near to Derry~Londonderry Airport.

This will coincide with the works at Yorkgate railway station, which is currently being rebuilt, and renamed York Street.

Also happening is the continued roll-out of the new six car Class 4000 CAF units which are so far used exclusively on the Derry~Londonderry line.

A completely new transport hub, Grand Central, is also being built behind the current Great Victoria Street station and Europa Buscentre. The new station will have six platforms, extensive bus bays and retail, residential and office use. The first opening phase will see the railway station side open, and then GV will be demolished making way for the new buscentre.

The Dublin-Belfast crossborder Enterprise service will then serve Grand Central rather than Lanyon Place. A new "Enterprise" lounge will be built to facilitate passengers.

There are also talks of extending the currently half-hour Bangor-Portadown via GV service to Newry, with a call at Poyntzpass. This isn't confirmed yet, or is the Glider route being extended down the Shore Road towards Glengormley, albeit some of the Glider buses have been seen on test there and parked up near the McDonalds with "G3 Bus on Test" on the matrix. G3 isn't a current route.

If the Portadown service is extended to Newry with a call at Poyntzpass then i presume it will call at Scarva too? It would not make sense to call at Poyntzpass but not at Scarva surely?