Stranraer Town railway station, located in
Wigtownshire
Wigtownshire or the County of Wigtown (, ) is one of the historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country. Until 1975, Wigtownshire was an administrative county used for local government. Since 1975 the area has f ...
, Scotland, served the town of
Stranraer and was a station on the
Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Joint Railway
The Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Joint RailwaysThe final word is in the plural. was a network of railway lines serving sparsely populated areas of south-west Scotland. The title appeared in 1885 when the previously independent Portpatrick Rai ...
.
History
Opened on 11 March 1861, when the Castle Douglas to Stranraer Town was opened, it was closed to passengers on 7 March 1966, the year after the closure of the 'Port Road' route to Castle Douglas & Dumfries. Services beyond here to
Portpatrick
Portpatrick is a village and civil parish in the historical county of Wigtownshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It is located on the west coast of the Rhins of Galloway. The parish is about in length and in breadth, covering .
History ...
had previously ended in 1950.
Though closed to passenger traffic, the station and surrounding sidings remained in regular use as a freight depot until the end of
Speedlink
Speedlink was a wagonload freight service operated by British Rail from 1977 to 1991 using air-braked wagons.
History
Background, 1970s
In the late 1960s British Rail (BR) was loss making and government supported; government and British Rail ...
wagonload traffic in 1993. The last trains were steel trains from Tees Yard. All regular freight traffic from here to Northern Ireland via the ferries subsequently ceased and the depot was formally closed in 2009. The sidings remained in-situ, heavily overgrown, until 2015 when lifting commenced and by 2017 it had been completed.
"Stranraer freight facility removed"
''www.saysla.org'' news article, 16 March 2015; Retrieved 2 June 2017
See also
* Stranraer Harbour railway station
References
External links
Video footage of the remnants of Stranraer Town station site, depot and freight sidings
Disused railway stations in Dumfries and Galloway
Former Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Joint Railway stations
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1861
Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1966
Beeching closures in Scotland
Stranraer
1861 establishments in Scotland
{{DumfriesGalloway-railstation-stub