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NI Railways
NI Railways, also known as Northern Ireland Railways (NIR) ( ga, Iarnród Thuaisceart Éireann); and for a brief period Ulster Transport Railways (UTR), is the railway operator in Northern Ireland. NIR is a subsidiary of Translink, whose parent company is the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company (NITHCo), and is one of seven publicly owned train operators in the United Kingdom, the others being Direct Rail Services, Northern Trains, Transport for Wales Rail, Southeastern, LNER, and ScotRail. It has a common Board of Management with the other two companies in the group, Ulsterbus and Metro (formerly Citybus). The rail network in Northern Ireland is not part of the National Rail network of Great Britain, nor does it use Standard Gauge, instead using Irish Gauge in common with the Republic of Ireland. Also, NIR is the only commercial non-heritage passenger operator in the United Kingdom to operate a vertical integration model, with responsibility of all aspects of the netw ...
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NIR Class 3000
The Class 3000 (C3K class) is a class of diesel multiple unit in service with NI Railways. History At the beginning of the 21st century, the majority of rail services in Northern Ireland continued to be operated using NIR Class 80, Class 80 DEMUs, which had been in service since the mid-1970s, and were becoming increasingly harder to maintain. NIR had not procured new rolling stock since 1994, when, in conjunction with Iarnród Éireann, it purchased locomotives and coaches for the Enterprise (train service), Enterprise service. As part of a major investment programme in the railways in Northern Ireland, NIR placed an order totalling £80 million, the largest single investment in rolling stock ever made by NIR, with Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, CAF for 23 3-car DMUs in 2002. The new trains entered service in 2004 and 2005, gradually replacing most of the existing Class 80 units on the network (the main exception being services between Belfast and Larne, which we ...
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Irish Gauge
Railways with a track gauge of fall within the category of broad gauge railways. , they were extant in Australia, Brazil and Ireland. History 600 BC :The Diolkos (Δίολκος) across the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece – a grooved paved trackway – was constructed with an average gauge of . 1840 : The Grand Duchy of Baden State Railway was constructed in 1840-1851 to gauge before being converted to in 1854–1855. 1843 : The Board of Trade of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, after investigating a dispute caused by diverse gauges, recommended the use of in Ireland. 1846 : The Regulating the Gauge of Railways Act 1846 made mandatory throughout all of Ireland. 1847 : The Swiss Northern Railway was opened as a line and converted to in 1854. 1854 : The first Australian railway to operate steam-powered freight and passenger services, Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway Company, was built as a line. 1858 : The first Brazilian railway was opened: ...
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Belfast And County Down Railway
The Belfast and County Down Railway (BCDR) was an Irish gauge () railway in Ireland (later Northern Ireland) linking Belfast with County Down. It was built in the 19th century and absorbed into the Ulster Transport Authority in 1948. All but the line between Belfast and Bangor was closed in the 1950s, although some of it has been restored near Downpatrick by a heritage line, the Downpatrick and County Down Railway. History The company was incorporated on 26 June 1846 with the first section of line from Belfast to Holywood opening for traffic on 2 August 1848. The line was further extended to Bangor by the Belfast, Holywood and Bangor Railway (BHBR), opening on 1 May 1865, and acquired by the BCDR in 1884. The line to Downpatrick was opened on 25 March 1859. The line from Downpatrick to Newcastle was built by the Downpatrick, Dundrum and Newcastle Railway, opening on 25 March 1869 and absorbed by BCDR on 14 July 1884. The railway's first chief engineer was Sir John Macneill ...
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London, Midland And Scottish Railway
The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with LNER, GWR and SR. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway's corporate image used LMS, and this is what is generally used in historical circles. The LMS occasionally also used the initials LM&SR. For consistency, this article uses the initials LMS.) was a British railway company. It was formed on 1 January 1923 under the Railways Act of 1921, which required the grouping of over 120 separate railways into four. The companies merged into the LMS included the London and North Western Railway, Midland Railway, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (which had previously merged with the London and North Western Railway on 1 January 1922), several Scottish railway companies (including the Caledonian Railway), and numerous other, smaller ventures. Besides being the world's largest transport organisation, the company was also the largest commercial enterprise ...
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Midland Railway
The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It amalgamated with several other railways to create the London, Midland and Scottish Railway at grouping in 1922. The Midland had a large network of lines emanating from Derby, stretching to London St Pancras, Manchester, Carlisle, Birmingham, and the South West. It expanded as much through acquisitions as by building its own lines. It also operated ships from Heysham in Lancashire to Douglas and Belfast. A large amount of the Midland's infrastructure remains in use and visible, such as the Midland main line and the Settle–Carlisle line, and some of its railway hotels still bear the name '' Midland Hotel''. History Origins The Midland Railway originated from 1832 in Leicestershire / Nottinghamshire, with the purpose of serving the needs o ...
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Northern Counties Committee
The Northern Counties Committee (NCC) was a railway that served the north-east of Ireland. It was built to Irish gauge () but later acquired a number of narrow gauge lines. It had its origins in the Belfast and Ballymena Railway that opened to traffic on 11 April 1848. The NCC itself was formed on 1 July 1903 as the result of the Midland Railway of England taking over the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway (BNCR), which the Belfast and Ballymena Railway had become. At the Railways Act 1921, 1923 Grouping of British railway companies, the Committee became part of the London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS). After the Transport Act 1947, nationalisation of Britain's railways in 1948 the NCC was briefly part of the British Transport Commission, which sold it to the Ulster Transport Authority (UTA) in 1949. The BNCR and its successors recognised the potential value of tourism and were influential in its development throughout Northern Ireland. They were able to develop and expl ...
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Great Northern Railway (Ireland)
The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) (GNR(I) or GNRI) was an Irish gauge () railway company in Ireland. It was formed in 1876 by a merger of the Irish North Western Railway (INW), Northern Railway of Ireland, and Ulster Railway. The governments of Ireland and Northern Ireland jointly nationalised the company in 1953, and the company was liquidated in 1958: assets were split on national lines between the Ulster Transport Authority and Córas Iompair Éireann. Foundation The Ulster, D&D and D&BJct railways together formed the main line between Dublin and Belfast, with the D&BJct completing the final section in 1852 to join the Ulster at . The GNRI's other main lines were between Derry and and between Omagh and Portadown. The Portadown, Dungannon and Omagh Junction Railway together with the Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway enabled GNRI trains between Derry and Belfast to compete with the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway, and both this and the Dundalk route gave connectio ...
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Standard Gauge
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the most widely used track gauge around the world, with approximately 55% of the lines in the world using it. All high-speed rail lines use standard gauge except those in Russia, Finland, and Uzbekistan. The distance between the inside edges of the rails is defined to be 1435 mm except in the United States and on some heritage British lines, where it is defined in U.S. customary/Imperial units as exactly "four feet eight and one half inches" which is equivalent to 1435.1mm. History As railways developed and expanded, one of the key issues was the track gauge (the distance, or width, between the inner sides of the rails) to be used. Different railways used different gauges, and where rails of different gauge met – ...
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Irish Sea Bridge
The Irish Sea Bridge, sometimes called the Celtic Crossing by the media, is a hypothetical rail and road bridge that would span the Irish Sea and connect the island of Ireland to the island of Great Britain. It is one of a number of such proposed fixed sea links across the British Isles. The bridge's length would depend upon the route taken; one such route, known as the Galloway route, would cross the North Channel, close to that taken by an existing ferry service, between Portpatrick in Dumfries and Galloway, and Larne in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, a distance of . The concept of an Irish Sea Bridge had been proposed many times since the Victorian Era. In 2018 Professor Alan Dunlop at the University of Liverpool revived the idea. By February 2020, British government officials began scoping the possible route and type of crossing. Particular risks to such a project include the depth of North Channel and the presence of a large underwater munitions dump at Beaufort's Dyke. I ...
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Rail Transport In Great Britain
The railway system in Great Britain is the oldest railway system in the world. The first locomotive-hauled public railway opened in 1825, which was followed by an era of rapid expansion. Most of the track is managed by Network Rail, which in 2017 had a network of of standard-gauge lines, of which were electrified. These lines range from single to quadruple track or more. In addition, some cities have separate metro, light rail and tram systems (including the extensive and historic London Underground). There are also many private railways (some of them narrow-gauge), which are primarily short lines for tourists. The main rail network is connected with that of continental Europe by the Channel Tunnel and High Speed 1 (originally the Channel Tunnel Rail Link), which fully opened in 1994 and 2007 respectively. In 2019, there were 1.738 billion journeys on the National Rail network, making the British network the fifth most used in the world (Great Britain ranks 23rd in ...
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Iarnród Éireann
Iarnród Éireann () or Irish Rail, is the operator of the national railway network of Ireland. Established on 2 February 1987, it is a subsidiary of Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ). It operates all internal InterCity, Commuter, DART and freight railway services in the Republic of Ireland, and, jointly with Northern Ireland Railways, the Enterprise service between Dublin and Belfast. In 2019, IÉ carried 50 million passengers, up from 48 million in 2018, and a record peak. Until 2013 Ireland was the only European Union state that had not implemented EU Directive 91/440 and related legislation, having derogated its obligation to split train operations and infrastructure businesses, and allow open access by private companies to the rail network. A consultation on the restructuring of Iarnród Éireann took place in 2012. The derogation ended on 14 March 2013 when the company was split in 2 sectors: Railway Undertaking and Infrastructure Manager. Organisation At the time of ...
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Enterprise (train Service)
''Enterprise'' is the cross-border inter-city train service between in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland, jointly operated by Iarnród Éireann (IE) and NI Railways (NIR). It operates on the Belfast–Dublin railway line. History The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) (GNR(I)) introduced the service as the "Enterprise Express" on Monday 11 August 1947 in an attempt to compete with air and road transport which were challenging the railways. In particular, business travel was and is an important market. Customs checks were limited to the Belfast and Dublin terminals to reduce journey times by ensuring that journeys were non-stop, and advance booking was available. The name of the train comes from the "enterprising" approach that the GNR(I) took to make journeys more convenient for passengers despite the requirement for customs checks. The initial service ran between and Dublin Amiens Street Junction (renamed in 1966). Locomotives of GNRI Class V were initially ...
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