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Title: Belfast's Grand Central station, opening on Sunday 8th September 2024 Post by: grahame on September 05, 2024, 09:11:39 From ITV (https://www.itv.com/news/utv/2024-09-04/buses-services-begin-but-wait-for-trains-continue-at-new-340m-transport-hub)
Quote Final touches are being put in place at Belfast's Grand Central Station as it gears up to open to the public. Bus services will operate from the site from Sunday 8 September, but no date has been set for the commencement of rail services at the new transport hub. and Quote The first bus service to depart from the new site will travel to Dublin at 5am. Chris Conway described the development, which is expected to cost around £340million, as "a world class facility", and "a modern station fit for a modern city". "We want to make sure we keep safety as our number one priority," he explained. "Buses will start phasing over from Sunday, from the Europa to Belfast Grand Central Station. "We're working closely with the safety authority to be able to announce a date for the railway opening soon. "We hope to have over 20m passengers through these doors on an annual basis," he added. "To put that into context, Belfast City Airport sees maybe 2m per year, while Belfast International sees about six or 7m. "The new station will double the capacity we have on our public transport network coming into Belfast and it will increase connectivity in Northern Ireland and right across the island of Ireland. "The important thing is that we use it to increase capacity in our bus and rail network and get more people using public transport, and for me that will be the real test as to whether this has worked," he added. I love the early Sunday morning start - real forward looking "Option 24/7" stuff to provide the passenger with a service at the day and time they want it, not just at a time it will make money. Belfast is something of an outlier in terms of UK public transport. * A through integrated train service across the majority of the United Kingdom is not possible due to the inconvenient stretch of water in between, and so there's a natural disposition to fly shorter routes; I do wonder how many public transport passengers use the ferry from Belfast to Liverpool or Larne to Cairnryan these days. * Northern Ireland's railways were decimated in the third quarter of the last century and what is left is a really sad remnant. Having said which, the railway building "bug" of the Victorian era had provided an extreme case of overprovision of little railways, and the Irish Civil War of the 1920s and resultant segregation has left its mark. Title: Re: Belfast's Grand Central station, opening on Sunday 8th September 2024 Post by: CyclingSid on September 06, 2024, 07:35:06 The Belfast stations were regularly hit during the troubles. Compare the then service through Melksham, with the loco and two carriages connecting two capitals; Dublin and Belfast.
Title: Re: Belfast's Grand Central station, opening on Sunday 8th September 2024 Post by: grahame on September 06, 2024, 08:23:50 The Belfast stations were regularly hit during the troubles. Compare the then service through Melksham, with the loco and two carriages connecting two capitals; Dublin and Belfast. An interesting thought ... and time fades the mind. Quote The Troubles is a term used to describe a period of conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years, from the late 1960s until the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Melksham Station closed in 1966. A single train path through each way each day for a year or two after, then a summer Saturday only train for a few more years. Otherwise the only use was for freight, diversions and the occasional special. Reopened in 1985, with a weekday train to Swindon in the morning and an evening service back together with at least one short lived experiment with some other services that I need to research, it wasn't until 2000 and the Park report that a proposal was made for an hourly South Marston to Eastleigh service. In May 2001 a service of 5 trains each way per day by Wessex Trains replaced the Swindon trip, with a Swindon to Southampton core, some of which ran short. This service was lost again in 2006, leaving us with the operationally convenient service of 2 trains each way per day, with one of the Stroud Valley units doing an early round trip before it took commuters to Gloucester / Cheltenham from Swindon and an early evening round trip after it had returned those commuters to Swindon. Title: Re: Belfast's Grand Central station, opening on Sunday 8th September 2024 Post by: grahame on September 08, 2024, 07:06:05 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c623v7q482do
Quote The first passenger to enter Grand Central Station on Sunday morning was Amir Kumat. Beginning his journey to London, he got the 05:00 BST bus to Belfast International Airport. Speaking to BBC News NI, Mr Kumat said he was "so lucky" to be the first passenger to enter the new station. "When I started my day I never knew I was going to be the first guy … probably I’ll be in the history books." Don't know about history books, but he'll be recorded here on the Coffee Shop for years to come! Title: Re: Belfast's Grand Central station, opening on Sunday 8th September 2024 Post by: grahame on October 13, 2024, 10:31:06 From the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp39pp0yepwo)
Quote First train departs Belfast's Grand Central Station Trains have started running from Belfast’s new £340m Grand Central Station. The first departure was the 08.05 BST Enterprise service to Dublin Connolly Station. It left on time with just over 100 passengers on board. The driver was Derek Weir and among the first passengers were Margaret McAllister from Bangor and Chris Playfair from south Belfast. The railway line between Lisburn and Belfast has been closed for more than three months to connect train services to the new station. This page is printed from the "Coffee Shop" forum at http://gwr.passenger.chat which is provided by a customer of Great Western Railway. Views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that content provided contravenes our posting rules ( see http://railcustomer.info/1761 ). The forum is hosted by Well House Consultants - http://www.wellho.net |