Dromin Junction railway station was a railway station serving the junction between the
Dublin-Belfast mainline and a short lived branch line serving the town of
Ardee
Ardee (; , ) is a town and townland in County Louth, Ireland. It is located at the intersection of the N2, N52, and N33 roads. The town shows evidence of development from the thirteenth century onward but as a result of the continued devel ...
,
County Louth
County Louth ( ; ga, An Lú) is a coastal county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. Louth is bordered by the counties of Meath to the south, Monaghan to the west, Armagh to the north and Down to the ...
, in
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
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Opened in 1896 by the
Great Northern Railway of Ireland (G.N.R.) it extended some 8 Kilometres westward from the
Dublin-Belfast mainline. It had one intermediate halt, at , and a large freight handling yard at Ardee.
Never very prosperous, it suffered, like many branches, with the onset of the private motor car, and bus, and passenger rail services were withdrawn in 1934, although the occasional special served the line from time to time, there was never a regular passenger timetable on the line after that. Dromin Junction Station itself closed to rail passengers in 1955, but it remained in operation for rail staff to manage the Ardee line.
However, it continued to be used for freight transport, and this continued up until the early 1970s. With rail out of favour with the government of the day,
Córas Iompair Éireann (C.I.E.) phased out the freight service on the line, the last service being a special in October 1975.
The line was 'mothballed' and was disconnected from the mainline within a few years, although the official Abandonment Order was not effected until 1987. The rail tracks were lifted in the same year, and were still in good condition, having remained in situ since disconnection from the mainline.
Today, little evidence remains of 'The Junction' although the trackbed itself has been largely retained, and is now a public cross-country walking track.
The junction itself has been severed from the former branch by the Dublin-Belfast M1 Motorway, which cut through the trackbed in 2001.
{{coord missing, County Louth
Disused railway stations in County Louth
Railway stations opened in 1896
Railway stations closed in 1955
Railway stations in the Republic of Ireland opened in the 1890s
Railway stations in the Republic of Ireland closed in the 1950s