Part four – A locomotive odyssey through South East NI

BELFAST - NEWRY

The uniquely Irish method of building a railway – we’ll build a couple of miles, you build a couple of miles towards us and we’ll get a third party to fill in the gap -  applied to the route between Belfast and the Northern Ireland-Republic of Ireland border city of Newry, as it did with all of the lines in the North.

Today, of course, it is an international line since it extends beyond Newry to Dundalk, Drogheda and into Dublin, served by the regular Enterprise Express, which stops at Portadown and Newry in the North and Dundalk and Drogheda in the Republic, running every two hours.

The Ulster Railway laid the way in l839 with a Belfast to Lisburn service, followed by an extention to Portadown in l842...