Inch Abbey | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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General information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Location | Downpatrick, County Down Northern Ireland | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Owned by | Downpatrick and County Down Railway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Operated by | Downpatrick and County Down Railway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Line(s) | North Line | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Platforms | 2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Key dates | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2005 | Opened | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Inch Abbey railway station (often shortened to just Inch) is a station on the Downpatrick & County Down Railway, a heritage railway in Northern Ireland. It is the terminus of the railway's North Line and serves Inch Abbey, a ruined monastery and local tourist attraction of Downpatrick notable for its use as a filming location in the HBO show Game of Thrones. [1]
The station is a simple island platform layout with a timber deck. The north platform face is on a through track, allowing locomotives to access a headshunt and run-around loop, whilst the south face is a bay platform slightly shorter than the through platform. When the station is open passengers purchase tickets and wait for their train in a parked-up railway carriage. The station has a small car park, picnic area, and toilet facilities.
Most of the DCDR's trains run to here from Downpatrick railway station, such as the Easter, St. Patrick's Day and Summer steam trains. On these days, the buffet train is parked in the bay platform and passenger trains use the through platform. [2]
The Belfast and County Down Railway (BCDR) opened their mainline from Belfast Queen's Quay to Downpatrick in March 1859, operating for almost a century before the line was closed by the Ulster Transport Authority in 1950. [3] The line passed approximately 600 metres from Inch Abbey, a Cistercian monastery built in 1100 by John de Courcy, but it was never served directly by a railway halt - the BCDR advertised it instead as a tourism destination reachable from Downpatrick station itself.
In 1983, Down District Council agreed to support the Downpatrick & Ardglass Railway (since renamed the Downpatrick & County Down Railway) in its efforts to rebuild part of the BCDR lines in and around Downpatrick for use as a heritage railway, starting with the South Line to the Loop Platform and Magnus Grave before moving on the North Line to a brand new halt at Inch Abbey. [4] The restored line follows the original BCDR route out of Downpatrick until shortly after it crosses the River Quoile, where it makes a sharp turn to the north-east to terminate closer to the Abbey itself. Work on the extension commenced in 1997, with Inch Abbey opening in 2005. [5]
In 2021 the line to Inch Abbey was used for the filming of Derry Girls Season 3 Episode 3, Strangers on a Train. [6]
Preceding station | Heritage railways | Following station | ||
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Terminus | Downpatrick & County Down Railway North Line | Downpatrick | ||
Terminus | Downpatrick & County Down Railway Loop Line | Downpatrick Loop Platform |
Downpatrick is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is on the Lecale peninsula, about 21 mi (34 km) south of Belfast. In the Middle Ages, it was the capital of the Dál Fiatach, the main ruling dynasty of Ulaid. Its cathedral is said to be the burial place of Saint Patrick. Today, it is the county town of Down and the joint headquarters of Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. Downpatrick had a population of 10,822 according to the 2011 Census.
County Down is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of 961 sq mi (2,490 km2) and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the north, the Irish Sea to the east, County Armagh to the west, and County Louth across Carlingford Lough to the southwest.
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The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) (GNR(I) or GNRI) was an Irish gauge (1,600 mm (5 ft 3 in)) 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.
Downpatrick railway station was on the Belfast and County Down Railway, which ran its longest route from Belfast to Downpatrick in Northern Ireland. Today it is the headquarters of the Downpatrick and County Down Railway.
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The O&K CSÉT Shunting Locomotives were a class of nine small Irish steam locomotives built in Berlin, Germany, by Orenstein & Koppel for shunting wagons of sugar beet at the three Irish Sugar Company factories in Mallow, Thurles and Tuam. They were delivered in two batches, with the first six arriving in 1934 and the last three in 1935. The 1934 batch was paid for by barter, using cattle as payment. Each factory received three locomotives, and numbered them independently, leading to each factory having a No. 1, a No. 2 and a No. 3. Each factory applied their own design of number onto the tanks, and in some cases, bufferbeams, of their respective locomotives.
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