Memories from across the sea
Neil Sprinks, from the Vale of Glamorgan, visited Ireland many times in the 1950’s to photograph railways. He was a member of the Irish Railway Record Society and author of both the definitive history of the SL&NCR and a picture album devoted to the line. In 2017, commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the closure of Fermanagh’s railways Neil contributed the following article for Headhunter’s Railway Museum, entitled ‘Memories from across the sea’.
Today, when land transport is dominated by cars and lorries, it is easy to overlook the part that railways played in a bygone era, and their vital role in creating and enabling much of what we take for granted in the present-day world.
Railways arrived upon the scene in the nineteenth century when inland transport was governed by the speed and haulage capacity of the horse, whether by road or canal. Goods trains enabled the movement of fuel, raw materials, foodstuffs, produce and products that is commonplace today, while passenger trains led to our personal mobility on business, pleasure, leisure, ‘commuting’, job-seeking or migration.
The dominance of railways lasted till the 1920’s with the emergence of motor transport, fuelled by the release of many ex-Army lorries after World War I, while after World War II came the mushrooming of private car ownership and the development of motorways.
But back to Enniskillen and Fermanagh: the railway from Derry reached Enniskillen in 1854, and that from Dundalk and Clones arrived in Lisnaskea and Lisbellaw in two stages in 1858, opening to Enniskillen the next year. The line from Dundalk meant that Enniskillen was linked by rail throughout to Dublin and Belfast, and from 1861/3 other links to Belfast were available through Omagh and Clones respectively. The two lines into Enniskillen became linked and eventually part of the Great Northern Railway.
Fermanagh’s Lines
From 1866 a branch line ran from what became known as Bundoran Junction (in Co. Tyrone) through places such as Irvinestown, Kesh and Belleek, to Bundoran. At one time this line might have gone onto Sligo, but it was left to landowners in Counties Sligo and Leitrim to promote another line, the Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway, to link Sligo with Enniskillen, entering Co. Fermanagh at Belcoo. This line was built between 1879 and 1882.
All these railways were of the standard Irish gauge of 5’ 3” between the rails, but in 1887 a narrow-gauge line of three feet between the rails, ran across Tyrone and Fermanagh, from Tynan to Maguiresbridge. This was the Clogher Valley Tramway, later ‘Railway’, and it was this line that road transport hit first, closure coming at the end of 1941, while difficult times led to both the ‘Sligo, Leitrim’ line, and the Great Northern having helping financial hands from governments in Belfast and Dublin.
Some Personal Memories
As a young man from Kent interested in, and working on the railways, I visited Enniskillen each Spring from 1952 to 1957, with a brief additional visit in the Summer of 1956. Whereas at home all lines had been nationalised and were gradually being standardised, in Ireland there were different railways to see and much variety. In Enniskillen I found both the Great Northern Railway, a proud, solid and traditional line, and the unique Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Countries, the last privately-owed line in the land.
Most Great Northern locomotives were coloured black with the legend ‘GNR’ on the tenders. However, ten engines regularly to be seen in Enniskillen were the ‘U Class’ painted a striking azure blue and carrying the letters GN and the coat of arms on the tender: five were named after loughs, and five, built as recently as 1948, named after counties. The carriages of Great Northern trains were in a teak livery, and many passenger trains also conveyed a few vans for ‘parcels traffic’ or even cattle, and sometimes flat trucks carrying large square containers carrying bread. There were the goods trains, too, of four-wheeled wagons of many types and painted grey.
The Great Northern was nothing if not enterprising, despite its many difficulties. Before World War II it had introduced diesel railcars and railbuses, the latter being road buses adapted to run on rails. Diesels operated on lightly used services and were to be seen in Enniskillen with painted dark blue with cream upper panels. I recall particularly a railcar journey down to Ballyshannon, on the Bundoran line. Also into Enniskillen from time to time came some more modern railcars built after World War II, also in blue and cream colours.
This same colour scheme also applied, paradoxically, to a really old vehicle, a horse-drawn tramcar built as long ago as 1883, which, right up to 1957, provided the passenger service on the ¾ mile branch line from Fintona Junction to Fintona town, off the Enniskillen-Omagh route. Although in Co. Tyrone, this unique horse tram was part of the local scene for visiting railway enthusiasts.
Perhaps the most notable Great Northern train to be seen at Enniskillen was the Bundoran Express. Usually pulled by one of the blue engines, this train ran during the Spring and Summer pilgrimage season at Lough Derg, and ran from Dublin to take pilgrims to Pettigo station, in County Donegal, on the Bundoran line. It picked up passengers at various stations as far as Clones in County Monaghan – where it also took on passengers from Belfast – and then, to avoid the inconvenience and time of any Customs examination, ran non-stop through Fermanagh and Tyrone, until reaching Pettigo. It also took seasiders to Bundoran, where, incidentally, the Great Northern Railway had its own hotel.
The Express was one of the few trains to run on Sundays, although there were often special trains to the coast or sporting events on Sundays. When I was in Enniskillen on the last Sunday of July in 1956 a number of long trains went through taking supporters to an important Gaelic Football match in Clones.
The ‘Sligo Leitrim’ Line
The Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway linking Sligo with Enniskillen was unique in many ways, notably for being in the same private ownership from conception, through opening in 1879-82 and until closure in 1957. As I have said, it was the last privately-owned line in Ireland. But it was never well-off and everything, from track and signalling to buildings, and from locomotives and carriages to wagons, was cared for to last as long as possible: so, much was interestingly old, but at the same time it was an enterprising railway when circumstances permitted. The engineering works were at Manorhamilton in Co. Leitrim, but the headquarters were at Enniskillen, in offices on a private platform alongside the goods yard, although passenger trains used the Great Northern station for ease of interchange.
Crossing the River Macnean and so into Fermanagh, the single-tracked line reached Belcoo, where much of the station is still lovingly preserved. The full title of the station was Belcoo and Blacklion, and this is another curiosity, as after partition it became a station serving communities in two different States, Belcoo in the North, and Blacklion in the Free State! There was a lineside ‘halt’ at Abohill, and then a station called Florencecourt, named after the home of the Earl of Enniskillen, one of the promoters of the railway, and at a point where the line crossed a road from Letterbreen Cross. Then, after winding its way through gentle hills the line crossed the Erne by the 467-feet viaduct known as the Killyhevlin or Weir’s Bridge, and so into Enniskillen itself.
All the Sligo, Leitrim locomotives carried names, but no numbers, again an unusual feature of the line, and latterly all were tank engines and of one wheel arrangement, ‘0-6-4T’, and from one manufacturer, Beyer Peacock of Manchester. My favourite was Hazelwood, last of a particular batch and built in 1899. There were five others at the end, three constructed in the early 1900’s, and two completed in 1949. These were Lough Melvin and Lough Erne which the Sligo, Leitrim found they could not pay for, and so they remained the property of the manufacturer while the railway operated them under a ‘hire-purchase’ agreement.
The steam engines were used mainly on the goods trains, particularly those carrying live cattle bound for the Great Northern and so on to the ports of Belfast or Derry and which were the line’s principal ‘raison d’être’. Most passenger trains, two or three each weekday in each direction, were operated by railbus or railcar. The railbuses, like the Great Northern’s were road buses converted for railway use and pulled a luggage trailer behind them, while the diesel railcar was a modern purpose-built vehicle, completed in 1947.
Riding in a railbus was truly memorable. You could imagine yourself in a road bus going down a country lane between the hedges: but! – you could hear the ‘ding-dong’ as the wheels ran over the joints between the rails, and the driver had no steering wheel!
There was, however, one train, the 7.20pm from Enniskillen to Sligo which was usually a goods train but included a passenger carriage, and this was one opportunity for railway enthusiasts to ride on the Sligo, Leitrim in a stream train. But one had to be watchful, as if there was not a lot of goods traffic about on a particular day, a railbus rain instead of the steam train. I experienced this for myself on my first ride on the line, in May 1953!
A picture of posterity!
But I had better luck on my next year’s visit. Then I found the 7.20pm running as a full ‘mixed’ train, with steam locomotive, a passenger carriage and some freight wagons and brake van. One evening I rode on the train to the first stop, Florencecourt, having my first run behind a Sligo, Leitrim steam locomotive, Lough Erne on this occasion. I took a photograph in the evening sun as the train set off from Florencecourt towards Sligo, and walked the several miles back to my ‘digs’ in what I think was the ‘Railway Hotel’.
The Engineer of the Sligo, Leitrim line, Mr. G. F. Egan, was always helpful to railway enthusiasts, and at some time or another I sent him some of my pictures. Imagine my surprise a few years later when, in 1957, the railway produced a nice timetable booklet for what proved to be their last operating season, the Summer of that year; for, on the front cover was the photograph that I had taken that evening at Florencecourt in 1954 – along with another picture that I had taken at Belcoo.
Perhaps fate was pointing me in a certain direction, for I went on to compile, with the help of others, a history of the Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway, published by the London Area of the Irish Railway Record Society, which was followed by a book of photographs of the line.
But back to riding behind steam engines: another opportunity was on one of the very occasional Sunday excursion trains from Enniskillen and stations along to the line, to Sligo. There was always one for a religious event in Sligo on the last Sunday of July, the ‘Holy Well’ excursion, and I travelled to Fermanagh to sample this train in 1956. Again I found Lough Erne, this time with an impressive four-carriage train, including one vehicle hired from the Great Northern. This was another memorable day for many reasons, perhaps a highlight of all the visits that I made to Fermanagh all those years ago.
Finale
I kept away from Enniskillen on Monday evening, 30th September 1957, as railway closures are sad affairs, and I had made my final visit a few months beforehand.
The people of Enniskillen and County Fermanagh did not, I think want to lose their railways. The railway operators, the Great Northern, and the Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Countries, wanted to go on, but Stormont had made up its mind. It was a distressing event, too, for the countless railwaymen whose living was taken away from them, or faced transfer to other areas. Whether it was inevitable that the County’s railways would close as more people bought cars, as more lorries came to the roads, and the roads were improved, has long been debated.
But we must be grateful to those who keep the memory of the railways alive in tangible form. Several of the old railway stations are lovingly preserved by those who have made them their home. Railway artefacts are on display at Headhunters Railway Museum in Darling Street, Enniskillen, whilst elsewhere in the Province one of the Sligo, Leitrim steam engines, the memorable Lough Erne, together with the same line’s 1947 Railcar B, are safely in the hands of dedicated preservationists.
