Whilst Great Victoria Street Station (as we know it) may be gone for good, the folk at Downpatrick and County Down Railway have gone to great efforts to preserve its memory.
The predecessor to Belfast’s Grand Central Station closed its rail lines in May, but the team behind Ireland’s only full-size heritage railway, which restores and runs steam trains, has been working behind the scenes with Translink to ensure that some of the fixtures and fittings passengers would have been familiar with are not forgotten.
The station was on the site of a former linen mill, beside where Durham Street crossed the Blackstaff River at the Saltwater (now Boyne) Bridge – which is also due to be removed as a result of the new Grand Central Station.
The Ulster Railway first opened the station in 1839, but it closed in 1976, and reopened anew in 1995.
Robert Gardiner, the chairperson of the Downpatrick and County Down Railway, said that whilst the Great Victoria Street Station (GVS) that launched in the 1990s “wasn’t as ornate or illustrious as either its predecessor or successor, its construction marked a turning point in the fortunes of our railway network, and paving the way for the return of a major terminus in the City Centre after the 1970’s experiment with old Central Station”.
“People are griping now that Belfast’s Grand Central Station isn’t central – when the old Central Station (now Lanyon Place) opened, it was a running joke that it wasn’t central, as it’s on East Bridge Street, more towards east Belfast,” said Mr Gardiner.
“GVS put trains back into the city centre. It was a relatively small station because it was still direct rule back then, and the government of the day wouldn’t accept that if they put a train station in Belfast city centre, that would be admitting that Central Station (Lanyon Place) had been a mistake or a failure.
“It was always designed as a suburban station at first with very short platforms, and the direct rule ministers at the time fought against the reopening.
“It was the leadership of NI Railways at the time who really pushed this through, because they had already opened the Europa Buscentre.
“Over the years, the platforms were extended, and really GVS became a victim of its own success. It became too busy really. It was too small and the platforms were narrower [than the new Grand Central].
“It wasn’t designed to take the volume of people. It was the busiest station in Northern Ireland and I remember talking to Chris Conway, the chief executive of Translink back in May when GVS closed.
“He said that basically, without GVS, you wouldn’t have Grand Central Station, because it proved that you could bring trains back into the city centre.”
Among the fittings salvaged by Robert’s fellow heritage railway volunteers and Translink staff are the old platform signs, as well as the illuminated platform numbers, with a few more items due when the station itself is demolished.
These will be refurbished and go on display in the Carriage Gallery of Downpatrick and County Down Railway in due course.
Chris Conway, Michelle Alcorn and Ciaran McKee from Translink also gifted a platform sign to Colin McLeod, the former operations manager for NI Railways, who would have been involved when Great Victoria Street Station reopened its doors back in 1995.
With some sentimental value attached, he now has it mounted on the wall of his model railway shed.
“As it was too heavy to be mounted I made two wooden light boxes and now have both sides of the sign on show,” he added.
Robert noted that when big infrastructure projects are announced – such as the grand opening of Grand Central Station – heritage railways are the ‘ultimate scroungers’, looking for items like rails and sleepers, or bits they can use to keep their lines in good nick.
“It’s simply because materials that aren’t fit for mainline passengers, are perfectly fit for heritage railways,” he explained.
“We recycle obviously and save a lot of the stuff going into landfills, but as well as that I was personally aware of the significance of this station.
“The Great Victoria Street Station that has just closed may only have been open for nearly 30 years, but the symbolism of its reopening in the 90s, I don’t think can be understated.”
In other good news for the heritage railway museum, it is also due to reopen just in time for Halloween, after nearly a year out of action due to the devastating flood damage around Downpatrick last November.
Robert said rail lovers and keen historians can keep a lookout on the Downpatrick and County Down Railway Facebook page for upcoming Halloween and Christmas events.