The case for bringing Armagh railway station back to Railway St.
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- Опубліковано 13 вер 2024
- If Armagh-Portadown is to be the first of the old Great Northern Railway lines to get reopened, it's vitally important that we get it right so that we prove the concept and serve as an example to how to get railway service restored to other towns and cities that lost it in the 1950s. The location of the station has major implications for passenger numbers, the viability of the line, and also future development and land-use in the area surrounding the station. Putting the station on the edge of town and hoping that people drive to it is not going to cut it. The station needs to be in town where people can walk to and from it. If visitors to Armagh have to take a bus or taxi from the station to get into town, Newry style, they're going to be more likely to just drive all the way.
If we get it right, we may be able to open up the possibility of re-establishing rail services farther down the line to Keady-Castelblayney-Dundalk, and Monaghan-Clones. As breathtaking as it would be to see Translink DMUs running on the Tassagh Viaduct that has lain dormant for too long, this is not about nostalgia. Connecting Armagh to other towns in its hinterland will further improve the viability of the Portadown-Armagh line. This is about a solid economic and business case for putting this station back where it was. The GNR got it right first time.
Items discussed in the video:
Berryessa BART station urban village, City of San Jose:
www.sanjoseca....
Article by SPUR on Berryessa station:
www.spur.org/n...
Rail + Property Development: A model of sustainable transit finance and urbanism
escholarship.o...
The Public Wealth of Cities
How to Unlock Hidden Assets to Boost Growth and Prosperity
By Dag Detter and Stefan Fölster
www.brookings....
I'm a year late to the conversation, but I hope with the new Grand Central Station in Belfast being built we will start to see line expansions happen in the near future as the Department for Infrastructure minister John O'Dowd made a nod to such a thing taking place after the station's completion. If they rebuild the Armagh Railway Station in the next, say 10 years, then I hope they also pay homage to the original building's architecture because it was absolutely beautiful.
Hopefully I'll be able to get a train Armagh if I needed to before I'm 40 hahaha
This is one line that really needs to be reopened again right away so you can get the train all the way from Belfast to Armagh in comfort. The present line means you get to Portadown then have to mess around with walking from the train station to the bus station. Then you have to wait around for a bumpy bus from Portadown to Armagh and do the same on the way back. I also personally think if this line was reopened it should also run on towards Enniskillen town centre.
Brilliant research Eamonn.
Well reasoned argument. I think you've missed something about the surviving building from the map though - on the map, the track stops well short of it, beside what appears to be perhaps a loading bank. The building is separated from the station yard by a boundary wall, but there appears to be access from the building to this ?loading bank. And the words Saw Mill are placed in the same directional relationship to this building as the words Station, Goods Shed etc appear to those buildings.
How about instead of removing Station Road, they could build the railway on an elevated track surface. Not only would that make it easier to build around some of the buildings that were built after the line was removed but it would also be much safer for people to walk and drive through the railway safely. What do you think of that?
And also, if we’re gonna get the station back in it’s original location right beside these businesses complexes, perhaps they could also use the train to deliver goods to the city since Ireland really needs more freight trains as well.
Reoepening the lines would cut down on Traffic Jams, Road Deaths, Pollution & Car Accidents.
If you go to street view and find Fane Valley Stores on Alexander Lane you can see some old arches that would have belonged to the station. They're part of the bus depot now.
Good catch, I see them now. Thanks for that!
What is the link to PRONI Historical maps please, in particular to your map of Armagh station. Thank you. An interesting video.
www.nidirect.gov.uk/services/search-proni-historical-maps-viewer
@@eamonnca1 Thank you for that, Eamonn.
The timber yard is across the road from the building that owns it
The station was, where Philip White Tyres garages currently are.
Badly need space for car parking.
Total nonsense. One thing that’s clear from listening to you, talk is cheap. Your argument for this to happen seems to be purely based on nostalgia. You mention a train station should be in a city centre. Station Road is a lengthy walk for anyone living at opposite ends of the town such as the Newry, Keady or Killylea Road. A short 15 minute drive brings you to Portadown station or 25 minutes to Newry Station where you can go to Belfast or Dublin, we aren’t exactly living in some far flung town in the middle of nowhere in desperate need of more transport links. Translink operate perfectly good bus routes on a regular basis to help those who don’t drive reach destinations such as Portadown.
Any station in any town is a lengthy walk from the opposite end of the town, which is why, if you actually watched the video all the way through (which you clearly didn't), you'd understand why I'm advocating increasing the number of people living close to the station, while visitors from out of town would still be able to walk into the city centre.
You'd also have picked up that putting the station in its original location would open up the possibility of further railway reopenings to Keady-Castleblayney-Dundalk and Monaghan-Clones-Enniskillen.
Buses are not "perfectly good." They get stuck in traffic along with all the cars and are a lot less comfortable. Trains do not get stuck in traffic, nor do they create as much pollution per passenger mile and they certainly don't contribute to road deaths and injuries like cars do.
@@eamonnca1 It’s also a lot cheaper maintaining a mile of track compared to a mile of motorway/road.
This line need reopened but a link to enniskillen via clones also needs to be opened for this line to reached its full capacity along with re inducing freight traffic to the whole nir network