Omagh Railway Station

O M A G H R A I LWAY S TAT I O N : A J O U R N E Y T H R O U G H T I M E

OMAGH RAILWAY STATION A Journey through Time

Omagh General Station was on the arterial railway route to the North West of Ireland connecting it’s capital Dublin with the port of Derry. For many decades the town also served as a busy junction to another important line from Enniskillen and In its heyday the station might be busy for more than 22 hours out of 24. When the Derry Road closed in 1965, not only did Omagh lose its railway but the town lost a sense of community - of railway families who for generations lived in houses that surrounded the railway and provided steady employment. This book brings together the history of the railway in Omagh – researched over many years and told by railway staff who worked the station.

The Transport Treasury Price:- £18.95

Railways of Omage Cover.indd 116-1

TONY MCGARTLAND

For anyone who lives in Omagh and beyond, with an interest in Irish railways, this is the first and only book that documents the history of the towns passenger and goods station and is presented here with over 140 images, many of which have never been published before, captioned in great detail by the author. The book is a vital part of every railway enthusiast’s collection and serves as a reminder of Omagh’s importance in railway history.

Tony McGartland 10/05/2023 16:34:07

OMAGH RAILWAY STATION A Journey through Time

Tony McGartland

Reviving the memories of yesterday… © Images and design: The Transport Treasury 2023. Text Tony McGartland.

ISBN 978-1-913251-??-?

First published in 2023 by Transport Treasury Publishing Ltd., 16 Highworth Close, High Wycombe, HP13 7PJ www.ttpublishing.co.uk Printed in Malta by Gutenberg Press Ltd., Tarxien, GXQ 2902 The copyright holders hereby give notice that all rights to this work are reserved.

Aside from brief passages for the purpose of review, no part of this work may be reproduced, copied by electronic or other means, or otherwise stored in any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the Publisher. This includes the illustrations herein which shall remain the copyright of the copyright holder.

Front cover: S Class 4-4-0 No. 171 preparing to leave with the 4.30pm Derry to Belfast passenger service on 6th July 1963. The engine was purchased by CIÉ and now carries its initials on the front buffer beam. Parcels van No. N650 sits in the bay. It was one of three Y6 Parcels Vans built in 1915 (originally numbered 473 to 475). They were later noted in use as bread vans. A further four were planned (to be numbered 476 to 479), but these were never built.

Photo source: J.D. FitzGerald/Charles P. Friel collection Frontispiece: U Class 4-4-0 No. 197 ‘Lough Neagh’ preparing to leave with the 1.45pm local service to Enniskillen.

Some mail and goods have yet to be loaded onto the train by platform staff. To the right, a B8 buffet car, one of two built by the GN in 1936, makes up part of the 12.25pm ex-Derry to Belfast train which is due to leave at 1.40pm. No. 197 was used on daily service between Omagh and Enniskillen and was normally driven by either Omagh driver Barney McGirr or Enniskillen’s Fred Rankin. The footbridge side cladding has not been replaced yet after a fire in 1955 however passengers are able to cross safely on the wooden decking of the bridge.

Photo Source: Authors Collection Rear cover: GNR(I) Railcar A arrives in Omagh from Strabane in May 1960. Built in 1932 in Dundalk, it had seating for 48 passengers and a driver’s cab at either end. On the right a passenger makes a purchase from Eason’s bookstall. Between 1950 and 1954 a section of timber fascia between the footbridge and the parcels office was replaced and this can be seen in the change of style in the new asbestos sheeting that was used.

Photo source: Ernie’s Railway Archive

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Contents Introduction Chapter 1: The formative years of the GNR (I) Chapter 2: War, Strike, Derailments and Tragedy Chapter 3: Excursions from Omagh Chapter 4: Omagh – a 24/7 station Chapter 5: Locomotives, Rolling Stock and Signalling Chapter 6: The demise of the GNR(I) and the UTA years Railway Staff Our Heritage

4 6 18 34 39 56 78 86 100 105

Mrs Edith McGrew standing outside her home on Gallows Hill, holding her young son Robert and watching a Belfast bound train leave Omagh in 1951. Edith’s husband Bill started with the GN as an engine cleaner, progressing to shunter and driver in town. He drove the daily railcar service to Portadown. His brother Joe also started worked on the railway in Omagh as a boy porter, progressing to a shunter. Many families like the McGrews were employed by the railway, the Crawfords, Donaghys, Donnellys, Kerrs, McGirrs and many others who lived in houses that overlooked the railway. Photo source: William McGrew

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Introduction My memories of the railway in Omagh are that of a young boy, living in a row of houses that backed onto the Derry Road. I have vague memories of the line and the daily trains that travelled on it but I remember the sounds of the permanent way men working on the line.

My mother would call out to my grandfather and he would ‘down tools’ and drop in for a cup of tea. Paddy McGartland joined the GNR(I) in Omagh in January

1924 as a platelayer and by December of that year was transferred to Beragh. In 1943 he took the job of crossing keeper at Edenderry, just a few miles outside town. After many years as a ganger on the permanent way, he went to Dublin for training and upon his return to Omagh progressed to sub-Permanent Way Inspector, where he remained until the closure.

PP Class 4-4-0 No. 106 leaving Omagh with the 1.45pm Enniskillen- Derry train. This passenger train would soon be going under the road bridge at Brookmount Road, passing the backs of the houses at Gortmore and Gortrush where many children would watch the train go by. Much of my childhood play was filled here by the sound of passing trains and my mother would lift me onto the wooden fence from where I would watch them go by. A shunting engine, SG3 Class 0-6-0 No. 20, is leaving the goods yard and waiting to go into the ‘convent siding’, waiting here for the line to clear before moving into the loop of the up line and shunting its goods train towards the Market Branch on 30th August 1950. Photo source: Ernie’s Railway Archive

On 9th August 1989, the late Norman Johnston, a good friend, well-known author and railway historian, asked me to accompany him on the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland’s 150th Anniversary of the Ulster Railway tour, marking the anniversary of the opening of the Belfast to Lisburn line by the Ulster Railway. As I watched him meticulously log engine and carriage numbers in his notebook, I realised that I too needed to record everything about Omagh, a station, like many others, that never should have closed.

and the main Belfast – Dublin line. The town, too, would have developed further as a thriving market town serving a rising population. Indeed, the many industries that depended on the railway may have remained open in one form or another providing employment, as they did for several generations. Despite the deterioration of passenger traffic in the early 1960s and the competition of the motor car, the line could have survived with increased goods traffic keeping roads free from the heavy congestion that runs through the town today.

When the UTA withdrew its own goods trains at the same time that Omagh station closed, its counterpart in the Republic, CIÉ, continued to operate goods trains north to Derry (via Antrim and the NCC main line) until the end of the century. It is probable that had Omagh station remained, this traffic would have gone via the Derry Road, perhaps using Omagh as the Donegal railhead.

If the Derry Road had survived the widespread rail closures in 1965, today Omagh would probably have dominated the North West of lreland as a major Translink junction providing travel to Enniskillen, Donegal, Derry and Belfast, as well as onwards to Sligo to the south, and Donegal to the west. The original station building would by now have been modernised and diesel trains would connect the town with Dungannon, Portadown 4

LQGs Class 0-6-0 No.109 shunting on the Derry siding, named so because it ran all the way from the goods store to the main Derry line. No.109 has just arrived from Enniskillen with the 1.05pm goods train on 1st June 1954 and is propelling it into the goods yard for unloading. Photo source: Neil Sprinks/Charles P. Friel collection

A wealth of publications already exist on the GNR(I).

This book looks at the day by day operations at Omagh General Station, drawn from over thirty years of research and conversations with former GN staff living in Omagh, of which there are few left.

Despite making every effort to credit all photographs where known, I have not been able to identify or credit all copyright owners. I sincerely hope that you will accept this statement in lieu of thanks for their use. I would especially like to thank Andrew Martin and the Irish Newspaper Archives for their support and assistance.

Acknowledgements

I must mention former Omagh shunter Joe McGrew who gave me so much of his time in detailing the platform buildings and workings of the trackwork and sidings in the goods yard that he shunted on during his employment and Ken Donald for his insight into railway life in both Fintona and Omagh. Without the kind permission of Sweet Omagh Town Radio this book would be without the conversations of deceased railway employees Alex Clarke, Jackie Griffin, Paddy McLoone, William McGrew and Billy Potts – this local community on-line radio channel provided an archive of audio documentaries of the town and I am grateful to Don McGurgan and Declan Forde for their support.

Back in 1989 many ex-GN staff were still alive and only too keen to tell me about their years on the ‘Derry Road’. Michael O’Neill, Gerry Donnelly, Billy Caldwell, Brian Kelly, Billy Potts – all no longer with us and the last few remaining employees, Joe McGrew, Davy Graham, Ken Donald, Frank Curran and Stanley McKelvey, who have contributed so much of their time in my research.

I would like to thank the staff at Omagh Branch Library (Local History Studies), Alan Porter (Holland Collection), to Charles Friel for giving me access to the collections of E.M. Patterson, Neil Sprinks and J.D. Fitzgerald. I would also like to thank John Langford, Mike Morant, Roger Joanes, Ernie Brack (Ernie’s Railway Archive), Selwyn Johnston of HeadHunters Museum, Bill McGrew and the late Brian McDaid who gave me access to many photographs that are reproduced here and for those of the Irish Railway Record Society (IRRS). I have to thank Stephen Tull and Eric Challoner for sharing their deep understanding of signalling in Omagh and Steve Rafferty for his contribution on Great Northern carriages, they have added great depth of detail to the book. I am grateful to the Deputy Keeper of the Records, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, for access to their archive.

I want to thank railway historian and writer Jonathan Beaumont for advising me throughout the writing of this book, for his contributions, his editing and proofreading.

He brings a wealth of knowledge of the workings of Irish railways. His father, the late Henry Beaumont, was the District Civil Engineer for the GNR(I)’s Western District.

I would like to thank Kevin Robinson and TT Publishing for their support in committing this project to print.

Finally, to my wife Mary, my children and grandchildren for their love and support.

Tony McGartland, February 2023 5

Chapter 1 - The Formative Years of the GNR(I) In the 19th century the railways were an important part of the development of ports and in Ireland, with most of the main railway routes originating in ports - Derry, Belfast, Dublin and other places. For Derry to survive as a port in the extreme North West of Ireland, it had to attract business, so a line was proposed from Enniskillen via Omagh to the city in 1837. Prior to the coming of the railway, Derry was the port of departure for the people of counties Donegal, Derry and Tyrone. At a public meeting held at the Court House, Omagh in October 1844 it was agreed that ‘great advantages would arise to Omagh and the surrounding country, from a railway between the city of Derry and Enniskillen’. There would be great benefits to the trade of Omagh to have a railway to Derry, the natural seaport of Tyrone. In 1847 records show that over 12,000 people went through the port in the peak famine year. During the 1830s much of the country was still using horse drawn transport and many local areas in the north-west were dependent on the daily mail coach service between Dublin and Derry. The Dublin and Londonderry Mail arrived at the

White Hart Hotel, Omagh every morning from Dublin at 6.25am and only stopped to change horses.

The Dublin and Omagh Coach left the White Hart Hotel, Omagh every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6am for Drogheda railway station and returned on alternate days. William McHugh boasted a ‘comfortable service’ between Castlederg and Strabane, leaving Castlederg every morning at 8am, arriving in Strabane at 9.30am, in time for passengers to catch the Omagh Day Coach to Derry. By 1842, the Post Office had acquired and converted the Omagh Day Coach into a Mail Coach.

Throughout this period of transport there were many reports of death and injury caused by reckless driving along treacherous and uneven roads. It is hard to imagine what Omagh looked like during this transition from horse carriage and coaches to railway travel.

However, in the 1890s the Scottish company J. Valentine & Co. started producing commercial postcards and early images of Omagh show what the town looked like back then.

In the early part of the 1900s very few people in Omagh could afford the luxury of a motor car. Horse and cart were still the prime means of transport and carters were employed to deliver goods around town. In the late 1920s, Wordies were established in the early 1900s as agents for the GN in all the major towns with railway connections.

On a daily basis they drew goods from the goods store and also from the platform of Omagh General Station and this was delivered around town on a daily basis. Photo source: Valentine/Author’s Collection

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The ‘Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway’ was formed and incorporated by an Act of Parliament in July 1845. The line had already been surveyed by George Stephenson in 1837 and he estimated that the connection would cost £310,000 but the shareholders felt it could be done for less. They subsequently wrote to Dundalk born Irish engineer Sir John MacNeill and the line was surveyed again. When a disagreement about the route between Strabane and Omagh could not be resolved, George Stephenson’s son Robert was brought in and he submitted a revised costing and the contractor James Leishman started work. The first stretch of line between Derry and Strabane finally opened for business on 19th April 1847.

station was difficult and passengers had to climb steps to access trains. To begin with, passenger traffic was light and only four-wheel carriages were used, pulled by small locomotives. The local press carried the first advertisements announcing the opening of the rail services between Derry and Omagh with trains leaving Omagh daily at 4.45am, 8.30am, 11.00am, 3.00pm and 5.00pm with a journey time of almost two hours.

In the summer of 1852, when the line was approaching the outskirts of Omagh, a train carrying only inspectors, directors, solicitors and contractors for the company were taken to examine the line. They were keen to see what progress was being made. Soon after, on 13th September 1852, the first passenger train left Omagh Station for Derry. Initially a temporary station made of timber was erected for passengers but this was never suitable, as it was on an embankment with a steep slope up to the station. The approach to the

For some years this situation continued, with passengers having to enter and exit carriages from this temporary wooden platform. All trains were dispatched from the single platform and line, leading to much disruption and delay. This was remedied sometime after when engineers improved conditions at the station. They raised the ground levels around the entrance with tons of soil to allow passengers to board trains with ease and also added a second platform and shelter.

From 1904, the original ‘Railway Bar’ was situated in John Street, previously known as the ‘Railway Tavern’.

It reopened its doors under a new licence in February 1960 at Railway Terrace managed by the Campbell family originally from Dromore, Co. Tyrone.

The window of Railway Bar, Omagh on 28th July 1964, with its reference to the town’s railway heritage etched in the glass. The image is, apparently, one of the ‘Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway’ engines and clearly shows how steam locomotives have advanced since the early years of four-wheeled engines with tall chimneys. Sadly, the glass was shattered when a garage in nearby James Street was bombed in October 1972. Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time Work also continued towards Fintona, Bundoran Junction and Enniskillen, the line to which was eventually opened on 19th August 1854.

an application to Parliament to provide a main line connection with the L&ER on the centre of the bridge at James Street, to carry the railway over the public road. This application included provision for sidings connecting the line to the nearby goods and corn store.

By April 1858 the Ulster Railway (UR) had extended the Portadown line to Dungannon and until they made the connection with Omagh, a four-horse coach was taking passengers between the two towns. Much of this line was built by the famous contractor William Dargan. The section of track between Pomeroy and Carrickmore was the highest point on the eventual GNR(I) system, reaching 561ft above sea level and with a maximum gradient of 1:80. This section to Omagh cost £6,500 per mile to lay. First Class return tickets were 15s and Second Class 10s. 6d.

Just when Omagh was starting to enjoy the freedom of rail travel for the first time, in March the following year it faced its first setback when the temporary station house was totally destroyed by fire. The fire began in a watchman’s store where a small stove overheated and since the building was built almost entirely of wood, the fire spread rapidly and within an hour every part of it was destroyed. A local builder was able to prevent the adjoining platforms from catching light.

In November 1856, solicitors for the Portadown, Dungannon and Omagh Railway (PD&O) made

Top: Drawings held at the Public Records office showing the general outline and layout of the Market Branch in 1913. Photo source: PRONI – COM/64/3/28 Bottom: Omagh General Station in 1913. The drawings were produced in each case to estimate the ‘rateable’ value of the ground occupied by the GNR. Photo source: PRONI – COM/64/3/28)

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Without a permanent station, passengers started to show their frustration at the railway companies’ failure to provide better facilities in Omagh. Shareholders of the Dundalk and Enniskillen Railway (D&ER) expressed their concerns about the progress of the Ulster Railway and how the competition would reduce the traffic on the Enniskillen line. The directors of the D&ER reported the need for a permanent station, stating that the amount of goods and passenger traffic made it ‘second in importance to none on the line’. Eight years had passed since the opening of the line and still the town was without a permanent railway station. Up to now passengers had to board trains from muddy roads and enter carriages from temporary platforms. At a meeting held at Omagh Courthouse in October 1860, the Irish North Western Railway (INWR) agreed to construct station buildings at the junction where the Dungannon to Omagh line and Enniskillen to Omagh line would meet. Early plans to build the station on the straight section of track at Gortmore, between the bridge on the Brookmount Road and Mullaghmena crossing, were strongly disapproved of by many, as it was too far away from the town centre. It was agreed that they build the station between the water tower and the bridge over the Dromore Road on grounds near the goods store where a long platform could be erected, sufficient to serve both companies. The upper part, next to the Dromore Road, would be assigned to the PD&OR and the lower part serving the passengers of the L&ER company. Work began by both companies to merge the line. Ordnance

Survey maps for this period show the L&ER line with a simple extension being laid towards the bridge crossing the Dromore Road. This became more complex when an additional line was added later. Across the bridge the PD&OR line stopped under the road bridge at Railway View, as yet preventing through trains from Portadown to Derry. To the front of the goods store were wagon turntables to allow the transfer of goods between sidings there. These were later removed due to space constraints and instead two sidings were extended, later known as ‘the gullet’ and the ‘Derry siding’.

With the completion of the final rail connections now in place, the PD&OR announced the opening of their service to Omagh on 2nd September 1861, finally making rail travel possible between Dublin and Derry.

As Omagh soon became an important junction, the UR announced their intention to make and maintain a branch railway goods station in the townland of ‘Dergmoney Lower’, terminating in a field adjoining or near to the ‘Lower Market’, such field being the property of Mrs. Jane Spillar. This was known as the ‘Market Branch Goods Station’. The area adjacent to this would later be known as “Spillar’s Place”. This would allow the General Station to concentrate on passenger travel and move the heavier goods to the new branch. A 999 year lease was granted to the UR to build the station for a share of the profits. This was opened for traffic on 21st July 1862, almost a mile to the south-east of the town.

Mr. Andrew Knox was appointed Goods Manager.

The original Portadown, Dungannon and Omagh Junction Railway ‘Schedule of Work’ from August 1860. The document identifies the land boundaries, land owners, estimated costs of compensation for purchase of interest and total to be paid by the railway company. The schedule also outlines the nature of the work and townlands affected at Cranny, Crevenagh, Dergmoney, Meetinghouse Hill, and Coolnagard.

Photo source: Proni - t877/819

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time Londonderry & Enniskillen Railway (L&ER) Ulster Railway (UR)

Derry

Portadown, Dungannon and Omagh Railway (PD&OR) Portadown and Dungannon Railway (P&DR) Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway (E&BR)

Strabane

Dundalk & Enniskillen Railway (D&ER)

Newtownstewart

Omagh Dungannon

Fintona Jct.

Bundoran

Bundoran Jct.

Portadown

Fintona

Enniskillen

Clones

Castleblaney Dundalk

To Dublin

Route Map A map showing the route of the Derry Road including the various companies that formed the lines before © Tony McGartland amalgamation and (inset) the crest of the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) carried on many GN locomotives described here in Railway Magazine 1951.

The coat of arms of the Great Northern Railway Company (Ireland) is a combination of the shields of Dublin, Derry, Dundalk, Enniskillen and Belfast, with a small shield superimposed bearing the Red Hand of Ulster.

Top left - Dublin - the three burning castles are from the arms of the city of Dublin – headquarters of the GNR(I).

Top right - The top half of the arms of London with the Irish harp on the cross of St. George. Below is a skeleton sitting on a stone of a mound of earth beside a castle. Some sources say that it is a mound of now-useless cannon balls. This is believed to be an illusion to Sir Cahir O’Doherty who destroyed Derry in 1608 but was later starved to death in his castle in Buncrana. Other sources suggest that the skeleton relates to the Siege of Derry in 1689.

The late ex-GNR(I) employee Tom McDevitte MBE (aka Barney McCool of Coolaghey) said that it was a railway man living on his pension!

Bottom left - The arms of Enniskillen, including the castle of the Maguires, are from the crest of the former Dundalk and Enniskillen Railway Company.

Bottom right - The bell and the sailing ship are early merchants’ signs that were incorporated in the Belfast arms.

The Red Hand of Ulster (in the centre) on the GNR(I) crest is depicted as the left hand whereas that on the Ulster Transport Authority is a right hand. Photo source: Railway Magazine 1951

Although many people thought that this was Omagh’s first passenger station, it never dealt with passenger traffic. Soon afterwards, work began on the new ‘Omagh Joint Station’ of the INWR and PD&O and a joint committee was appointed to manage the affairs of both companies. By February the following year, the resident engineer, Mr. John Stokes, for the INWR, reported that the joint station was nearing completion.

For the past ten years Omagh had been using temporary wooden sheds and fixtures and now, this elegant ‘Elizabethan’ style two storey building, built from black limestone sourced locally and featuring stone dressings from Carland quarry, Dungannon, stood proud on James Street in the town. Apart from a ticket office, parcel room and refreshment rooms, there was upper-floor accommodation for a stationmaster.

The station boasted a 650 feet long flagged platform, with gas lighting, running between the Portadown line and the Derry and Dundalk line, allowing passengers to come forward as trains entered the station.

However, the single line track would soon prove to be inadequate as traffic merged at the junction. On the 4th March 1863, the INWR announced that the station was now open for passenger and parcels traffic for the INWR as well as the UR. In June 1872 the Directors of the Ulster Railway Company invited builders to tender for the job of erecting an engine shed and turntable adjacent to the road bridge at Railway View. After a violent storm in December 1894 stonework in one of the gables was blown down though the shed was repaired and extended in 1904.

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The exterior of Omagh General Station on 28th July 1964. Passengers entered the building through the front entrance to gain access to the booking hall, ticket office and exit onto the platform. In 1939, work was carried out in the booking office to form a doorway through to the parcel’s office next door. The door to the right of the entrance leads to the living accommodation above the station. Further to the right were the refreshment rooms, kitchen and, out of view, was the goods office. The building was built in the ‘Elizabethan’ style from locally sourced black limestone and featured stone dressings. Several of the rooms had open fires burning to keep passengers and staff warm. It was the cleaner, Mrs Sarah Hannigan’s, job to light the fire in the Station Master’s office every morning.

The station first opened to passengers on 4th March 1863. Photo Source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

The local papers carried adverts seeking tenders to operate their new refreshment rooms, and for a station master to take charge of the Joint Passenger Station with a salary of £80 per year, with house and fuel supplied. Although the town seemed to be enjoying the elegance of a new station building, facilities for passengers still left a lot to be desired. On 2nd November 1873, at a meeting of the town commissioners, a Mr. William Elliott commented on the ‘disgraceful state of Omagh Station’.

always neat and clean and tastefully laid out.”

The road to improving the railway network would only come with the amalgamation of the various companies and this process began in 1873 with the merger of the Dublin & Drogheda (D&DR) and Dublin & Belfast Junction (D&BJct) railways to form the Northern Railway Company (Ireland), eventually providing a main line between Dublin and Belfast. The shareholders of the Irish North Western Railway (INWR) were concerned about their accounts and decided to merge with the Northern Railway Company in January 1876. Without the Ulster Railway Company, the full amalgamation would not be complete and only after deep negotiation with its directors did, they decided to merge in April, bringing with them the Portadown, Dungannon and Omagh Junction Railway (PD&O). Omagh was then no longer referred to as “Omagh Joint Station” but “Omagh General Station”.

“The ticket office is in such a position that it is exposed to every blast that blows and on winter days it is a pitiable sight to behold the shivering crowd huddled outside the petty pigeonhole in the wooden box where tickets are doled out. The 1st and 2nd class waiting rooms are meanly furnished and ill kept and the ‘black hole’ beyond the refreshment rooms, erected for the benefit of third-class passengers, was nightly the scene of petty rowdyism. The refreshment rooms however are

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

One of the earliest pictures of a locomotive in Omagh, a G Class 2-4-0 No. 50 in the down bay c.1910. This rare glimpse of an early GN locomotive shows this elegant loco with its tall chimney and large dome. Built in 1877

by Beyer, Peacock & Co., Manchester, the engine was originally No.59 and renumbered in 1885. This early fleet of engines were withdrawn in 1914 due to their successors having greater tractive powers. To the right, out of the picture, was a reservoir from where a pumping house pumped water up to platform level to fill the tenders of engines. Also worth noting is the timber decked exterior to the base of the footbridge which housed a small ticket office. This was where a devastating fire started in 1955 which almost entirely destroyed the bridge.

Photo source: Norman Holland/Alan Porter

Despite the growth of the Great Northern, Omagh was still having its own problems and with ongoing complaints from passengers, it took years before the new company took action. With increasing passenger services and goods traffic, the stationmaster vacated his spacious accommodation upstairs in the main building and took up residence in nearby James Street, to accommodate additional station clerks. By September 1880, the first of two children were born at Omagh General Station to Samuel Jennings and his wife Margaret who occupied the building. Samuel was employed as a chief clerk and his wife Margaret worked as a publican in the refreshment rooms.

stated that many of the improvements were for the ‘comfort of the travelling public and others were to meet the requirements for a more effective working of the line’. The improvements on the platform consisted of a double roofed canopy supported on ornamental cast pillars and angle iron girders. The canopy covered the platform for about 70yds and projected over the roofs of the carriages so passengers could leave or take their seats on the train without getting wet. The company also erected a large cast iron water tower, replacing one that stood many years previously.

However, for the time being, there was no intention of erecting a double platform at the station due to the cost. As the demand on locomotive design began to change due to increased passenger traffic, the town was seeing more and more of the finest steam power passing through the station.

By August 1885, despite the growing volume of traffic, Omagh station still had but one platform and a single line. To improve matters a number of improvements were reported in the local press in 1886. The GNR(I)

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GN 2-4-0 No.17 Shamrock pictured between 1876-1880, one of three locomotives built by Sharp, Stewart (Manchester) for the Ulster Railway in 1857, the other two named ‘Rose’ and ‘Thistle’. The letters ‘GNR’ are on the cab side and not the tender which was common with Ulster Railway engines. They were re-numbered in 1885 as 117 (Shamrock) 118 (Rose) and 119 (Thistle). The engine was withdrawn from service in 1886-1887 and scrapped in 1906. This picture comes from the photo collection of the late Billy Potts, a GN engine driver from Omagh, and another GN driver, Barney McGirr, has suggested the location as Dungannon station. With the extension of the Ulster Railway line to Omagh in 1861, this engine would certainly have travelled to and from town.

Photo source: Unknown

Improvements did not end there, with increased traffic came increased demand for better communication between the General Station and the Market Branch.

Therefore, in April 1892 the company adopted the use of the new electric train staff (ETS) system and installed it in several of their stations, Omagh being one of them.

The first trial took place when an 8.15pm goods train to Derry was dispatched under the new system. With this in place, it was impossible for two trains to find themselves

on the same line between stations. Following the success of trials, the ETS system became permanent.

By October, a pair of ‘Gower Bell’ instruments were installed. This enabled communication between the passenger station and the Market Branch, at the other side of the town. The Gower-Bell telephone was one of the earliest telephones adopted by the General Post Office and continued to be standard for many years.

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

Back in the 1890s, Mr. John G. Porter was the proprietor of both the Royal Arms Hotel and Reform Stores. He provided a horse drawn carriage for passengers travelling to and from the hotel to the station. This card shows an artist’s impression of the hotel, which remained in business up until 1999. Photo source: Taggart Collection

A postcard view of the High Street in Omagh c.1930. The card includes the truck used by the Royal Arms Hotel to transfer guests’ luggage to the railway station. With very few motor vehicles in town, people still were relying on horse drawn carts and the railway as their main source of transport. Photo source: Taggart Collection

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Omagh General Station

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Detailed view of station buildings

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Entrance

© Tony McGartland

Omagh General Station - The layout of the passenger station and platform buildings Down Platform (Left to Right) Gents - Ladies Waiting Room - General Waiting Room - Permanent Way Office Up Platform (A) Foreman’s Hut (B) Gents (C) Ladies 3rd Class Waiting Room and WC (D) Ladies 1st & 2nd Class Waiting Room (E) Station Masters Office (F) Telegraph Office (G) Eason’s Bookstall (H) Booking Hall (I) Booking Office (J) Lobby and stairs to first floor accommodation (K) General Waiting Room (L) Refreshment Room 1st Class (M) Refreshment Room 2nd Class (N) Kitchen (O) Parcels Office (P) Steps to cellar To the right of the footbridge were (Left to Right) Water Tower - Gents - Oil Store, used for shunters lamps, and Shunters Hut

In March 1893, the GN advertised their willingness to receive tenders for the erection of new waiting rooms of timber and a footbridge to connect the up and down platforms. By the summer of 1893 work finally started to form a second line and a second platform to dispatch down trains. A comfortable waiting room with toilets was erected under the cover of a wide, glazed canopy, similar in design to that on the up platform. Trains were accessed by a large passenger footbridge which was erected at the Derry end of the station. Track upgrades took place to ease operations in the station. New points were controlled from two signal cabins, Omagh North and Omagh South.

in the Belfast direction, much to the approval of the travelling public. At 733 feet long, it was now one of the longest on the GNR(I) system.

Investing money and resources, the company had already started work on a stationmaster’s house adjacent to the station at James Street. The rendered two storey building was detailed with red facing brick around its doorways and window arches as well as detailed quoin work in all its corners. A substantial yard area featured to the rear and the property was secured by cast iron railings all around, with access by a gate.

A number of stationmasters’ houses in similar style had already been built, the two most recent being Dromore Road junction and Sion Mills. They were designed by the GNR(I)’s resident engineer, William Hemingway Mills, whose work may still be seen at a number of exGNR(I) stations to this day.

The second platform was opened and operational by October 1893. Such was the success of this, that in 1897 it was decided to extend the up platform in the Derry direction by some 50ft. and the down platform opposite was resurfaced with concrete and extended 15

Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

The station master’s house on James Street was demolished in March 1989 to make way for the through-pass which was named the ‘Great Northern Road’. The building was one of the last reminders of our railway past and, soon after, the goods store was gone too. Photo source: Tony McGartland

When the stationmaster’s house was completed in August 1898, adverts appeared in the local press for a stationmaster to take up the new residence.

Mr. John Irvine was the first stationmaster to take up residency there. Adding to the ongoing modernisation was the installation of direct telephone communication between both signal cabins in 1899, and in 1913 land was purchased from Mr. James Greer to replace the existing turntable with a larger one to accommodate the larger fleet of locomotives now running the lines.

In 1925 the committee of the Tyrone & Fermanagh Hospital commenced negotiations with the GNR(I) to build a goods siding for the hospital rather than bring materials by horse and cart from the station at James Street. However, discussions came to nothing and the task was left in the hands of goods porters who transferred it to the hospital by cart.

It wasn’t until 1936 that an electrical system of lighting was installed at the station to replace gas. By now, the railway station was largely in its final state, the way that most users would remember it. The newly appointed stationmaster Mr. Albert Evans (1937- 1943) was determined to present Omagh as a thriving, successful station with a workforce that he could be proud of when he summoned a local photographer to mark his new position with a staff photograph on the steps of the station building.

In August 1923, the position of District Superintendent was abolished and Mr. W.A. Scott, who held the job, was transferred to Dublin. The office dealt with all traffic over the system throughout the North-West and was now being dealt with through Dublin and Belfast.

The office did re-open again in April 1944 with the appointment of Mr. H. Evans.

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GNR(I) Staff Omagh 1937 Back Row L-R Michael O’Neill(shunter)/Paddy Given (Eason’s Bookstall)/Jimmy Marron (Locomotive Examiner)/John Holland (Engine Driver)/Tommy Hamilton(Signalman)/Tommy Kelly (Engine Driver)/Jimmy Robinson (porter)/William Kerr (permanent Way foreman)/Hughie Donaghy (Signalman) Middle L-R John Mullan (Page Boy in Refreshment Room - holding board)/Sam Fleck (Electrician)/William McConville(Signalman)/ John Bates (Goods Porter)/Andy McAleer(Ticket Collector)/Edward McCrory (Goods Foreman)/John Fitzpatrick(Signalman)/ James Bell(Permanent Way Inspector)/Tom Kerr(Signalman) Front Row L-R Mark Breen (Permanent Way Foreman)/Mick McCrossan (Parcels office Clerk)/Jimmy Ballantine (Clerk)/Albert Evans (Station Master 1937-1943)/Barney McPeake(Chief Clerk-Goods)/John O’Donnell (Clerk)/Issac Armstrong(Permanent Way Time Keeper).

Seated on ground L-R Paddy Teague(Messenger)/John Bell(Son of Permanent Way Inspector James Bell) Photo source: from an article first published by tyrone constitution feb 1982

Omagh was well known for its football teams, both Gaelic and soccer alike. During the summer months, the culmination of a season normally ended at Omagh Showgrounds where teams battled it out to large cheering crowds. The men at Omagh station played their share of soccer too and in the summer of 1945, Omagh GNR were beaten by Abbeyville in the semi-

final of the annual Battisti Cup competition. The competition was sponsored by local man Tom Battisti who owned the Café Rex. Abbeyville went on to win the final. As well as soccer the GNR ‘Darts Team’ played around many of the bars in town and had their own club room on the Kevlin Road.

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Chapter 2 - War, Strike, Derailments and Tragedy War With rumour of impending war growing in 1914, the GNR(I) converted nine of its carriages for use as an ambulance train, at the request of the War Office. The work was carried out at their Dundalk Works under the supervision of Mr. G.T. Glover, their locomotive superintendent. The carriages were fitted out to receive up to ninety-six wounded soldiers and four officers, as well as accommodation for two doctors, nurses

and twelve members of the Army Medical Corps. The train was electrically lighted and heated by steam, and included beds, a pantry, a kitchen, a pharmacy and a large compartment containing an operating theatre for emergency operations. The 475 feet long train visited Omagh on at least two occasions. Apart from carriages, all types of goods wagons were used to convey ammunition to the front line and horses were transported by cattle wagons.

Armed soldiers supervise the loading of ammunition onto goods and cattle wagons parked on the Derry Siding at the goods yard. Bagged grain is being unloaded from an open wagon onto a horse drawn cart in the outside road, a siding that ran along the outside of the goods yard store. The General Station can be seen over the tops of the wagon roofs. It will be noted that the two cattle wagons visible have their lower halves covered in a whitish substance. This was lime wash, which was used as a disinfectant after cattle had been unloaded from these wagons at the end of their journey. Photo source: Norman Holland/Courtesy Alan Porter

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Train loads of horses needed for the war effort are packed into cattle wagons at the cattle beach in November 1914. Local dealers supplemented the low numbers of horses that were needed on the battle front in exchange for payment. In the background is the original goods store gable which was badly storm damaged throughout the 1940s and 1950s until it was reduced in height and received a new roof covering in 1955.

Although this picture was taken in November 1914, the other stone structures below still remain today.

Photo source: Norman Holland/Courtesy Alan Porter

The interiors of the coaches were painted white to contribute to the cleanliness required by a hospital and the exterior of the coaches were painted with a Red Cross so the purpose of the train would be obvious. A second train was fitted out to relieve the first one some months later.

The only known photographs of the arrival of the ambulance train in Omagh were taken by Norman Lee Holland (1887-1951), a solicitor’s apprentice, and later a qualified solicitor, who lived at 13 Church Street, Omagh. Although Norman was born in Dublin, he lived in Omagh and was well known in the community. He

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had a solicitor’s practice in the town and in Belfast. One of his earliest views of the Market Branch Junction in 1914 shows GNR(I) PP Class 4-4-0 No. 106 ‘Tornado’ approaching a wooden platform and signal cabin.

There is some mystery surrounding the removal of the cabin at the junction. In the book ‘The Golden Years of the Great Northern Railway’ by R.M. Arnold (Blackstaff Press 1979) it was stated that it was removed in 1924.

However, a valuation report carried out on 17th February 1932 showed that the cabin was under review and was removed as an economy measure and replaced with a ground frame soon after.

Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

A very rare shot of PP Class 4-4-0 No. 106 Tornado approaching Market Junction in 1910. Like many GN engines, No. 106 lost her name in 1914 and went to CIÉ in 1958, to be withdrawn in 1960. The timber platform and balcony around the signal cabin were destroyed by a derailment several years later. This was a ‘check’ platform, where trains would stop for passengers’ tickets to be checked in the days when carriages had no through corridors. By 1932 the cabin was removed entirely and replaced with a ground frame to change the points for the Market Branch.

On the left a member of the permanent way staff holds a 5’3” track gauge, the standard measurement of the Irish broad gauge line, measured rail to rail, and the strange looking apparatus in the foreground is a catcher for the single line staff as the train enters this section of track. Photo Source: Norman Holland/Courtesy Alan Porter

Nurses selling flags to passengers at Omagh General Station for the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers Comfort Fund.

The money collected both at the station and on the High Street was used to send parcels to every prisoner of war.

Photo source: Norman Holland/Courtesy Alan Porter

On 1st May 1915, the ambulance train containing nine coaches hauled by SG Class 0-6-0 No.178 arrives in town carrying wounded soldiers to the military hospital for treatment. This was the second visit, the first being in November the previous year. A fireman gets ready to dispatch the staff as it approaches the South Cabin. On the right are the houses of Railway Terrace and in the distance the engine shed can be seen with the houses of Railway View above it. Of the nine coaches in the train, six contain spacious luggage compartments; these would have been used to convey injured soldiers on stretchers. Standing on the pavement at 1 Dromore Road is Mrs. Ellen McGale and her young son Patrick. Photo source: Norman Holland/Courtesy Alan Porter

In February 1913, a battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, stationed in Omagh, were photographed by Norman Holland leaving Omagh Station for training at Finner Camp, Ballyshannon. The GN laid on ‘special’ train services to Bundoran for friends and families of the ‘brave boys’ at Finner so they could visit them as often as possible before they were called up to the front. In August of the same year Sir Edward Carson met with supporters at Omagh County Club and at Crevenagh Playing Fields where he addressed them. Special train departures were put in place to accommodate the crowds, with trains bound for Beragh, Dungannon, Cookstown and Trew and Moy departing from Omagh Market Branch. Although this was not the first time that passenger trains had used the market branch, it was one of very few such occasions. All other trains on the day departed from Omagh General Station as normal.

Omagh where they were met at the station by a large number of people offering to transport them to the Tyrone Infirmary.

Later, on 1st May 1915, the ambulance train, hauled by GNR(I) SG Class 0-6-0 No. 178, arrived in town again carrying wounded soldiers to the military hospital for treatment.

A large number of people assembled at the station to receive the wounded and a fleet of motor cars were provided by residents in the town to transport them to hospital. A number of wounded were able to walk to cars but others more seriously wounded were carried by the Army Medical Corps. Dr. J.J. Todd, acting medical officer at the Omagh depot, was in attendance and supervised the care of the men. The Rev. Canon Scott, of Clanabogan, gave the use of his ambulance which was at Omagh military depot. Norman Holland was present to photograph the arrival of the train and movement of wounded soldiers. At the end of the war, these special trains were converted back to normal use.

On 5th November 1914, some 700 wounded troops arrived in Dublin from the base hospital at Boulogne.

At least 150 of them were sent northwards by means of the finely equipped new ambulance train. Thirty-one of the less serious cases were taken via Portadown to

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

Dr. Edward Thompson, surgeon in Tyrone County Hospital, meets wounded troops off the train at Omagh General Station on 1st May 1915. A number of wounded were able to walk to cars but others more seriously wounded were carried by the Army Medical Corps. Dr. J.J. Todd, acting medical officer at the Omagh depot, was in attendance and supervised the care of the men. The Rev. Canon Scott, of Clanabogan, gave the use of his ambulance which was at Omagh military depot. Photo source: Norman Holland/Courtesy Alan Porter

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Soldiers, railway and medical staff at Omagh General Station on 1st May 1915 assist with the removal of casualties from a GN M1 carriage which formed part of the ambulance train. These carriages were used as their double doors allowed easier access on and off for stretchers ferrying the wounded. The insides of the doors in the photograph are painted white as were the insides of all these carriages to promote a feeling of cleanliness. It is also noted that these same carriages were used on the ‘Bundoran Express’ so less able pilgrims could travel to Lough Derg.

Photo source: Norman Holland/Courtesy Alan Porter

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

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Opposite Top: On Wednesday 29th July 1914, the 1st Battalion ‘A Company’, of the Bedfordshire Regiment, leave Omagh General Station in a train of six-wheeler coaches after receiving orders to proceed to Mullingar for mobilisation due to the serious situation in Europe. Upon arriving in Mullingar the regiment proceeded on to France. From an early hour, station staff were removing luggage from carts onto carriages. The streets of Omagh were lined with supporters and the train left shortly after 4pm. One Bedfordshire man, who was married to an Omagh woman, had to leave his young bride behind. The sign on the carriage window reads ‘Smoking’ – something not tolerated in railway carriages today! Photo source: Norman Holland/Courtesy Alan Porter Opposite Bottom: The departure of 3rd Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers from Omagh on Saturday 8th August 1914 as they are called up for military drill. A company of Ulster Volunteers assembled at the station and as the train left they were cheered from the platform by large enthusiastic crowds. Over 300 local Irish Volunteers assembled and marched to the station accompanied by St. Eugene’s Brass and Reed Band and the Tír Eoghain Pipe Band. The down platform was besieged with much support. To the right, the bowler hat of cornet player Hugh Doherty is just visible, a founding member of St. Eugene’s Brass and Reed Band. Photo source: Norman Holland/ Courtesy Alan Porter Above: The 9th Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers passing through Omagh on their way to Shane’s Castle, Randalstown in a train of six-wheeler coaches on Tuesday 19th January 1915. The battalion were transferred from Finner Camp, Bundoran four months previously where they had been stationed. Four special trains were used to convey the battalion and their equipment. Upon arriving in Omagh each train was allowed to stop at the station for fifteen minutes to bid farewell to family and friends. Photo source: Norman Holland/Courtesy Alan Porter

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time When road traffic began to cause serious competition with the railway companies at the start of the 20th century, financial losses began to mount. A threat of a strike of railway workers in 1921 was avoided after overnight talks brought the dispute to an end. However, ongoing losses resulted in wages cut across the network which was implemented in January 1933. As a result, a national railway strike took place this time. On the first morning of the strike, rolling stock was strategically placed to block the lines in many stations and over 5,000 railway employees ceased work. Considerable disruption was caused at Omagh and lorries had to be used to convey bread supplies

junction when all the carriages and 14 cattle wagons were thrown off the rails. As the train entered the cutting, the displaced rolling stock was thrown against the embankments at each side. Several telegraph poles were taken down by colliding carriages, causing Omagh to be isolated from the rest of the country. Mr. Harry Torney of Campsie and another local man, Frank O’Kane, arrived at the scene in cars and assisted in taking some of the injured to hospital. It was believed that the points had been tampered with. One of the passengers, Mr. Robert Delaney from Belfast, was a passenger on the train when he heard a sudden grinding of wheels and was thrown to the floor. “I struggled as best I could and then I saw the floor of the carriage giving way. My feet went through the floorboards, it was a miracle my limbs weren’t torn away. I was dragged out by several people and taken to the hospital.”

Coal merchants were left to empty coal wagons themselves in the goods yard and rolling stock remained parked in the sidings and engines remained in the engine shed. Sealed wagons that were parked in sidings since the strike began were opened by Customs Officers and the contents removed to their destination, mainly in Donegal. At a meeting in the Labour Hall, Mr. Joseph Hutton, chairman, thanked the large turnout of the general public for supporting the striking railway employees. The speaker contradicted rumours which had been published in the Dublin and Belfast press of trains running between Omagh and Enniskillen as untrue. The strike, which began at midnight on 30th January, was the longest in the history of Irish railways, ending after nine weeks when a settlement was reached.

The driver of the train, James Hobson, told the inquest that upon his approach to the junction, he noticed the points had been set for the Market Branch and he immediately applied the brakes. The engine, GNR(I) Q Class 4-4-0 No. 122, and the leading carriage ran safely over the points and took the curve of the Market Branch but several others derailed as they approached the heel of the switch. During the derailment several bogies became detached from their underframes and rolled over and over sideways, coming to rest on the sides of the cutting. Three of the derailed coaches had to be scrapped - Bogie tri-compo No.20, Bogie Third No.419, Bogie Third and Brake No. 124. Other damaged stock included two 20-Ton Vans, Nos.780 and 781, cattle wagon No. 1563, five fish vans, Nos. 833, 836, 793, 795, 811, and Passenger Van No. 275.

As if by a twist of fate, this wouldn’t be the last incident for No. 122 as it was this same engine that took the lives of five permanent way staff in the station in 1950.

One of the most sensational news stories in Omagh during the strike was the derailment of a train on 2nd March 1933 when a passenger train carrying 24 passengers from Belfast was derailed at Market Junction after passing the Linn Bridge.

Around fourteen passengers were injured when the train (due in Omagh at 11.40am) was nearing the

The scene of the accident where two of the three coaches that had to be scrapped lie on their sides. A Bogie tri-compo No.20 and Bogie Third No.419.

Such was the force of the collision that local people heard the sound of the impact and raced to the scene. Omagh man Harry Torney, one of the first on the scene, took some of the injured to hospital in his car.

Photo source: Authors Collection

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An armed police officer stands guard over the scene as railway officials inspect the damage at the junction.

Standing at the immediate vicinity of the junction, it is clear to see that there is nothing left of the damaged points which the inquest found had been tampered with. The points and twisted track lie strewn across the ground as they await the arrival of a crane to clear the lines. Photo source: Patrick Chesters

This is from the camera of Norman Holland who was standing on the Dublin Road bridge over the line. In the distance GN Steam Crane No.2 can be seen at the far end of the Crevenagh cutting The vehicle nearest us is a permanent way lorry converted to run on rails. Photo source: Norman Holland/Charles P. Friel collection

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time Mr. James Lockhart, Traffic Manager, reported that he had met with the Chief Civil Engineer at the site of the incident and that ‘officials were engaged in clearing the line of damaged vehicles and debris and preparing the track for the re-opening of train services. A number of the derailed vehicles had been removed to the side of the track by a breakdown crane and railway officials were preparing a plan showing the exact position of the locomotive and vehicles of which the train was composed’. The following day, 3rd March, a circular was sent to all stationmasters from the Transport Manager’s Office in Belfast:

In the early hours of 5th September 1899, a train of empty wagons left Dungannon for Derry when couplings connecting the wagons to the engine broke loose as the train approached Omagh. The driver continued on to Omagh but as the loose wagons gained speed behind him, reaching almost 40mph, he could do nothing to avoid the collision which took place just beyond the Market Junction at Crevenagh cutting.

The line remained blocked until a GNR(I) breakdown crane arrived from Dundalk and soon the debris was removed. Throughout the day passenger trains arriving from Dublin, Belfast and Dungannon were brought to the Market Branch and passengers taken by road to the General Station. The line was cleared by 9pm that night. In January 1929, a bus travelling from Omagh in the direction of Derry skidded just outside the town at the ‘skew arch’ railway bridge which carries the Derry Road over the track at Castletown. The bus struck a fence and somersaulted, coming to rest across the GNR lines below with its wheels in the air. The line was completely blocked with the up-turned bus and during the night a GN crane was brought from Belfast and the line was clear by morning. Neither the driver or passengers sustained serious injury.

“In view of the outrages that have been occurring recently, I wish every care be taken to see that all points and crossings are in order. These should be inspected as often as possible during the day. Stationmasters and signalmen should examine the points themselves to make sure they have not been tampered with. There has already been one disaster at Omagh, through points being disconnected and left free. Special arrangements must be made to cover points situated away from stations.”

Local man Edward Chesters found himself on the front page of some of the newspapers the following day after being photographed at the site of the derailment. This particular incident was the seventeenth of its kind on the GNR(I) since the strike had begun on 30th January.

At Omagh Quarter Sessions in June of that year, Judge Linehan awarded £6,504 in a claim for damage to the GN against Tyrone County Council for the ‘malicious derailing’ of the train. The ‘Irish Press’ reported that Constable Bonar in his evidence said he had “retrieved bars and switches from the river below” that formed part of the damaged points. Mr. Joseph Wilson, a local merchant who lived only yards from where the derailment took place, was one of the passengers travelling on the train. He was able to scramble up the embankment to his home with only slight injuries.

In January 1937, the morning goods train from Pomeroy to Omagh broke in half three miles outside the town and traffic in and out of the station was blocked for several hours. When the engine driver noticed that the train had separated, he brought the engine and two remaining wagons to a stop just short of the North Cabin at the station. The remaining 25 uncoupled wagons travelled at great speed until they smashed into the rear of the original train. Fortunately, the driver William Wallace, his fireman Michael Smith and guard Joseph Cuthbertson escaped injury but were badly shaken. In total six wagons were derailed and badly damaged. Some of the wagons contained canisters of petrol and motor oil.

Thankfully, these did not ignite.

During the summer of 1938, a special passenger train with pilgrims bound for Lough Derg from Dublin was being shunted at Omagh railway station when it ran against the buffer stop of the siding and became bufferlocked. Fortunately, all the passengers had left the train to visit the town and there were no injuries. A squad of railway employees were able to release the carriages and the train continued on its journey about an hour late.

Such was the anger of many striking employees that in one of many cases William James Dickson, a striking railway porter, was charged at a special court in Omagh with maliciously throwing a stone at a passing mixed passenger and goods train with intent, outside the town on 30th March. The accused threw the stone and waved his fist in the direction of the driver, the stone striking the tender of the engine. When he appeared in court later in the month, the accused was placed under the Probation of Offenders Act, fined £30 and bound over to keep the peace for two years.

Following a spell of warm weather in May 1948 temperatures soared and people of the town were enjoying a swim at Lough Muck and Fairy Water.

However, the Belfast to Derry mail train was delayed from arriving in Omagh due to buckling to trackwork just outside the town.

Derailments On the line Portadown line leaving the town, Omagh Market Junction was situated some half a mile away on a falling gradient of 1 in 71 through the townland of Crevenagh. This was where the Omagh Market Branch diverged from the main line. This short section of line led to a goods yard with five sidings and a large goods shed which handled goods traffic to and from Belfast. There were several transfers daily between it and the General Station. The gradient contributed to frequent derailments and accidents and the high cutting at Crevenagh was witness to many breakaways of incoming goods trains from Portadown.

Local people out walking noticed the buckling caused by the expanding steel and quickly contacted the general station. Fearing a derailment, a breakdown gang were soon on the scene to carry out repairs.

In March 1950, the Derry bound goods train left the rails on the Beragh – Omagh section of track just beyond the Tyrone and Fermanagh Hospital and blocked the main Belfast line for most of the day. The train left the 28

Aftermath of the 1933 derailment at Market Junction. When news broke of the accident many local people rushed to the scene. Omagh man Eddie Chesters (fifth from left) was surprised to find himself in the front page of many of the national papers the following morning standing in front of the wreckage. The force of the derailment sent the carriages up the sides of Crevenagh cutting, clearly seen in this photograph. In later years Eddie was employed by the GN as a painter at the station. Photo source: Patrick Chesters

Great Northern Steam Crane No.2 at Omagh Market Junction clearing the line after the 1933 derailment. The ground frame which controlled the points can be seen to the right. In the foreground, locals watch next to a derailed ventilated goods wagon. The Crevenagh Road can be seen running parallel to the river and behind the trees is the private road leading to Crevenagh House, home of the Auchinleck family. Photo source: Charles P. Friel collection

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time rails when several wagons uncoupled and the rear of the train gathered enough speed to cause the incident.

Over twenty wagons left the rails, nine of them petrol tankers. A quarter of a mile of track was torn up and over 5,000 gallons of petrol was spilled. Fumes and leakage from one of the tankers caused great concern as a breakdown crew worked to clear the line. Passengers were taken between Beragh and Omagh by bus until the line was cleared the following day. Railway staff, holding raised red flags, secured the area by forming a human barrier to prevent visitors to the site.

In April 1931 three people were killed when a passenger train hit a car and its passengers at Garvaghy Crossing, outside Omagh. The gate-keeper, an employee of the GNR(I), was found to have been negligent in his duties in not having closed the crossing gates. The car was almost clear of the line when, unknown to the driver, the oncoming train, which was travelling at speed, caught the rear of the vehicle and the train buffers dragged it further down the line. One survivor of the accident was able to give evidence in court.

The 24th November 1950 will be remembered for generations to come in Omagh, for this was the darkest day in the history of the railway in the town and the families that were affected by what happened.

Tragedy Unlike on our roads, accidents and tragedies on the railways are thankfully not as frequent. From the inception of our railways there were, however, occasions when injury and fatality did happen. While this chapter does not include every recorded incident, the more serious occurrences could not go unmentioned.

A permanent way squad was carrying out routine track maintenance and repairs on the up loop at the north end of the station when the 9.25am passenger train from Derry to Belfast struck the five men.

Q Class 4-4-0 No. 123 approaches Garvaghy Crossing with a Belfast-Derry passenger train. The gate keeper can be seen observing the train from the safety of the gate keeper’s look-out. In April 1931 three people were killed here when a passenger train hit a car, killing its passengers as they crossed the line. One survivor of the accident was able to give evidence in court. The gate keeper, an employee of the GNR(I), was found to have been negligent in his duties in not having closed the crossing gates. Photo source: Drew Donaldson/Brian McDaid Collection

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The train consisted of GNR(I) Q Class 4-4-0 No. 122, six eight-wheel coaches and one four-wheel van. The collision killed two men outright and another three severely injured men died in Tyrone County Hospital a short time later. Those who died were John Cleary (55), John Cassidy (48), John McCrory (52), Daniel McCrory (45) and Charles Flanagan (50).

morning, he had served the railway for twenty-six years.

John Cassidy had only joined the permanent way on 7th November, less than three weeks earlier.

The day began as normal at 8.30am when the squad started work at the south end of the station. By 10.30am they had worked their way to the north end. Mr. William Wilson of Garden Cottages was examining the lines south of the station when the tragedy struck. It was his usual duty to examine the line and then join the squad.

The 10.17am Enniskillen train had arrived late, at 10.30am, and its carriages had already been shunted to leave the relevant platform. There was a shunting engine opposite on the Down Loop working gradually south but actually stationary at the time of the accident.

With the presence of another engine on the down line, and visibility reduced by heavy fog, the men were unaware of the approaching Derry train until it was too late. One of the men tried to leap to safety but was caught by the buffer of the engine. The other four men were trapped under the carriages. Mella Shannon was working in the restaurant car on board the fateful train that day and tried to nurse one of the men as he lay dying under the train.

The signalman at the North Cabin was informed that the oncoming Derry train had left Newtownstewart. Apart from the heavy fog, the driver’s view was obscured by the curved platform. The train was driven by Mr. Samuel Walker, his fireman was Mr. William Doherty and the guard Mr. Alec Young, all from Derry.

Local doctors and ambulance crews rushed to the scene and the injured were taken to Tyrone County Hospital but within an hour of admission John McCrory died, followed by Daniel McCrory who died later the same evening. Charles Flanagan died at 8am the following

Q Class 4-4-0 No. 122 with a Belfast – Derry train taking water at the down platform. The driver waits for an incoming railcar from Derry (out of shot) to clear the single line before leaving the station, 7th June 1957. The Q Class were designed and built for mixed traffic between Belfast and Dublin but in the latter years were often found on the Derry Road. Only one engine from this fleet survived - No. 131, which was preserved by the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland and still runs today. Although this picture was taken several years after the five permanent way men were tragically killed, by this same engine, it does show the tight working space between engine and platform where they worked the line. Photo source: Transport Treasury/Nick Nicolson

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

For anyone who cannot understand how five railway workers died in Omagh in November 1950, this picture taken some five years later captures the nature of the work of a permanent way crew and the risks they may encounter.

When ballast becomes contaminated with soil and growth, it loses its ability to drain surface water and has to be replaced. Photo source: G.R. Stone /Charles P. Friel Collection

An engineer’s diagram presented to the inquiry showing the track layout and signalling at Omagh. The diagram shows the position of the engine that was parked on the ‘down’ line at the time and ‘XXX’ marks the location of where the men were struck by the incoming train. The control of both the North Cabin(N) and South Cabin(S) show the regulation safety mechanisms in place for the platform lines, with the use of slotted signals.

Photo source: Proni – Com 64/4/46

One member of the squad managed to escape the accident as he had gone into a lineside permanent way hut to get bolts for use in the repairs. Another member was off ill that morning. They were almost finished checking the line and were packing ballast between the line and sleepers. So bad was the fog that upon the approach from the Nestlé factory, visibility was reduced considerably. Although the driver applied the brakes quickly, it was too late. In summing up the evidence at the official enquiry Mr. R. D. Duncan, Chief Inspector of Railways (NI), concluded that ‘the presence of a stationary locomotive close by had influenced their hearing, the curved line had restricted their visibility and no whistle was sounded’.

On Sunday morning (26th November) four of the dead were buried after a service at Omagh’s Sacred Heart Church. The fifth was buried after a service at St. Mary’s Church, Killyclogher. John Cassidy, Daniel McCrory and John McCrory were interred at Killyclogher Cemetery, Charlie Flanagan at Omagh Cemetery and John Cleary at his home parish of Beragh. In Omagh, St. Eugene’s Brass and Reed Band played the Funeral March under conductor Mr. Brian Turbett and a section of the Omagh Fire Service, of which Daniel McCrory was a member, led the cortege.

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Members of St. Eugene’s Brass and Reed Band (1950-53) who attended the funerals of the five GN employees who were tragically killed in the station on 24th November 1950. The band led the funeral cortege from the Sacred Heart Church playing the ‘Funeral March’ on the way to their burial. One of the five killed, Daniel McCrory, was himself a member of the band. Photo source: St. Eugene’s Brass and Reed Band Archive

Between them, the five railway workers left nineteen children without a father. In town, a ‘Disaster Fund’ was set up to support the widows and children of the five victims. At the inquest held only days after the incident, a verdict of ‘accidental death’ was returned.

Sadly, another railway employee, Bernard McNamee, was killed at Omagh Station on 10th September 1958 when he was struck by a railcar while carrying out shunting operations. He was carrying a shunter’s pole and walking between two lines when the tragic accident occurred. Fellow shunter Joe McGrew was an eyewitness to the incident, describing how he saw Mr. McNamee walking the line with his shunter’s pole and a passing railcar struck the pole, throwing him into its path.

The file containing the records, coroners’ reports and official inquiry into the tragedy at Omagh station where five railway workers lost their lives. In each case the coroner sums up with.... “Died at Omagh Station from multiple injuries received when deceased was struck by a train. We find no blame attached to any person.”

Photo source: Proni – Com 64/4/46)

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Chapter 3 - Excursions from Omagh At the time the local press reported that ‘the people of Omagh were now able to enjoy the comfort and convenience of rail travel.’ So much so that in the years that followed the ‘Lough Erne Steamboat Company’, in conjunction with the ‘Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway’ company, were carrying passengers on their ‘People’s Excursion’ specials leaving Derry for Enniskillen at 7am. The trip included sailing on the new Lough Erne steamer ‘The Countess of Milan’, down Lough Erne. The company advertised services in the local press with four departures daily from Enniskillen and similar return trips from Derry. The return ticket cost 1”/6’ with an additional 6pence for passengers wishing to join the cruise. Since there were no rail connections with Omagh, the people of Dungannon were enjoying ‘Pleasant Excursions’ to the seaside at Rostrevor. During the summer months of 1862, the ‘Irish North Western Railway’ provided a special train

from Enniskillen to a ‘Grand Musical Fete at Portrush’.

Passengers from Enniskillen via Omagh travelled to Derry and on their arrival at the city made their way across to the Waterside Terminus of the ‘Belfast and Northern Counties Railway’ where they continued their journey to Portrush. Several flute bands provided the music on the day. This continued for several years until everyone was able to enjoy the pleasures of County Donegal as work had begun on the 43 miles from Bundoran to Enniskillen, also linking the Atlantic coast with Derry. Initially, the plan was to connect Sligo, Bundoran and Enniskillen but after some delay in its construction, the rival ‘Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway’ was approved by parliament and the ‘Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway’ (E&BR) company abandoned their plan to extend to Sligo. Bundoran was connected to the growing network of railway travel when it opened its station on 13th June 1866.

A mixed selection of tickets for trains leaving and arriving at Omagh from both GNR(Ireland) pre-1953 and GNR(Board) 1953-1958. After the GNR(B) was dissolved, UTA appeared on all their tickets from September 1958.

This type of railway ticket was introduced by Thomas Edmondson in England in the 1840s. Today similar tickets are much sought after by railway collectors. One of the most desirable tickets being the last passenger train to leave Omagh.

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Several hundred people travelled by train to Buncrana in August 1891. When they reached Derry, they were treated to a selection of music from ‘St. Eugene’s Temperance Society’ Band. Later, they travelled on to Buncrana and enjoyed the splendours of the coastline and chance to walk around the village. The party returned to Derry at 6.30pm and the band played up Foyle Street before making their way to the railway station where a crowd had gathered and treated them to loud applause as the train left the station for their return journey to Omagh.

Royalty also enjoyed the pleasures of rail travel. When on his way to Derry from Dublin, His Royal Highness Prince Arthur travelled on the ordinary 10.20am mail train on 28th April 1869. When he arrived at Enniskillen, he was greeted by Mr. Pemberton, locomotive manager of the Irish North Western Railway, who had a special engine decorated for the occasion, waiting at the station to take His Royal Highness on the remainder of the journey. The train stopped at Omagh where a guard of honour of the ‘Royal Tyrone Militia’ was stationed. Colonel Caulfield, who accompanied his Royal Highness on the tour, left the train with Prince Arthur, and both men walked up and down the platform inspecting the soldiers.

Passengers travelling on the GN could make use of luggage and parcels labels to prevent their belongings going astray. All labels shown are pre-1953.

The then Prince and Princess of Wales (later to become King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra) travelled by Royal Train on the GNR(I) from Dublin to Belfast on 24th April 1885. The following day, they travelled on the GN from Derry (Foyle Road) to Newtownstewart with stops at Strabane and Sion Mills. After a brief stay with the Duke of Abercorn at Baronscourt, they travelled from Newtownstewart to Larne Harbour with stops at Omagh, Dungannon, Cookstown, Castledawson, Templepatrick and Carrickfergus.

of them being Mrs. Margaret Jennings, a member of the refreshment room staff, who shook the hand of the late King Edward. They continued on their journey to Newtownstewart where they were taken from there to Baronscourt Estate. The town was decorated with flags and buntings and a triumphant arch was erected over the main street bearing the greeting ‘Céad Míle Fáilte’.

On their arrival at Baronscourt they were met by the Duke of Abercorn.

On 1st September 1897, the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George V and Queen Mary) arrived in Omagh as part of their Royal visit to Ireland. The Royal Train had made its way from Dublin and crowds of people lined the platform awaiting their arrival. The couple did not leave the train but several officials were permitted to board the train to greet them. One

There were a few Royal Trains during the troubled years of the 1920s, including a visit on 22nd July 1924 when the Duke and Duchess of York (later to be King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) travelled from Belfast (Great Victoria Street) via Omagh to Newtownstewart for a visit again to Baronscourt.

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Qs Class 4-4-0 No. 133 taking water on the south end of Omagh up platform at Omagh pre-1928. The engine was built in 1899.

The ‘Great Northern’ lettering on the tender was first introduced by Glover in 1913 and the smokebox door has handles rather than a wheel, suggesting that this picture was taken around 1920. Engines which frequented the ‘Derry Road’ were fitted with a staff collecting apparatus which was used when the engine was travelling at speed. Photo source: D.T.R. Henderson/ Charles P. Friel Collection

Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time Back in the early 1900s, trains brought travellers to the ports with connections to London, Manchester and Liverpool, and between the 1920s and by the late 1950s there were weekly trips to the coast advertised by the company, encouraging passengers to spend Sundays at the seaside with ‘Day Excursion’ tickets from Derry to ‘brace the breezes of Bundoran’, and

‘Special Excursions’ to Portrush. The summer of 1902 began with the ‘Irish National Foresters’ taking a trip to Letterkenny with ‘St. Eugene’s Temperance Brass and Reed Band’. The 8.00am departure stopped at Derry where passengers proceeded to the Lough Swilly terminus for Letterkenny.

In August 1907, members of the Omagh INF enjoyed their annual outing when a special train took up to 400 passengers to Moville. There, they enjoyed a trip on the River Foyle on board the ‘S.S. Lady Clare’. Another excursion organised by the ‘INF’ carried some 700 members from Derry to Dundalk, picking up passengers in Omagh and choosing to travel through Cavan to avoid ‘anything untoward happening’ at Portadown. The party were accompanied by ‘St. Eugene’s Temperance Band’ under the conductorship of Mr. Joseph Nugent.

The band played a selection of music throughout the day. St. Eugene’s had played an important role in entertaining the people of Omagh since their founding back in 1884 and this continues today. Although they changed their name to ‘St. Eugene’s Brass and Reed Band’, they never strayed from their ‘community’ ethos.

Passengers and staff pose for a photograph on the platform at possibly Amiens Street, Dublin with an Omagh through carriage. The dress style of the lady in the picture and the formal pose of uniformed staff suggest this picture was possibly taken on an outing in 1920, one of many organised by the Great Northern.

Photo source: Selwyn Johnston/Headhunter’s Museum

Members of St. Eugene’s Brass and Reed Band (1927-28) with their ‘spiritual adviser’ the Rev. Father Lagan who travelled by train with many holiday makers from Omagh to destinations like Bundoran, Derry, Moville, Buncrana and other day excursions around the country. The band provided entertainment for the travelling public at their destination and often made stops in towns along the route to march through the busy streets during the summer months to entertain the locals. Photo source: St. Eugene’s Brass and Reed Band Archive

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In April 1930 ‘cheap excursion tickets’ went on sale for a special train taking football fans from Omagh to witness visiting Glasgow Celtic play Derry City for 3/- return.

Another regular outing, advertised by the GNR as “9 Hours at Breezy Bundoran”, a weekly Sunday train to the Donegal resort, left Omagh at 8.25am and cost 10/6 by return, it became known as the ‘Sugar Train’.

During the war years, and continuing into the early 1950s, the rationing system was introduced. Families took advantage of the opportunity to bring back goods not on the ration, much desired items like butter, bacon, flour and sugar. As well as men and women, the children would return with butter and sugar hidden up their clothing!

U Class 4-4-0 No. 197 pulling up to the down platform before leaving with the 10.50am train for Enniskillen on 7th June 1956. Staff look on as a lady waits to board the train with two suitcases. Maybe her next stop was Bundoran Junction where she could continue her journey to the seaside town of Bundoran. In the background you can clearly see the interior of a GNR(I) restaurant car in service from Derry to Belfast. Photo source: Ernie’s Railway Archive

One regular passenger remembers the journey.... “On Sunday we went to morning mass and depending on which priest said it, we would leave early and run to the station to catch the train to Bundoran. I used to hang out the window and wave to my mother who was looking out of the window of our house in Gallows Hill.

I remember getting a smut in my eye and having to go to the chemist shop in Bundoran to get my eye washed out. On the way home I remember having butter up my jumper and having to pretend I was sleeping when the customs men came through the carriage. When the train stopped at Pettigo, silence descended upon the carriages as Customs officers would board the train asking ‘Anything to declare?’ Unknown to them, the smuggled goods were often concealed under the seats or hanging outside in a bag on the carriage door handles.”

The GN opened their own hotels in Bundoran and Rostrevor in the 1890s in an attempt to attract holiday makers to the coast. Unfortunately, the hotel in Rostrevor was closed in 1978 whilst in Bundoran, people from all over Ireland still enjoy the pleasures of the Great Northern Hotel, though now under private ownership.

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time Many ‘Gala Days’ were held in Bundoran during the 1940s where large crowds left Omagh to join the festivities and fancy dress parties led by St. Eugene’s Brass and Reed Band. The ‘unbroken hours of sunshine’ brought record numbers of excursionists to the seaside town. Although the national papers were reporting great austerity and cuts in supplies, it didn’t dampen peoples’ spirits as the railway brought travellers there both Sunday and Monday. Meanwhile members of the ‘Irish National Foresters, Omagh’ enjoyed a day out in Rostrevor accompanied by ‘St. Eugene’s Brass and Reed Band’ and their new conductor, Martin Meyler.

Every year trains were provided for ‘All Ireland Finals’ in Dublin, a ‘special fast express service’ brought GAA fans to Croke Park in 1958 to witness a ‘Derry-Dublin’ final and soccer fans equally were carried to the Irish Cup finals in the early 1960s. Families were treated to ‘specials’ to Derry to see the delights of Chipperfield’s famous travelling circus.

The popular ‘Bundoran Express’ left Dublin daily at 8.45am, arriving in Pettigo at 1.40pm and Bundoran

at 2pm. The return service arrived back in Dublin at 5.45pm. The service had a restaurant car in service between Dublin and Clones and travelled non-stop through the northern Counties between Clones and Pettigo. Each year pilgrims used the railway to visit St. Patrick’s Purgatory, Lough Derg, County Donegal. In the 1930s around 12,000 pilgrims travelled there and despite transport restrictions imposed by the war, the island saw upwards of 16,500 visits in 1943, the highest number of visitors recorded since records began back in 1861. Many of these had made their way by train, coming from every part of the country. Between 1958 and 1964, pilgrims from Dublin to Lough Derg were treated with a new diesel service. The summer schedule showed a new railcar service leaving Dublin at 8.45am on weekdays stopping at Drogheda, Dundalk and Goraghwood before arriving in Portadown at 10.53am. The train then left at 11.01, arriving in Omagh at 12.05pm. The pilgrims then boarded UTA buses to bring them the remainder of the journey through Kesh and Pettigo. Lough Derg’s season ran from 1st June until 15th August.

A Beyer, Peacock built ‘PP’ class 4-4-0 No. 12 at Omagh station in September 1948. This engine was built in 1911 and was primarily used on the Bundoran line, often carrying passengers to the Atlantic coast location. It was named ‘Ulster’ and kept its name up until 1912. It went to CIÉ in 1958 and was withdrawn from service in 1959. The earlier PP Class engine No. 71 built in 1896, which was a frequent runner on the Enniskillen line, was called ‘Bundoran’.

Photo source: Ted Pettman / Mike Morant collection

The biggest mass movement of people by rail took place on 14th June 1959 when members of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association met in Croke Park, Dublin for their Diamond Jubilee celebrations. It is believed that over 25,000 people travelled to Dublin by rail. This included a train from Derry making a stop at Omagh for local passengers. In July 1962 record numbers of students from Dublin, Drogheda, Dundalk, Belfast and other towns, stopping briefly in Omagh to pick up local students, travelling to the Donegal Gaeltacht. Ex-NCC

W Class 2-6-0 No. 93 ‘The Foyle’ hauled a mix of UTA and CIÉ coaches to Foyle Road Station, Derry, where they were transferred to fifteen Lough Swilly buses and taken to the various Irish speaking colleges. Apart from the outings already mentioned there were regular ‘specials’ provided for 12th July demonstrations, the Siege of Derry celebrations, the local Ancient Order of the Hibernians parades (AOH), the Hills of Donegal ‘holiday trains’ and many Sunday school outings.

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Chapter 4 - Omagh - a 24/7 Station From the 1920s onwards, the railway was under threat from road traffic. After the First World War there was a surplus of military service lorries that were now being sold off and used for private haulage. With increased use of the motor car in the more densely populated areas, rail travel suffered. The partitioning of Ireland divided the railway lines which crossed the border in some thirteen places. However, locally, Omagh was thriving as a growing market town and the local Nestlé factory was providing steady employment for many families. Their reliance on the railway was increasing and moving their goods became more demanding. Even in the last two decades of the railway, new arrangements were being made for goods traffic, this being but one example.

By 1942, work had started on providing a siding at Coneywarren for the Nestlé factory. The ground was acquired from local farmer Gordon Henderson at a cost of £2,000. The siding enabled the easy transportation of goods and in particular coal to and from the factory.

Every three weeks the factory brought in 400 tons of coal from their supplier in Derry, this operation alone demanded a complete train of 8-ton wagons.

believed to have been erected by the railway company.

The house was built of timber boarding and had its own lane way leading to the front. There were a set of wooden steps leading from the path to the line below.

It was surrounded by a hedge and more notably a tall ‘monkey puzzle’ tree in the front garden. The Kerr’s took great delight in maintaining the garden at the front.

Arthur Kerr, a permanent way ganger lived there with his family and his son Billy, like his father, worked as a foreman on the platform at Omagh. Michael Gilheany joined the railway in 1944 as a driver and was transferred to several stations before moving to Omagh where he remained until the closure. Having come to town from Co. Leitrim, like many railway men was able to get ‘digs’ at George’s Street before meeting his wife, marrying and remaining in town. Much of his time in Omagh was spent driving local service trains and shunting between the Goods Yard and the Market Branch.

In February 1952, the UTA moved into part of the Goods Warehouse at the Market Branch and had set up an office and with their own platform, this was now their freight depot. Meanwhile at the General Station they occupied an office and store in the Goods Yard.

Next to the siding at the Brookmount Road bridge, the Kerr family lived in small wooden house that was UTA Office

Meal Store

Spillars Place

Fuel Tanks

Inset

Gasworks To Beragh, Dungannon

To Omagh General Station

Market Junction Signal Cabin (Removed 1932 and replaced with ground frame)

Market Junction

Omagh Market Branch Station Lynn Linn Bridge Bridge © Tony McGartland

Omagh Market Branch The layout of Market Branch station. In 1952 the UTA had an office here and leased sidings and storage space to various companies that used the branch frequently. Silcock’s and Crossfield’s Animal Feeds, N.I. Road Transport Board, Doherty’s Paper Recycling. These occupied the inner sidings under the cover of the branch building. In the sidings outside were the coal sidings and Scott’s Fuels.

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time In nearby Fintona, the town was served by a 3⁄4 mile branch line off the main Omagh – Enniskillen route. For many years, a goods train went from Omagh to Fintona each day and back, which travelled down this branch from Fintona Junction. However, passenger services on this short branch were served by a horse-drawn tram from its inception right until it closed in 1957 – by an extremely long stretch, Ireland’s last horse tram.

Occasionally this unique vehicle had to be taken away to be serviced, and this would involve it being taken to Omagh enroute to the GNR’s Dundalk Works.

By summer 1955, it was evident that the high gables of the goods yard store that had been damaged over many years from violent storms and neglect, needed attention. During the summer of 1955, several stone masons assisted by the late Felix McCrory lowered the stonework of the gables and this was made water-tight when the late Billy Caldwell, the railway’s carpenter, replaced the entire roof covering with a new corrugated asbestos sheeting.

On 9th October 1955, the passenger footbridge linking the two platforms at the station was destroyed by fire and workmen had to hastily shore up one side of the structure to prevent it falling onto the lines and obstructing two late trains. The fire was discovered at 2.30pm by a local man, John McCann, who lived nearby, and Raymond Burns, a young petrol pump attendant.

Within minutes the Omagh fire brigade were at the scene. The fire had originated in the ticket collector’s office below the footbridge on the far platform and quickly spread to the woodwork of the footbridge. The blaze was extinguished before it spread any further.

John McCann worked as a freelance photographer and took several pictures for the local newspapers.

In April 1953, up to 200 people of the town greeted the return of the horse tram to Fintona station. The ‘van’, as it was known, was towed by a steam engine from the Dundalk Works of the GNR(I) where it was repaired and repainted before going back into service. Little did they know that only a few years later, the tram, the horse and their railway would be gone forever, though on this occasion it passed through Omagh. In May 1955, the last of Wordies’ Carts, operated by Messrs. Wordie & Co. (Ulster), were seen at Omagh General Station when UTA lorries replaced the horse drawn door to door delivery service. As a result of the change twenty men and twenty horses were made redundant.

The scene after a fire caused extensive damage to the footbridge on 9th October 1955. The fire, which started in a wooden ticket office which was situated under the steps on the down platform, spread quickly and some of the timber decking over the bridge caught fire. The photograph was taken by John McCann who was freelancing for the local newspapers at the time. Photo source: the late John McCann/Author’s Collection

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PP Class 4-4-0 No.74 arriving from Derry with a passenger train bound for Enniskillen on 25th September 1957, just five days before the line was closed. The engine went to the UTA in 1958 and was renumbered No.74x only to become No.42x in 1960. This is the same engine used for the IRRS tour that visited the Market Branch in 1961.

The ‘x’ was like a sword of Damocles; it indicated that the locomotive was to be scrapped rather than spend any more money to keep it going. Passengers can be clearly seen boarding on the up platform. In this unusual view, looking north, you can see another train at the down bay platform and the new asbestos footbridge covering which replaced that of the fire-damaged bridge in 1955. Photo source: Graham Hoare/Irish Railway Record Society

By now, however, the clouds were gathering over railways in the area in general. Since 1953, the GNR was being jointly subsidised by the governments in Belfast and Dublin, but the former was making it clear that not only did they not see this as a permanent arrangement, but they considered that most, if not all, railways within their area of jurisdiction were living on borrowed time, with road transport being championed very strongly as the way forward. There was talk of closure; even of main lines.

several industry representatives outside. Mr. William Scott, managing director of Scott’s Mills, spoke of the importance of Omagh as a railway centre. He told the meeting of how his firm had done extensive business with the railway since 1852 and this was increased in 1863 when the connection with Belfast had been made.

During 1955 the Ulster Herald reported that local politicians were pleading with Lord Brookeborough in Stormont to retain the railways in Tyrone and Fermanagh, these being now seen as under threat.

Leading the delegation was local solicitor R.H.O’Connor who campaigned strongly against the decision. The delegation was told that the lines proposed to be closed were not paying and for the Government to continue operating them would be like putting water into a ‘bottomless well’. Local business began to become more anxious about how this would affect them and at a meeting called by Omagh Urban Council in March 1956, very strong support was demonstrated for the retention of the Great Northern Railway. The meeting was attended by representatives of every public body in town and many of the largest industries. A television crew recorded the meeting and interviewed 41

By October 1956, staff at the station raised concerns when the refreshment rooms at Omagh, Enniskillen, Bundoran Junction and Clones stations were closed for the months October – May when passenger traffic was less busy. Railway employees wondered if this was the start of a gradual closure of the line between Omagh and Bundoran; events would prove their fears to be well founded before too much longer. This led to a meeting in the Town Hall to protest against the Government’s intention to close down sections of the line. There was a glimmer of hope when in July 1957 a new fast diesel service between Belfast and Enniskillen via Omagh was introduced. With a journey time of 2 hours and 30 minutes it not only proved popular but gave the town some hope. Despite its popularity, Stormont wasn’t impressed and only two months later the last excursion between Derry and Omagh to Bundoran ran as services on the Enniskillen line were due to close at the end of the month. Several hundred passengers travelled on the train, with standing room only from Trillick.

Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

On 30th September 1957 much of the western area of the Great Northern Railway finally reached the end of its life as multiple closures became reality. Among these were the lines south of Omagh to Enniskillen, Fintona and Bundoran, as well as Enniskillen - Clones. Mr. J. C. Bailie, the traffic manager for the GNR, said that these lines had run at a substantial loss for several years and that at the end of September 1956 the debit balance

was £122,800.

BUT Railcar No. 131 preparing to leave Omagh for Derry in the mid- 1960s, shortly before the line closed.

This railcar was one of a fleet introduced to the Derry Road in June 1957 and used mainly between Portadown and Derry. In July 1957 the service was extended for use between Belfast and Enniskillen via Omagh with a journey time of 2 hours and 30 minutes. Enthusiasts on the platform are more interested in the sounds of an engine shunting in the goods yard behind.

Above the Goods Yard, buses owned by the Ulster Transport Authority are parked in their depot. Photo source: Vincent S. PentonyIrish Railway Record Society

The closure of the Enniskillen line was the first blow dealt locally. Omagh engine driver Barney McGirr drove the last train out of Enniskillen at 6.40pm assisted by Omagh fireman Peter Judge. Barney had driven the PP Class 4-4-0 No.74 engine for 9 years between Omagh and Enniskillen.

U Class 4-4-0 No. 204 leaving Omagh with a passenger train to Enniskillen. For nine years Omagh driver Barney McGirr, assisted by his fireman Peter Judge, dominated the daily Enniskillen run on this very engine. The morning sun shadows of the South Cabin on the track as the train leaves on 7th June 1957. Passengers are boarding AEC Railcar No. 604 (right) and soon this will be leaving for Belfast. Photo source: Transport Treasury/ Nick Nicolson

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In Fintona, the 6.40pm ex-Enniskillen and 7.25pm exOmagh left the junction on time. From early morning BBC crews were at Fintona where they travelled with the last passengers on a sentimental ‘last trip’ to and from Fintona Junction pulled by the horse named ‘Dick’, the same horse that had pulled the 74-year-old tram for 12 years. Driver Billy McClean guided the horse on the last journey, as his father before him had done for many years.

returned again. On 1st October 1957, just one day after closure, PP Class 4-4-0 No. 44 set forth along the closed line to Fintona Junction, accompanied by a fitter and the GNR’s Western District Engineer, H. C. A. Beaumont.

Local men Ken Donald and Sonny Monteith were on hand at Fintona to help. Here, the tram was hitched up to the locomotive and it slowly made its way to Omagh.

The local newspaper organised several local GN staff for a photograph with the tram. Standing at the back were Jim McElroy and Jimmy Colhoun (permanent way staff) with Bertie Colhoun (Goods Checker) and Frank Curran (Freight Office messenger).

Following the closure of the line from Omagh to Enniskillen at the end of September 1957, the tram

Just one day after closure of the Enniskillen line on 1st October 1957, PP Class 4-4-0 No. 44 arrived at Omagh’s South Cabin from Fintona. The local newspaper organised local GN staff for a photograph with the tram. Standing at the back are Jim McElroy and Jimmy Colhoun (permanent way staff) with Bertie Colhoun (Goods Checker) and Frank Curran (Freight Office messenger). Photo source: Ulster Herald Newspapers/Courtesy Frank Curran

After waiting in the ‘down bay’ until the engine turned at the turntable, the tram was pushed out onto the line again and left Omagh for Belfast. The journey was not without incident; despite the slow speed, it became derailed en route several times. Upon arrival in Belfast it was housed in a shed at Queens Quay by Belfast Corporation for a time. It was destined for the Belfast Transport Museum at Witham Street in East Belfast, where it was taken on 13th November 1957. It would reside here for some years until this museum moved out to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum at Cultra, Co. Down, where it reposes in all its splendour today.

Meanwhile, Fintona Station was deserted, except for its horse ‘Dick’, who was awaiting a purchaser.

Eventually, he was purchased by the Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for £45 and given to a farmer living close to Fintona.

After the Enniskillen line closed, the double crossing at the South Cabin in Omagh was removed. After this work was completed, the Enniskillen line was reduced to a short siding where wagons were stored. A buffer stop was placed at the end, adjacent to the present Asda car park on the Dromore Road.

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

U Class 4-4-0 No. 199 Lough Derg with the 1.45pm train to Enniskillen on 26th April 1954. Behind the engine, the first vehicle is a passenger van, originally built about 100 years previously as a Bread Van, but which was subsequently rebuilt for use as a luggage van. In 1944 the three remaining members of the original classification Y3 and two from Y5 were rebuilt with a new body style (vertical tongue and groove sheeting) and were fitted with internal sliding doors. They were often found on the back of passenger trains on the Derry Road. They lasted through to 1960 and were often hauled by AEC and BUT railcars. When the Enniskillen line closed in September 1957, pilgrims traveling to Lough Derg had to leave the train at Omagh and continue on the remainder of the journey by bus.

Photo source: Ernie’s Railway Archive

Some staff were lucky enough to be transferred to Omagh after the Enniskillen line closed. Bobby Colgan was transferred and, with his young family, moved into the living accommodation above the main station offices. With access through its own door to the right of the main station entrance, they had the use of two bedrooms and a kitchen to the rear of the station, overlooking the platform canopies, and a living room and sitting room to the front. Bobby’s daughter June Nicholl remembers her time there as a school girl...

“It was an old barrack of a place with high ceilings and polished lino floors, my mother hated it because it was so cold. The small kitchen was at one end of the building with a long hallway leading to it. When dinner was ready it had to be carried along the hallway to the sitting room at the opposite end. In the summer, I used to climb out of my bedroom window and sit in the sun, on the flat roof over the ticket office next to the platform.

My daddy had an ‘office’ in the goods yard. It was a converted goods van. We got used to the sounds of engines and apart from the sound of the goods trains working at night, we never passed any remarks of the noise. We lived there until the railway closed.”

A side view of the station building in 1971 with the stepped entrance to the ticket office and platform. Next to the entrance was another doorway which led to accommodation above, which was occupied by several railway families over the years. The narrow portion of the building in the centre had a toilet downstairs next to the entrance lobby and a kitchen above. On the right are railings and steps to the cellar below the refreshment rooms. Photo source: Eric Challoner

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In August 1958, amendments to the Transport Bill, seeking to preserve the GNR Board for ten years was debated at Stormont. Nationalist senators including Senator Patrick McGill from Omagh spoke in favour of the amendments but they were defeated when every Unionist senator voted against and as a consequence on 30th September 1958 the Great Northern Railway ceased to exist when the Ulster Transport Authority took over all rail operations in N. Ireland. James Bracken became the last GNR stationmaster to serve in Omagh and was now employed by the UTA. Cap badges of officials, porters, checkers and drivers were immediately visible and eventually all GNR uniforms were replaced.

With the end in sight for all rail travel on the ‘Derry Road’, there was an increase in visits to the line from railway enthusiasts from all over Ireland and the UK. Railway groups and travelling photographers from far and wide frequented the lines capturing the last movements.

Today, we are indebted to them for the wealth of pictures that exist. One such enthusiasts’ outing was on 29th April 1961 when the Irish Railway Record Society scheduled a train hauled by ex-GN PP Class 4-4-0 No. 42X (ex-GNR No. 74). The outward trip was made via the Coalisland branch and also called at the Market Branch, one of a few times a passenger train did so.

Three coaches were needed to accommodate the excursion which included several parties from Belfast schools. The tour also travelled to Omagh General Station.The IRRS reported that there had been 51 full and 25 half fares, 15 of those were from Dublin.

In January 1959, Captain W. Madden Scott spoke on the BBC television programme ‘Road and Rail’ of the importance of the GN line and how the entire community depended on it. Ever since the line opened Messrs W & C Scott, Millers, Omagh have been the railway companies biggest customers.

On 29th April 1961, a special Irish Railway Record Society steam tour visited part of the Derry Road, starting and finishing at Portadown.The IRRS special included the Coalisland branch and Omagh Market Branch and was worked by PP Class 4-4-0 No.42x. In fact, No.42x was really No.74 which was officially renumbered by, supposedly, disgruntled locomotive men in the Newry shed in 1960 when the real No.74 was to be scrapped, but No.42 wasn’t.

The outing arrived at Omagh General Station and after passengers had left the train, the engine made its way to the turntable on the south side of the station to be turned. Photo source: J.D Fitzgerald/ Courtesy Charles P. Friel

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

A very relaxed attitude to railway safety was observed at Omagh turntable as No. 42x rests while enthusiastic children climb into its cab. The manually operated turntable was installed in 1913 to replace a smaller one and shows signs of much wear. Photo Source: J.D. FitzGerald/Courtesy Charles P. Friel collection.

Having been turned, the engine returns to the station to pick up its carriages and passengers before continuing on its journey to the Market Branch and then propelling its train to the terminus. On the right is the meal store, still standing today, and the sidings to the left are occupied by many closed goods wagons.

Photo source: J.D. FitzGerald/Courtesy Charles P. Friel collection.

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The train stopped at the Market Junction and you can clearly see that carriage doors remain open while one lucky enthusiast manages to climb onto the cab steps to talk to the crew. Photo source: J.D. FitzGerald/Courtesy Charles P. Friel collection.

Undeterred by the steam and smoke of the engine, a young enthusiast captures a photograph to remember of No. 42x. On the ground at his feet is the rod which connected the ground frame to the catch point on the extreme right.

The catch point’s job was to derail any vehicles trying to leave the branch with the junction points being properly set. The main line towards Omagh General is in the left foreground. Photo source: J.D. FitzGerald/Charles P. Friel collection

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time On 13th June 1964 another enthusiasts’ special arrived.

This was jointly operated by the IRRS in conjunction with the Railway Correspondence and Travel Society (RCTS), and the Stephenson Locomotive Society (SLS), the latter two bodies based in England. The tour consisted of five UTA bogie coaches, including a

restaurant car, hauled by UTA ‘U’ Class 4-4-0 No. 60 Slieve Donard. The tour was called ‘Grand Steam Tour of Ireland’ and started in Dublin before visiting Foyle Road, then back to St Johnston, Strabane, Omagh, Pomeroy, Dungannon, Trew & Moy and Portadown before returning to Dublin.

S Class 4-4-0 No. 60 (ex-GN No. 172) waits at the front bay of the south end of Omagh Station ready to haul a railtour to Portadown on 13th June 1964. This was jointly operated by the Irish Railway Record Society (IRRS) in conjunction with the Railway Correspondence and Travel Society (RCTS) and the Stephenson Locomotive Society (SLS), the latter two bodies based in England. The tour consisted of five UTA bogie coaches including a restaurant car and was called ‘Grand Steam Tour of Ireland’. It started in Dublin before visiting Derry, then stopping at Strabane, Omagh, Pomeroy, Dungannon and Portadown before returning to Dublin. The previous day the tour covered the north coastal route with ex-NCC W Class 2-6-0 No. 97 ‘Earl of Ulster’ in the driving seat. The elegant house in the background is that of the McPhersons, demolished some years later. Photo source: Roger Joanes

SG2 Class 0-6-0 No. 38 (ex-GN No.16) arriving at the up platform with a local service from Portadown at Omagh on 13th June 1964. As always, porters’ trolleys and barrows are stored below the water tank near to the footbridge steps. The small door in the foreground (left) is access to a small store used to store rags for cleaning engines, oil and shunters’ hand lamps. Although built to pull goods trains, these engines were very capable of pulling heavy passenger trains also. On the right, waiting in the down platform, is a Joint IRRS/SLS/RCTS Irish Tour train hauled

by S Class 4-4-0 No. 60 (ex-GN No. 172) which is out of the picture. The carriage visible is an elderly Great Southern & Western Railway catering vehicle, in the orange, black and white CIE livery introduced less than two years earlier.

Photo source: Author’s Collection

In later years, the Market Branch became a busy goods station for large deliveries mainly consisting of animal meal, Scott’s Oil and Fuel, timber and new tractors.

The timbers were winched by hand off the wagons and onto waiting lorries for local builders’ suppliers. Tractors destined for Eakin’s Garage, situated across the road from the station, arrived on flat bed wagons and were stored in their showroom, attracting many of the local farmers. ‘Silcock’s Meal’ was stored in the meal store, which is all that remains of the Market Branch today.

The local bread men found it much easier to unload

bread hampers from the bread units when they were moved from the main station to the branch. The Northern Ireland Road Transport Board (which later became part of the Ulster Transport Authority) opened a freight office at the branch and handled all goods transported inwards by rail as well as soliciting traffic in their own right, and direct competition with the railway.

Goods wagons were transferred to the branch three times daily; the Omagh crews at the general station moving bread units, coal, perishable goods and cattle.

A very bleak market branch captured on 19th November 1960. A Shell Oil tanker rests against the end of a very overgrown platform and siding as SG3 Class 0-6-0 No. 33 (ex-GNR No. 20), nicknamed the ‘Big D’, passes under a standard loading gauge while shunting Esso petrol tankers. These contained fuel imported by Scott’s Fuels. The branch was opened in 1862 and by now, almost a century later, was showing its age. The main branch building, with its UTA offices, were demolished in 1981 though the meal store on the right is all that remains today. Although restored, great care was taken to maintain its historical past. In 1942, 22 wagons of scrap metal left the sidings on the left, Derry bound, to assist with the war effort. Robert Kane and Sons were the main scrap metal merchants at the time. Photo source: Author’s Collection

As late as November 1961, the lifting train was often seen stabled in the siding just south of the platform of the Enniskillen line, as work progressed on the removal of the closed line and beyond. This train was often hauled by SG2 class 0-6-0 No. 183, renumbered 42 by the UTA, and itself withdrawn from service in May 1961. On 4th November 1961, a squad of men who were lifting the Enniskillen line arrived just one hundred yards south of Omagh station having just removed all track, sleepers and fittings. Engine driver Freddie Rankin, from Enniskillen and now working in Omagh, with fireman Paddy Ingram, also from Enniskillen, were

assisted by an engineer in lifting the line and brought in several wagons to Omagh. The remainder of the line, short of the station at Omagh, was retained and used as a siding to store and shunt wagons and vans.

This marked the end of the line that linked Omagh with Enniskillen and Bundoran. The staff at the station and people of Omagh were still hopeful that the decision would be reversed so it was ‘business as usual’ when in April 1963 Omagh District Council were congratulated on the fact that Omagh Railway Station had won first prize as the best kept main line station by the Ulster Transport Association.

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

A view from the edge of the down platform looking towards the south cabin. In the front and back bays are both Shell and Esso tankers with Inglis Bread Units further up the sidings. These were part of the daily goods that were shunted to the Market Branch and returned to the station when emptied. Behind the signal cabin, Railway Terrace is visible and to the right a clear view of the rooftops of McGaughey’s Row. Both lines cross bridges left and right as they leave the station for Portadown, over the Dromore Road or Enniskillen, over Railway Terrace. This photograph was taken on 12th August 1957, just weeks before the Enniskillen line closed. Photo source: Anthony E. Bennett/Irish Railway Record Society

To meet demand in the summer of 1962, there were two additional Belfast-Omagh trains and a steam relief for the 16.10pm service from Derry. During the following year, the summer timetable had several changes. The Monday to Friday through trains from Derry-Belfast were similar to the previous year but the 10.25am and 15.00pm return working were steam hauled. On Saturday in the down direction there was a new 08.10 diesel service to Strabane serving Dungannon and Omagh only and a 10.00am diesel to Derry.

built to accommodate the increased traffic. Although there was much promise of a better road infrastructure, it did not happen and to this day the expansion of the A5 main road from Ballygawley to Derry has been beset with government objections time after time.

On the penultimate day, Saturday 13th February 1965, the ex-GNR(I) 4-4-0 S class steam locomotives No. 170 ‘Errigal’ and No. 171 ‘Slieve Gullion’ carried out normal passenger services on the Derry Road with the assistance of ex-NCC W class No. 97 ‘Earl of Ulster’.

BBC TV were present, interviewing several staff on the Omagh platform. The last evening through working duty from Derry to Belfast was handled by No. 170 ‘Errigal’.

Who would have thought that the following year the Ulster Transport Authority would announce their intention to close the Portadown-Derry line! It was announced in 1964 that freight and passenger traffic would cease with the loss of over 120 railway employees in Omagh alone. This was confirmed at a special meeting in Belfast in January 1965, when the UTA announced that services on the ‘Derry Road’ would cease from 15th February. In Stormont, Mr. R. H. O’ Connor (Nat. West Tyrone) questioned the Minister of Home Affairs on the roads planned to replace the railway, and compensation rates for redundant railway workers. In the Senate, Mr. Patrick McGill concluded that the only way to save the railway was for employees to come out on strike. However he added that the closure should be postponed until suitable roads were

The next day, Sunday 14th February, saw the final normal service passenger train leaving Belfast at 20.05pm for Derry. The train was made up of BUT powered railcars No. 123, 124 and 134 with coaches 573 (an F16 side corridor composite built in 1938) and 594, an L14 open brake second and two Y vans, all typical GNR(I) rolling stock. The train arrived in Omagh to the sound of an accordion band on the platform and the sound of detonators exploding, placed on the track by railway employees. The driver of the last train out of Omagh was Tommy Hastings from Derry, an employee of the GNR(I) for some 40 years.

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S2 Class 4-4-0 No. 62 (ex-GN No. 190) with a train from Belfast leaving Omagh from the down platform on 27th August 1963. The wagons to the left are on the Derry siding and are being shunted towards the goods store. The signal at the end of the down platform is the down main starter which controls No. 62 and the other signal on the right is the down bay platform home signal. Just a few months prior to this picture being taken, it was ‘business as usual’ when in April, Omagh District Council were congratulated on the fact that Omagh Railway Station had won first prize as the best kept main line station by the Ulster Transport Association. Photo source: Roger Joanes

Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

Ex-NCC W class No. 97 Earl of Ulster at the station in February 1963 and is seen here attaching a Y3 class fourwheeled passenger van to the back of the AEC railcar forming the 4pm from Omagh to Belfast. No. 97 and the one carriage, which appears to be a 1929-built J6 class First Second Brake, then worked the 4pm from Omagh to Strabane. From the 9th February blizzard conditions had affected road and rail travel with some trains arriving as much as an hour late at their destinations. Despite the thaw, there are still signs of snow lying on the track and down platform. This same engine worked regularly in the last few years up to 1965 and was also visible on pilot duty on the last day of service assisting local services. Photo source: David Lawrence/Photos from the Fifties

Paddy McLoone wasn’t surprised.... “There was competition between the UTA and the GNR. You could look out of the window of the train and see a bus travelling the same way to Derry.”

Apart from Omagh, sixteen other stations were closed by the UTA the same day, including the entire Goraghwood – Newry – Warrenpoint branch. On the platform, locals protested at the closure. A group led by Omagh man Michael McRory held a banner that read “We want the railway. Only an enemy would destroy a country’s railway! This is the action of an enemy. Tyrone does not accept it!”

The next morning, the new Derry to Belfast express bus came into service arriving in Omagh with limited stops at Ballygawley and Dungannon, arriving on schedule in Belfast. Passengers expressed their satisfaction with the service. On the 17th February pilot engines were in steam at Derry, Omagh, Strabane and Dungannon to collect the remaining wagons stranded along the line. Some level crossing gates were smashed by a runaway wagon when it ran about a mile downhill from Omagh station, and smashed through the gates at Mullaghmena crossing before coming to rest about 10 yards from the home of Bertie Colhoun, a retired GNR porter from Omagh, now residing at the gatekeepers’ house. It is believed that children playing at the station

released the brakes of the wagon and set it moving.

Luckily there were no injuries. Before locking up the station for the last time on 10th March 1965 station master William Ross answered scores of letters from people expressing their anger at the closure of the railway.

Not only did the closure of the line leave a chilling loss but the presence of the lifting train passing through sent the death knell through the town when on 1st November a locomotive left Portadown heading for Strabane to start work on the lifting of the Derry Road.

NCC WT Class 2-6-4T No. 54 was taking wagons to Strabane and at each level crossing a ganger had to alight to open the gates and then close them again after the train. The engine was coupled to Railcar No. 101; this and twenty-five flat wagons made up the lifting train. The work was slow. By April the following year they arrived at Victoria Bridge and the crew began dismantling the track through this once busy station.

Initially the lifting crew relied totally on manual labour to lift the line but during the first week they had lifted only two sections of rail. One of the crew purchased the engine of an Austin motor car and this was mounted on a flatbed wagon and used to motorise the winch, making the job more efficient. The 60 week contract to lift the section of line between Omagh and Beragh was completed in 58 weeks.

A view of the up platform in 1966 looking towards the North end of the station. The wagons in the distance are working with the lifting train and moving chairs, bolts, sleepers and lengths of track towards Omagh from Newtownstewart. Just a year after closure the grass has already started growing between the sleepers.

Photo source: Author’s Collection

By late September, there was nothing left of the line between Derry and Beragh. Thousands of sleepers were being auctioned off at the former Omagh Station by local auctioneer W.A. Mooney. Apart from the sleepers, 140 tons of bull-head rail, 210 tons of flatbottom rail and 220 tons of chairs, soleplates, bolts, screws and steel keys all had to go.

Quickly, every part of the town’s railway heritage was being removed. Concerned about the condition of several railway bridges and the safety of the general public, Omagh Urban Council began the removal of these landmarks. In April 1967 the first of Omagh’s bridges that carried the railway was demolished at the town’s Kevlin Road. Assisted by a bulldozer, a team of men demolished the stone arched bridge and cleared the rubble away. The bridge had been built in 1861, when the Portadown, Dungannon and Omagh Railway first crossed the Kevlin Road. In January 1968 the bridge on the Irishtown Road carrying the railway into the Market Branch was removed and during the same month work was completed on one of the most dangerous bridges in Tyrone. The ‘Skew Arch’ bridge, which carried the Derry Road over the line at Castletown, was the site of many

traffic accidents as the road took a sudden twist enroute to Newtownstewart. The bridge was removed and the road straightened either side of the site. In August 1968 the girders and bridge carrying the line over both James Street and Railway Terrace were removed and the bridge carrying the road over the line from Orchard Terrace to Railway View was demolished in August 1989, this being one of the oldest remaining structures.

The road bridge over the line on the Brookmount Road was eventually demolished entirely in July 1994 to make way for the new road scheme there. The original bridge was strengthened in the 1930s by plate girders supplied by Harland & Wolff, Belfast to accommodate increased traffic over ‘Flanagan’s Brae’.

On 18th October 1972 contractors started the demolition of Omagh General Station buildings. Over several days, the main station building and adjoining refreshment rooms were demolished. The only buildings to survive were the water tower on the up platform and the plumbers’ store, situated within the goods yard.

The passenger footbridge remained for some weeks afterwards until it was eventually removed and sold as scrap.

Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

Opposite Top: As late as 1971 the station buildings and platforms still remained, though the South Cabin was demolished as heavy vandalism left it in an unsafe state. Much of the signage was still in place. The people in the houses at Railway Terrace were now experiencing the strange silence that fell upon their ears but soon the sounds of heavy road traffic would replace the sounds of passenger trains and shunting engines. Photo Source: Eric Challoner Opposite Bottom: The North signal cabin stands looking over lines that were once occupied by steady passenger and goods traffic. In 1966, a year after closure, the timber balcony has been stripped, its windows smashed, though the signal levers are still visible inside. To the left are the houses of Centenary Park; the house on the right, though renovated, still remains today. Photo source: Author’s Collection Below: Another view of the station master’s house from the disused Great Northern track bed above. This picture was taken just days before the house was demolished in March 1989, behind the house, the arm of a digger is ready to move in. Across the road from the house is the rear view of the former Corn Store at the back of the station goods store. This was in use until the UTA takeover, when they converted it for servicing their buses.

Photo source: Tony McGartland

Local residents at nearby Strule and Centenary Park protested at the Council’s plans to create a ‘link road’ between Brookmount Road and James Street, later developed as part of the Great Northern Road as it is today. In September 1981, demolition of one of Omagh’s oldest remaining landmarks, the Market Branch, began when contractors moved in to clear the site to make way for the new library complex and in March 1989 the

station masters’ house in James Street was demolished as work on the new through-pass continued. All that was left was memories, some platform edging covered in grass and a water tower that children would hide in.

Such has been the amount of subsequent development in the town that should any railway ever be planned to serve Omagh again, it would have to take an entirely separate route around the town.

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Chapter 5 – Locomotives, Rolling Stock and Signalling Throughout the life of Omagh station, the locomotives and rolling stock used on all trains were the same types used elsewhere: initially on the L&ER, later the INWR and finally the GNR(I). After 1950, when diesel railcars were introduced on main line services, these would gradually take over almost all passenger services, but goods trains remained steam to the end. Local passenger services between Omagh and Enniskillen, Derry or Dungannon / Portadown, tended to be a locomotive and no more than a couple of coaches, usually of older GNR types. Sometimes in later years it was but a single coach. From 1958 to 1965, the stock used was simply the same ex-GNR(I) stock, but now repainted into UTA livery.

from its constituent companies. Early GNR(I) engines were largely of the 2-4-0 and 0-6-0 types, the former employed on passenger trains and the latter on mixed, goods and cattle trains.

The first of the iconic Great Northern 4-4-0s were the J class, introduced in 1885. By now, after some early flirtations with the Manchester firm of Sharp, Stewart & Co., the GNR established a pattern for the future in which the majority of their locomotives right up to the late 1940s would either be built by themselves at Dundalk Works, or ordered from the other famous Manchester firm of Beyer, Peacock & Co. By the early 1900s various types of 4-4-0 classes were in charge of passenger services, later to be joined by the PP and S classes of the same wheel arrangement.

Goods traffic was left to several 0-6-0 types, notably the SG3 and later UG classes after the mid-1910s. Between 1937 and 1948 the final classes of locomotives were delivered in the form of the U class 4-4-0 and UG class 0-6-0 types; for once, there was some standardisation as many parts were common. These represented the final stage in the development of Great Northern locomotives, and these classes were to be seen on the lines through Omagh until closure.

Locomotives From the inception of the line through Omagh, early L & E locomotives were of the 2-2-2 and 2-4-0 types. Little detail is known but by the time the GNR took over, they were of the 2-2-2 and 2-4-0 types. Most were replaced by the 1870s but the last L&E locomotive was not withdrawn until 1894. Little detail is known of these but by the time the GNR took over, they were planning to modernise their fleet and by degrees several classes of locomotive were built by the company to replace the very many non-standard designs inherited by the GNR

With increased traffic on the railway during the war, the Great Northern found itself better off financially and in 1948 they took delivery of a new fleet of locomotives. The first of these were Nos. 201-205. Here, one of these, U Class 4-4-0 No. 204, is seen returning from the turntable tender first and passing the south cabin before switching to the down platform and picking up carriages for the passenger train to Enniskillen, 7th June 1957.

Photo source: Transport Treasury/Nick Nicolson

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During the 1930s and right up to 1950 it was common to see the PP Class 4-4-0 locomotives Nos. 12 and 44 and the older No. 106 working passenger trains between Enniskillen and Omagh. U Class 4-4-0 Nos. 197, 199 and 204 continued to provide a regular service for this route. Railcar C2 was working both the local passenger services to Strabane and Dungannon.

Omagh driver Barney McGirr, assisted by his fireman Peter Judge, dominated the daily Enniskillen run for nine years with both U Class 4-4-0 No. 197 and PP Class 4-4-0 No. 74. Ironically, U Class 4-4-0 No. 199 was named as it was reserved for taking pilgrims to Lough Derg during the summer months and No. 205 was often used on the famous ‘Bundoran Express’ run.

Railcar C2 is seen on the 5.15pm local service to Dungannon on 1st June 1954. Quite often driven by local man Willie McGrew, who drove all three railcars - C1, C2 and C3. Before this he was often seen shunting steam goods trains to and from the Market Branch with his fireman Gerry Donnelly. Originally built in 1934, railcars C2 and C3 railcars worked back to back as a two-car unit on the Dublin-Howth route but this was not very successful.

They were separated in 1937 and C2 was used frequently between Dundalk and Omagh and Portadown and Omagh. By 1958 they went out of service and were eventually scrapped. Note the radiator shield at the front.

Photo source: Neil Sprinks/Charles P. Friel collection

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

On a bright morning in Omagh, the 10.17am morning passenger service arrives from Enniskillen with U Class 4-4-0 No. 197 on 26th June 1952. To the left on the up platform is the 1st Class Ladies Waiting Room. The ballast supporting the rails below the platforms looks in need of attention and it wasn’t until several years later that a major track relaying programme began. Photo source: Ernie’s Railway Archive

UTA Q Class 4-4-0 No. 68 (ex-GN No.205) with the 10.00am ex - Derry train taking water at Omagh before continuing on its journey to Belfast on 22nd August 1959. The front and back bays can be seen to the right, the front bay on the left was often used for passengers to leave railcars C2 and C3 on local services from Portadown. The gates behind opened to allow post office vans to reverse onto the platform and pick up the mail. The small wooden structure with its door open was the foreman’s hut. An unsecured bicycle rests on the platform, no fears in those days of getting it stolen! Image source: Roger Joanes

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The bigger Q Class 4-4-0 locomotives Nos. 120, 123, and 130 hauled the daily passenger traffic between Belfast and Derry, stopping to pick up passengers and take water at Omagh. Q Class 4-4-0 No. 121, with its travelling post office, worked the daily 11.15am through to Derry from Belfast. Many of these locomotives were withdrawn from service between 1957 and 1963 and those that survived were simply renumbered by the UTA and painted in their lined black livery. After 1963 it was not uncommon to see S Class 4-4-0 locomotives No. 171 ‘Slieve Gullion’, No.172 (UTA No. 60) and No. 173 (UTA No. 61) passing through Omagh. Introduced in 1913 to haul the Belfast – Dublin express service, they saw their last years out on the ‘Derry Road’ pulling the Belfast – Derry normal service trains. The later S2 class 4-4-0 No. 190 (UTA No. 62) was a regular visitor, often seen stabled overnight at the engine shed.

Before and up to the summer of 1957, GN SG3 Class 0-6-0 No. 14 was used to shunt a mixture of oil containers and coal at the Market Branch and right up to the year before closure UTA SG3 Class 0-6-0 No. 35 (ex-GN No. 41) was shunting in the Goods Yard, with UTA SG3 Class 0-6-0 No. 44 shunting a variety of goods between the General Station and the Market Branch. In 1962 No. 14 was transferred to CIÉ ownership and was replaced

by SG3 Class 0-6-0 No. 32 (ex-GN No.13) and No.14, a similar class of engine. During the summer of 1964 a UTA UG Class 0-6-0 No. 48 (ex-GN No. 146) was used to take two coach local traffic between Omagh and Portadown. Omagh had heavy goods traffic from Herdman’s Mill at the nearby village of Sion Mills and Scott’s Mill, situated at the other side of town.

A busy scene at Omagh as S2 Class 4-4-0 No. 190 arrives with the 12.25pm Derry - Belfast service (right). A local train waits in the down bay with PP Class 4-4-0 No.25 up front and the 11.15am Belfast - Derry has arrived, hauled

by S Class 4-4-0 No. 171 ‘Slieve Gullion’. Omagh woman Mella Shannon, who started work with the GNR as a cook in 1948, takes a well-earned rest as she leans out of the window of the restaurant car on 7th June 1956. On the morning of the Omagh railway tragedy, Mella attended to the badly injured permanent way men who lay trapped under the carriages. The possible delay in departures today may be due to an in-coming goods train coming under the road bridge in the distance at the Brookmount Road. Photo source: Ernie’s Railway Archive

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

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Opposite Top: SG3 Class ‘Big D’ 0-6-0 No. 37 (ex-GN No.97) is seen at the Branch with a goods train of empty bread containers from Inglis, Brewster’s and Stevenson’s bakeries on 1st January 1965. Inglis’ bakery was in Belfast but the other two were Derry bakeries. The bread arrived overnight and was quickly unloaded by local bread men early in the morning, leaving the shunters to remove the empty containers for their return during the day. One young Omagh lad, Leo Armstrong, got to know the foreman at the branch and often joined him for tea in the UTA office.

As Leo remembers “There were always plenty of nice cream buns!” Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

Opposite Bottom: SG Class 0-6-0 No.44 (ex-GN No. 176) working at the cattle beach with a crew in the cab. No.44 was often used in Omagh for the transfer of goods to the Market Branch and drivers Alex Clarke, Billy Kettyles, Davy Vennard and Billy Parr took great delight in working with local firemen Gerry Donnelly and Peter Judge as they went three times daily to the branch. In the 1960s Gerry Donnelly progressed to shunter and, like his father Peter before him, spent many happy years on the railway. Photo source: Unknown/Charles P. Friel Collection

Between 1962 and 1964 ex-NCC (Northern Counties Committee) locomotives W Class 2-6-0 No. 91 The Bush, W Class 2-6-0 No. 97 Earl of Ulster and W Class 2-6-0 No. 9 King Edward VIII were often seen on the daily Belfast to Derry passenger service and another, the NCC WT Class 2-6-4 No. 57, was transferred from Portadown and Belfast to the Derry Road and used for passenger traffic. These locomotives were built by the LMS in Derby (the NCC’s parent company) but were never designed to take the sharp curves of the platform at Omagh.

Two steam locomotives which saw service on the Derry Road have survived. These are 1901-built No. 131, and 1913-built No. 171, both preserved by the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland at Whitehead, Co. Antrim. Also present at Whitehead is No. 4, a member of the WT class from the NCC section, identical to No. 57 mentioned previously. This locomotive was used on some of the lifting trains on the Derry Road.

Ex-NCC W Class 2-6-0 No. 97 Earl of Ulster passes Omagh Market Junction with the 5pm Omagh to Belfast service on 8th July 1964 and is about to cross the Linn Bridge over the Drumragh River, not far from the scene of the 1933 rail strike derailment. The deep-girdered bridge featured a ‘refuge’ for maintenance work and for permanent way men to climb into in the event of being faced with an oncoming train. A trap-door concealed a metal ladder with a drop to a three-plank catwalk. However, groups of boys from the town would occasionally watch for oncoming trains and climb into the refuge, holding tight on the girder sides as the train passed over. One way of being accepted by your peers! Photo source: J.D. FitzGerald/Charles P. Friel collection

61

Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

S Class 4-4-0 No. 171 Slieve Gullion hauls a busy five coach passenger train out of the General Station on 5th February 1964. To the left, parked in the convent siding, is a parcels van, numbered N641 by the UTA post-1958.

With their Y2 classification they were built as a ‘mortuary’ van, though the fittings for this role were removed in August 1935 and withdrawn in May 1965. In the foreground is the point rodding that controls the points can be seen and steel wire controlling the signalling from the North Cabin. What was formerly the ‘Junction’ (Portadown or Enniskillen) signal at the north end of the up platform has by this date been altered so that the signal formerly indicating that the route through the station was set for the Enniskillen, has been placed in a reverse position and is now the northbound ‘Starter’ for the up platform. Photo source: Ernie’s Railway Archive

To the south, CIÉ had eliminated steam traction by early 1963. This meant that any through trains from their system were diesel hauled. As a result, the Metrovick “A” class locomotives reached Derry on a few occasions, as did the General Motors B141 class, particularly on Lough Derg pilgrimage specials within the last eighteen months of the operation of the Derry Road. (see Colour Section at rear)

compartment was 7’6” from seat back to seat back, while the equivalent in a third was 6 feet. The extra 1’6” translated into more comfortable seat backs and a little more leg room.

The GNR’s carriage stock was something of a mixed bag, with little standardisation. Many carriage types were built in sets of ten or twelve of a type, but others were perhaps only three or four in number, with more than a few ’one-offs’. As a result, care needed to be taken to ensure that appropriate seating was on each train for the service required, as well as adequate space for expected mail or parcels traffic. Until 1918, even chassis lengths varied, though in that year at least this aspect was standardised at 62 feet over buffers.

Rolling Stock In the early days of the line, four-wheeled coaches were provided for first class, second class and third class passengers. The former was clearly influenced by the design of early stage coaches, with a bench seat inside each compartment facing another opposite: no central or side corridor and no toilets. Upholstery was provided on the seats and also as insulation on the sides of the inside of the compartment. By the standards of the day, leg room was generous.

By the early 20th century, the standard GNR(I) house style had developed, as seen in any photograph of railway carriages on the Derry Road. Six-wheeled coaches became rarer, the GNR’s last examples apparently being used on the Belturbet branch in Co. Cavan, and on the Lisburn – Banbridge – Newcastle line.

Second class was somewhat more spartan, with minimal upholstery but somewhat less room per passenger, while third was very spartan indeed, with wooden bench seats and very little leg room. Seat backs were upright and planked and in some cases third class passengers sat on bench seats arranged longitudinally inside a carriage. In some cases, these had no seat back at all, making for a very uncomfortable journey.

These designs were standard in the sense of body styling being of the GNR’s distinct ’house’ style, but there the standardisation largely ended. Throughout the years, when Dundalk would build some new coaching stock, it was usually for a specific purpose, and production numbers of each specific type were low. By the 1930s, 40s and 50s this led to a bewildering array of vehicles, many being one-offs either from concept or as a result of a specific alteration of one example of a particular class. As far as is known, no vehicle was built with the specific Omagh area in mind.

By the 1870s the GNR(I) was building the first of a number of standard classes of coach which would serve most lines until as late as the 1930s. These were 30 feet long and were six-wheeled. First class coaches typically had four compartments, seconds had five and thirds had six. Thus, the floor area of a first-class 62

63

On 22nd June 1953, the 11.15am Belfast - Derry train draws away from the station hauled by Q Class 4-4-0 No.121. The first vehicle is the solitary M4 bogie van, behind that is a J11 ‘Through Carriage’ (TC) from Dublin followed by the B1 Diner No. 402. The M4 passed through Omagh in 1897 as a Royal Saloon carrying the ‘Duke and Duchess of York’ (later King George V and Queen Mary). To the right, in the down bay, an engine is taking water before departing with a three coach local service train. On the side of the tender, the staff collecting apparatus can be seen which was used on the Derry Road.

Photo source: Bluebell Railway Museum Archive/ 042779

Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time The first major change in carriage design was in the 1930s when the first steel-sided vehicles appeared.

At first these were confined to the Dublin-Belfast main line, but spread to the Derry Road and elsewhere soon afterwards. Older wooden-panelled types, however, still prevailed numerically. Some of the newer coaches would be converted to run with railcars after 1950.

through Omagh were built by the GNR(I) in 1932. While these two cars initially worked in the Portadown area, occasionally reaching Omagh on local workings, they were later remembered for operating local services between Strabane and Foyle Road. These were single cars with a cab at each end, designated ’A’ and ’B’.

Two years later, the first of several cars to carry a ’C’ designation emerged from Dundalk Works. These initially operated on Dublin suburban services but were later to be seen on the Derry Road, including the Dungannon-Cookstown branch before passenger services to there were discontinued. A former driver on the Derry Road recalled driving one of these between Omagh and Portadown. C1 was a single unit, while C2 and C3 ran as a two-car train.

Today, the Downpatrick & Co. Down Railway, a heritage railway based in that town, has in its collection the body of an Ulster Railway first class saloon coach dating from the early 1860s. Also present at that museum is the body of an old GNR six-wheel coach. The Ulster Railway, as referred to elsewhere, was one of the constituent companies of what would become the GNR, and while this saloon was not built for the lines through Omagh, it may well have travelled there after the GNR came into being – but even if it did not, it is a good representation of the type of coaching stock design that the Londonderry & Enniskillen and Irish North Western companies would have used.

The GNR also converted six road buses into railbuses for lightly used services. There appears to be little evidence of these being used in the Omagh area, but one lasted into the 1960s as an engineer’s “runabout” used on inspections. By now renumbered 8178, this railbus made occasional visits to Omagh; it is now preserved in the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum at Cultra, Co. Down.

The Railway Preservation Society of Ireland has in its possession several ex-GNR coaches. At Whitehead, the GNR(I)’s Director’s Saloon is preserved in the museum there. This vehicle certainly visited Omagh on many occasions. In its original form it was used by the GNR’s directors on their annual inspection of the line – this involved traversing the entire system. However, in later years it was set aside most of the time, but between 1953 and 1957 was used by the GNR’s Western District Engineer on occasions as a mobile inspection vehicle and office; for this purpose, a special set of steps was provided so that the engineer could get out of it easily to inspect track or bridges en route. The RPSI also has in storage a 1938-built dining car, No. 88,which would have been through Omagh many times on Belfast trains or Bundoran excursions. Finally, the Society has a 1954-built open third class coach, No. 9. At the time of writing, these latter two are not on public display but at least they have survived!

The early 1950s saw the advent of the main line railcars, which soon took over many regular passenger services through Omagh on the Portadown-Derry route, though these were not used on the Omagh-Enniskillen section.

The main thrust of conversion to diesel power was in the form of these railcars which commenced work as three-car sets from 1950 onwards. Several batches were introduced between 1950 and the GNR’s last year, 1958. Initially they were built by the firm of AEC, Southall, London. The final examples, with through corridors at the cab ends, were delivered from British United Traction, which had taken AEC over. These AEC and BUT cars operated most passenger trains on the rump of the GNR network until the closure of the Derry Road and beyond. The fleet was divided between the UTA and CIÉ after 1958 and the final examples were withdrawn by both CIÉ in the early 1970s and Northern Ireland Railways (the successor to the UTA) in 1974.

The first diesel vehicles which operated over the lines

Opposite Top: PP Class 4-4-0 No.74 waiting with the 6.15pm train to Enniskillen on 1st June 1954. This engine was often used for services between the two towns which generally had no more than two or three carriages. In this case, the first carriage is the unique K 29 No.484. It had been built by the London and North Western Railway at Wolverton (now part of Milton Keynes) in 1907 and became LMS First/Second composite No. 4651. It was one of 18 carriages bought second hand by the GNR(I) from the LMS in 1947. They were of course fitted with 5’ 3” gauge bogies to run on Irish lines. It entered traffic with the GN in December 1949 as a 7-compartment, 56-seat Third. It was “Listed for scrapping” in September 1958 but was taken over by the UTA before being withdrawn and scrapped in August 1959. The second carriage is a Dundalk-built brake/composite. To the right of the engine are parcels and hampers outside the ‘general waiting room’. Due to increased demand, the parcels office took over this waiting room which had an exit to the street outside, allowing deliveries direct to and from car or lorry.

Photo source: Neil Sprinks/Charles P. Friel collection Opposite Bottom: Railcar C3 at Omagh engine shed on 25th September 1957 after working a local service from Strabane and being turned before it makes its return trip. Behind is a GN SG3 class 0-6-0 shunting wagons into the siding next to the shed. To the extreme left is the trailer belonging to Railcar C3. Soon after the original stone arch openings were damaged by several storms and this was followed by a fire that engulfed the roof timbers causing the corrugated asbestos sheeting to collapse. In September 1961 violent storms caused the collapse of the roof of the engine shed. The roof of the shed was never replaced. Photo source: Graham Hoare/Irish Railway Record Society

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65

Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

AEC Railcar No. 614 leads a three-car set with No. 615 at the rear on the 6.15pm Derry-Belfast service on 27th April 1954. Point rodding can be seen running parallel to the inside rail, running between the south cabin and the point work crossing between both lines. Photo source: Ernie’s Railway Archive

BUT Railcar No.134 preparing to leave Omagh with a passenger service train to Derry on 24th July 1961. On the right is a U Class 4-4-0 with the weed spraying train carrying out the important task of preventing unwanted growth between and beside the lines. The cab on the unit was mounted on an old six-wheel carriage underframe and the tanker held 3,000 gallons of water to mix with the weed killer. A circular to all staff warned them to cover up all flowers and vegetables at crossing cottages. In Omagh, some railway staff and their families had small allotments at the trackside, in the ground above the turntable, next to the siding at Gortmore and at the Mullaghmena crossing.

These vehicles were designed and built in Dundalk in 1953, replacing the older 1937 model. Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

By 1960, most passenger trains on the Derry Road were diesel railcars even though a steam-hauled local still served the Portadown–Dungannon section. The GNR’s railcars were all painted in an attractive dark blue and cream colour scheme which contrasted with the plain brown colour used on other passenger stock.

From the end of 1958 when the remains of the GNR were absorbed into the Ulster Transport Authority, the UTA’s dark green livery appeared on both coaches and railcars by degrees, and would endure until the line closed.

From the dawn of the railway age, goods trains consisted of loose-coupled open and covered wagons.

While designs would be modernised over the years, particularly in the early years of the 20th century, the basic modus operandi remained the same – labour intensive manual loading and unloading of wagons at goods yards and sheds, as already alluded to in terms of Omagh, its goods yard in the station and the market branch. Often the very makeshift permanent way weed sprayer could be seen passing through the station, spraying the line and trackside to clear any weeds and growth that would look unsightly.

Omagh had a variety of rolling stock used for the transportation of goods between the various stations.

After the closure of the Enniskillen line, a mixture of covered and open wagons rested in the long siding on the south side of the station which had formerly been the start of the Enniskillen line. At the cattle dock, covered wagons were constantly loading and unloading cattle. This part of the station was a hive of activity with locomotives also shunting coal wagons from the market branch to the coal bins in the station and 20 ton loose grain wagons unloading meal from chutes into the lorries of Scott’s Mills below. Five of these wagons were converted from Guinness wagons in 1938.

Daily bread traffic arrived from various bakeries every morning from both Belfast and Derry, notably Stevenson’s, Hughes and Inglis Bakeries in metal bread units, carried on 10 ton container trucks. After 1958 it became common for CIÉ goods vans to also be seen in Omagh.

A 10 ton GNR(I) Covered Wagon, one of many that were converted for Guinness traffic after September 1914, and this one, No. 5499, was one of many that had their louvres removed when new sheeting was required. It was converted for use by Scott’s Mill, Omagh for the transportation of loose grain. Here it is waiting at Scott’s siding to be unloaded, 20th April 1948. The wagon to the left is a visitor from the LMS(NCC) lines. Photo source: Ernie’s Railway Archive

Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

S2 Class 4-4-0 No.190 Lugnaquilla with the 3.50pm Derry to Belfast passenger service on 1st June 1954. The GNR introduced five S Class engines in 1913 and the three which followed in 1915 were slightly different mechanically and were classed as S2. No.190 quickly lost her nameplates but regained them in July 1936 after ‘renewal’ in Dundalk Works; the nameplate is on the splasher for the 6ft 7in driving wheels. Parked in the bay on the right are bread containers from two of the three Belfast bakeries which supplied bread and fancy cakes by rail.

Photo source: Neil Sprinks/Charles P. Friel collection

As the Derry Road faced closure in 1965, the beginnings were appearing across the railway system of conversion of goods traffic to containers rather than loose-coupled goods vans and open wagons. Sadly, while the Derry Road handled the small bread containers, the main thrust of standard worldwide containerisation of goods traffic was but a few years ahead, so goods traffic was to the end manually handled with wagons individually shunted. Had the line survived but a few years more,

fitted freight trains as found worldwide nowadays might have become a common sight in Omagh.

Former shunter Joe McGrew knew more than anyone about the track layout in Omagh station. Along with engine drivers Billy Potts and Paddy Kerr, he also shunted wagons and carriages onto the lines and sidings between Omagh general station and the Market Branch.

SG3 Class 0-6-0 No.37 (ex-GN No.97) leaves the goods yard and is seen making its way along the Derry siding passing the disc signal to the up line which protected movement through both sets of points. A four-plank open wagon rests in the Convent Siding as the engine approaches the North cabin. In September 1958, Joe McGrew witnessed fellow employee Bernard McNamee as he was tragically killed at these sidings. He was carrying a shunter’s pole while walking between the lines when the pole was struck by a passing railcar, throwing him into its path. This photograph was taken on 1st January 1965. Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

At the general station, every siding had a name and shunters were expected to know how many wagons could be stored in it. The sidings were as follows.

To Market Branch, Beragh and Dungannon

Reference: Engine Shed

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10

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Omagh - Track Layout

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1. Middle Road 2. Convent Siding 3. The Down Bay 4. Scotts Siding 5. Cattle Beach 6. Up Straight 7. Outside Road 8. Gullet 9. Derry Siding 10 Front and Back Bay

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Track plan of Omagh showing the passenger station, track arrangement and sidings. The drawing shows the Tony basis.

McGartland complex arrangement of loops, sidings and bays that were worked by the drivers and shunters on a © daily The reference provided shows the common names used by drivers and shunters to move around the station.

Drawing by Author

1. The Middle Road (42 wagons) was seldom used due to its proximity to the main line running towards Newtownstewart. It was only safe to shunt wagons there when traffic was clear in all the other sidings. It ran to a buffer at the other side of the road bridge under the Brookmount Road bridge and passed pre-fab houses at Gortmore where several railway families lived.

6. Up Straight (12 Wagons) - used more often by the UTA, the siding was used to allow the movement of goods for shopkeepers in town. The daily goods traffic consisted of confectionery, chemist supplies, hardware, parcels, newspapers and mail. Bulk retail goods such as detergents, eggs and textiles were transported by rail for sale in local shops.

2. Convent Siding (27 wagons) – running along the boundary of the Loreto Convent grounds, the siding was used to store vans and wagons generally not in use.

They were backed up to a buffer just before the bridge at the Brookmount Road. Wagons had to stay clear of the pointwork so not to foul wagons leaving from Scott’s siding nearby.

7. Outside Road (7 Wagons) – This line ran up to a stop block at the side of the goods store with a large door to access the arrival of goods. Two smaller recessed openings were situated further along the side of the store that allowed lorries to reverse under the cover of the roof and access goods.

3. The Down Bay (19 wagons) was situated across the footbridge to the down platform and was often used to quickly dispatch short local passenger trains to Derry and Strabane.

8. Gullett (20 Wagons) – a siding that ran through the entire length of the goods store and with enough room to store four wagons outside at the front at James Street. With its platform inside, this allowed for the unloading of parcels, car parts, meal and bread containers. Inglis and Hughes bakeries in Belfast sent these small containers on the 3am goods train and local breadmen came and filled their delivery vans from the large bread hampers for delivery around town.

4. Scott’s Siding (6 wagons) was considerably higher than the road below, making it convenient for lorries from Scott’s Mill to pull up below and empty loose grain from chutes on the sides of the grain wagons into the lorries below.

Throughout the busiest years on the railway, Scott’s lorries drew three loads of Indian corn from the station to their mills.

All openings for wagons and locos were closed at night with huge framed and sheeted doors that ran on rollers and opened, left and right, of the arches.

In later years bagged meal for Scott’s Mill was also unloaded from closed wagons to smaller waiting lorries that had access to the store from the entrance next to the Gullett. In earlier years, this part of the railway held coal bins used to fuel the many engines that worked the line. Wooden steps gave staff access to the line above. In times of hardship, local children climbed the wall from the convent grounds up onto the trackside and pulled the corrugated tin back to fill their buckets with coal

9. Derry Siding (26 wagons) – As well as wagon loads of cement in CIE wagons, farm equipment and machinery which was lifted off flat wagons using a yard crane and fertiliser which was carried in covered vans. Named the ‘Derry Siding’ because it ran all the way from the goods store to the main ‘Derry Road’ line.

10. The Front (21 wagons) and Back Bay (16 wagons) were two sidings that came off the Portadown line before it entered the station at the South Cabin. Often passengers could alight here if the station was very busy. Across the other side of the South Cabin, the siding that ran to the buffer stop on the Dromore Road held 19 wagons.

5. Cattle Beach (9 wagons) – also accessed next to the Loreto Convent grounds, the siding had its own platform, allowing farmers to unload cattle from trailers into waiting cattle wagons. Local children took great delight in helping the farmers load cattle on and off the wagons.

69

Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time Drivers for Scott’s Mill empty the loose grain wagons at sidings next to the goods yard at Omagh on 29th April 1961. Access to the sidings was from the top of James Street next to the Convent gates and because of the lower ground below the line, lorries were able to park tight to the trackwork above and empty their loads manually. Omagh man Edward McAleer started at Scott’s Mill at the age of fifteen and later drove their lorries almost every day to and from the station.

Photo source: Des Coakham /Charles P. Friel Collection

70

An interesting view of the goods yard and passenger platform taken from the ladder of the goods yard signal on 26th April 1963 which captures the extent of operations in Omagh. A busy goods yard on the left with a mix of bread containers, open and closed wagons. The engine, an NQG Class 0-6-0, No. 38, shunts a goods train that has arrived in the station. With an absence of railway personnel, one must only assume they are in the ‘Railway Bar’ nearby, after all it’s Friday! Photo source: George Mahon/Irish Railway Record Society

Unloading mailbags at the south end of Omagh on 9th August 1962. This SG Class 0-6-0 No.38 (ex-GN No.16) had worked an earlier goods from Portadown and Driver Nelson Hall leans out of his cab to talk to Station Master Willie Ross, smartly dressed in a large brimmed hat. Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

72

Another view of the south end of the platform as Station Master Willie Ross watches platform staff unloading the mail into baggage carts in front of the small foreman’s hut. SG Class 0-6-0 No.38 (ex-GN No.16) has uncoupled a Y6 van from the rear of BUT railcar No.134 before it continues on its journey to Derry on 9th August 1962. These railcars were first used on the Derry Road in July 1957 for their Enniskillen to Belfast service through Omagh and, although it proved to be very promising, it came to an end in September with the line closure to Enniskillen. Railcar No.134 remained in service until 1975.

Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

The timetable prior to the closure of the Enniskillen line showed frequent services from Dundalk through to Enniskillen with connections to Omagh, with minimal waiting times between trains.

tonnes. The GNR Timetable for 1st October 1957 was promising, however by 1959 services were reduced dramatically, a pattern sustained until the line closed in 1965. It wasn’t long before the timetable was advertising bus services to bridge the gaps left by rail closures and soon many of the railway staff that had a vision to be driving trains until their retirement were instead out of work and looking for work driving buses for the UTA.

The Derry Road carried over 750,000 passengers a year until its last days. Goods traffic moved an average total of 302 loaded wagons on the line daily in 1957 and transported an annual tonnage exceeding 350,000

Built in 1957-58, the UTA made good use of these diesel-powered units for regular service on the Derry Road. Here BUT No.134 is pictured before leaving Omagh with a Derry to Belfast service on 9th August 1962. During the last few years of the Derry Road, railway staff were anxious about their future. Here staff grab a few minutes to talk while station foreman Billy Kerr from Cannondale, Omagh, looks at the camera. Directly behind him is the tall figure of ticket collector Andy Aiken. Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

Signalling

Very important to the smooth running of the station was the signalling system operated at the North and South cabins. Before signalling was introduced on the railway, trains left Omagh in a succession of time intervals of between 10 and 15 minutes, however this led to many accidents.

The earliest timetables available show that Omagh was a very busy station around the clock, as befitted its position as a railway junction of considerable importance and a busy town in its own right. Passenger trains served Enniskillen to the south west, with connections to Sligo, Dundalk and Dublin: Strabane and Derry to the north, and Dungannon, Portadown and Belfast to the east. Goods trains brought almost everything that society needed to and from all of those places, and much further afield. Goods trains ran mostly during the late evening and night times, while passenger services obviously ran by day. The end result was that there were very few periods during any 24 hour period when the station was quiet. In a normal day in Omagh there were 29 movements over 22 hours 40 minutes.

Although Omagh’s signal cabins were in place as early as 1893, the earliest evidence of a structured signalling system began in June 1913 when the Signal Superintendents’ Office in Dublin provided a detailed layout to accompany the new procedures. These were updated several times, first in December 1925 and then in May 1939. New signals were added in November 1947 but apart from the addition of several ground signals in July 1958, nothing was updated after the closure of the Enniskillen line in September 1957.

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Omagh North and South Cabin – Signal and Point Operation North Cabin Levers 1

Made spare May 1939 possibly worked the Up 13 distant signal.

Facing Point Lock for points 14. (See Note D)

2

Up home signal with electric repeater (E.R.) indicator fitted. (See note A)

14

Up Main to Yard Points (point rodding coupled to both sets).

3

Up Inner home signal. Also show position of next distant ahead (fixed at caution).

15

Disc signal, starting from Yard to Up main.

4

Up Starting signal for Beragh. Slotted with south cabin

16

Disc signal, backing to Down main.

5

Up inner home signal to goods yard. (See Note B)

17

Facing Point Lock for points 18.

6

Ground Frame release lever. (See Note C)

18

Down main to bay points.

7

Facing Point Lock for points 8 (down line).

19

Appear to be Calling-on-signals, slotted with south box, both co-acting on the same lever.

8

Up to Down main loop points (point rodding coupled to both sets).

20

Down main starting signal to Newtownstewart.

9

Disc signal for points 10.

21

Down bay to down main starting signal.

10

Crossover - Points Headshunt to Yard.

22

Down main inner home signal.

11

Crossover - Points Yard to Headshunt

23

Down main home signal. Slotted with south box.

12

Spare - Original use uncertain.

24

(See note E)

Notes: (a) An electric repeater is used when the driver cannot always get a full sighting of the signal. (b) On lever 5 the arm was put on a signal doll and attached to the main post in July 1958. (When a signal could not be located directly to the right of the track it governed, a Signal Doll was used) (c) This opened a small lineside box to release a shunting staff for use by the locomotive crew. (d) From November 1947 Facing Point Lock 13 also locked Up line point 8 both ways (e) Used for trains to Enniskillen, lever 24 was made spare in December 1925. It was reinstated in May 1958 as a northbound inner home signal for two-way working of the Up line platform.

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South Cabin Levers 1

Unknown - Possibly former Enniskillen line 13 home/distant signals.

Both later fixed at danger.

Down main to bay or siding points.

2

Down main to bay line inner home signal.

14

Facing point lock for points 15.

3

Down main home signal.

15

Bay to siding points and trap points on siding (point rodding coupled to both sets).

4

Down main inner home signal.

16

Facing point lock for points 17.

5

Down main to down platform. Calling-on signal.

17

Down to Up main loop points.

6

Disc signal. Engine shed to Up or Down main.

18

Down main to siding, points and traps (triple ended points, rodding coupled). (See note F)

7

Up bay to up main starting signal.

19

Up platform inner home signal. Added May 1958. On disc only from July 1958.

8

Disc signal. Engine shed to bay or siding.

20

Disc signals, backing Down main (20A) or Down main to down sidings (20B).

9

Up main starting signal to Beragh.

21

Up main starting signal to Beragh.

10

Unknown. Possibly former Beragh line Down distant signal. Later fixed at caution.

22

Up main home signal for Beragh.

11

Facing point locks for points 12 and 13.

23

Inner home signal for down platform.

12

Engine shed to Down main points (point rodding 24 coupled to both sets).

Made spare.

Note: (f) Prior to the Enniskillen line closure and removal of the Up junction pointwork, the Down siding to Down main trap and points would have been double ended, with the trap on the siding nearest to the South box double ended with connecting junction points located next to the up platform.

Some North Box signals are shown as slotted with the South end box. This requires the co-operation of both boxes when setting up a route through the station, for safety reasons, to avoid conflicting movements.

The signals were co-acting on the same lever. There were 1⁄2-mile distant signals on approach from Newtownstewart, Beragh & Enniskillen. They were originally box operated, but in the 1920/30s Government thinking was that it would be safer for all distant signals covering the approach to larger stations to be of fixed type.

On the diagrams, small arrows at the foot of each post indicate to what track they refer. As a rule, the signal is placed to the left of the track but sighting issues and track curvature can sometimes result in them having to be placed to the right, of more than one track on occasion. An example is the platform starter for Beragh.

The signal is placed beyond the Down line.

On the Engine shed, siding and turntable roads, all points (once off the main line) appear to be hand operated. The point rodding from the South Box ends at bracket signals 19 and 23.

75

Fix ed at ca uti on m Fro

10

8

16

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Trap points (shown in black) are used to protect main railway lines from unauthorised vehicles moving onto them from sidings or branch lines

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The purpose of the locking bar (shown in red) is to lock the facing point (shown in black), and to prevent it from being operated when the passenger train is occupying the point portion.

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North Cabin

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Omagh North and South Cabin Signal and Point Information

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2 4

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South Cabin

18 18

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Disconnected and fixed at Danger

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Fixed at Caution

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(a) Home Signal (b) Fixed Home Signal - for the out of use Enniskillen line (c) Distant Signal (d) Ground Signal (e) Bracket Signal (a) Home Signal Fixedsignal’ Homeon Signal (outarm of use on Enniskillen line (c) Distant Signal (d) Ground Signal (f) Bracket signal displaying a (b) ‘slotted the left (e) Bracket Signal (f) Bracket signal displaying a ‘slotted signal’ on the left arm

© Tony McGartland

Signalling diagrams of the North and South Cabins showing both the point and signalling functions of the levers operated by signalmen in Omagh. These signal diagrams have been redrawn from the originals by the author with detailed descriptions provided by Irish railway author Eric Challoner and qualified signalman Stephen Tull.

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It would seem that both the North and South end bays were signalled for passenger trains, having the appropriate FPLs (facing point locks). Naming

of signals varied from company to company, but in general, signals approaching a box were ‘homes’, with ‘starting’ signals going away.

Opposite bottom: The down main starter signal in the foreground operated by Lever No.22 in the North Cabin gives the driver of the Belfast to Derry railcar the all clear to leave Omagh on 1st January 1965. The driver is waiting for the guard to close the door on one of the carriages at the rear. Behind is SG3 No. 37 (ex-GN No. 97) on the up line.

With only weeks away from closure, it is business as usual at Omagh. This engine went to the UTA in 1958 and was cut up for scrap in 1969. Photo source: E.M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel Collection

Staff pictured outside the North Cabin only days before the closure, this was their last photograph together.

Herbie Dixon, Jimmy Marron (Locomotive Examiner), Johnny Loughran (behind), Hugh Donaghy, Paddy Devine and Packie Donaghy (all signalmen). The extended platform to the right allowed locomotive crews to exchange the single line staff with the staff on duty in the cabin. Omagh North Cabin controlled the signals and passing loops.

Photo source: Barney McGirr/Courtesy Headhunters Museum, Enniskillen

The following descriptions should be read in conjunction with the signalling diagram opposite.

Points - To move from one set of tracks to another Trap Points - To prevent runaways on a siding reaching the main running line Locking Bar - Used to lock facing points (shown in black) against accidental movement when the points will be used by a passenger train e.g. - passing loops Home Signal or Starting Signal - Home signals are usually found before reaching the signal box that controls them, and starting signals after that box Slotted Signal - The signal operation is co-acting, usually with two closely spaced signal boxes. It is mechanically and electrically linked for safe operation Distant Signal - This gives advanced safety warning (up to 800 yards) to the passenger train driver of the likely position of the next home signal Ground Signal - Miniature Signals, generally used for shunting moves, and usually within the station limits or adjacent goods yard sidings Bracket Signal - Found where there are one or more diverging ‘roads’ from the running line. The secondary routes often had smaller signal arms. Occasionally, there could also be an indicator showing the position of the next distant signal. This is represented by the ‘clear’ distant arm.

Chapter 6 - The Demise of the GNR(I) and the UTA Years Throughout the first half of the 20th century the Great Northern Railway maintained a tried and tested routine in Omagh. Local services operated to Dungannon and Portadown to the east and Strabane and Derry to the north. Main line services north and east connected Foyle Road station, the GNR’s Derry terminus, with Omagh, Portadown and Belfast; and to the south Enniskillen, Clones and Dundalk with connections there to Drogheda and Dublin. Heavy goods traffic characterised the line as might be expected. As well as cement, grains, agricultural products, household and hardware supplies and coal. Special traffic such

as cattle arrived from many rural stations and textiles passed through the station daily from Herdman’s Mills in Sion Mills all passed through the station. Since Omagh was by now a junction, much shunting was necessary.

Examination of timetables and patterns of locomotive and staff rosters indicate that the station had 24-hour operation, seven days a week, almost until it closed.

Special passenger trains included those organised for holidaymakers to Bundoran, reached by a branch line off the Omagh-Enniskillen section.

An SG3 Class 0-6-0 engine hauls the 7.15pm goods train crossing the Camowen River at Cranny. This bridge is often mistaken for the nearby Leap bridge which carries the Donaghanie Road over the river further upstream. The driver prepares to ease off as the engine approaches another river crossing at the Linn Bridge and the pointwork of the Market Junction, the scene of many derailments. The stretch of water between the bridges was where American soldiers stationed in Omagh during the Second World War would learn to swim. After the war, local people used it as a popular place to swim during the summer months. The three arch stone bridge, just outside of town, is still intact today though is only used by farmers to access fields beyond. The new Cranny link-road runs parallel to the bridge near the new Omagh Hospital complex. Photo source: Drew Donaldson /Charles P. Friel Collection

PP Class No. 12 at Omagh just prior to the closure of the Enniskillen line in 1957. Like many of the same PP class engines, they were found in daily service on the Bundoran line. The engine was built by Beyer, Peacock in 1911, went to CIÉ in 1958 and was withdrawn the following year. Photo source: Author’s Collection

However, outside factors were to come into play in Omagh as elsewhere on the railway system, throughout Ireland and elsewhere. Following a somewhat economically depressed period in the 1930s, the Second World War would be hot on its heels. This, and the detrimental economic consequences of partition in 1921, were felt particularly badly in this area, as Omagh was in what would later be known as the “border counties”. Throughout the 1950s the local economy stagnated and as a result emigration increased again.

For those left, unemployment became a fact of many peoples’ lives.

The GNR(I) struggled on, with increasing care taken to economise where possible. The entire system was steam worked, with passenger and goods stock reaching obsolescence in many cases. The main line from Dublin (Amiens Street) to Belfast (Great Victoria Street) had to be kept up to date, with new (steam) locomotives introduced in 1932 and 1947, but this left little to invest in the rest of the system.

A final attempt to bring the GNR’s system into the modern age came about in 1950 when the first of a series of modern main line diesel railcars entered service. The first twenty commenced service in 1950, with further batches in the mid-1950s following. These were used on the lines from Belfast – Dublin, Lisburn – Newcastle, Belfast – Portadown – Clones, and Portadown – Derry; thus, Omagh saw its first main line diesel trains.

These factors were at play elsewhere in the GNR(I) also. Between 1948 and 1950, most of the railway companies in Ireland – on both sides of the border – were nationalised as their financial situations precluded their economic survival as private companies. The post-war boom in road travel had also started to make itself felt even before there had been any significant investment in roads.

PP Class 4-4-0 No. 76 taking on water, 20th April 1948. This engine went to the UTA in 1958 and was withdrawn the following year. The down platform fencing advertises some of the common household goods including ‘Old Bushmills Whiskey’. In later years the same platform was improved with the addition of flower beds that added a lot of colour to the gravel decked platform. Photo source: Ernie’s Railway Archive

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

Despite appearances, all was not well with the GNR(I)’s finances, and in November 1950 the company’s auditors informed the shareholders that the corporate wallet was empty. Closure of all GNR lines was recommended by the company directors in December 1950, but in an era when there were no motorways and railways remained as a central part of commercial life, the prospect of this alarmed the governments in both parts of Ireland. In 1951 the directors of the GNR(I) recommended closure of all lines in Northern Ireland; such an idea would rear its head a few years later amidst much controversy.

An interesting view of both diesel and steam power coming to a head. Taken from the steps of the south cabin with SG Class 0-6-0 No. 38 (ex- GN No. 16) in the foreground, this view shows a Y6 van uncoupled from the rear of the 8.25am Belfast to Derry diesel railcar No.134 which is just leaving. Between the lines are the ground disc signals for Down main (20A) and Down sidings (20B). The curved trackwork winds its way northwards on 9th August 1962. Photo source: E.M. Patterson/ Charles P. Friel Collection

Now the two governments started negotiations with the GNR(I) with a view to assisting them financially.

Eventually the two governments offered £4.5m to the company and this was accepted. Now the two governments would become formally involved in the operation of the railway as it was to be run by a management board consisting of five members of each government; in all reality, the GNR(I) was now effectively, and belatedly, nationalised as the “Great Northern Railway Board” from 1953. Corporate branding altered as soon as practicable to reflect “GNR(B)” rather than “GNR(I)” on notices, timetables and on the company’s colourful crest on the sides of locomotives and coaches.

SG Class 0-6-0 No. 40 (ex-GN No. 18) approaches Omagh with a Derry bound passenger train from Belfast, passing the up platform starter signal for Beragh with the houses at Railway Terrace on the right. Known as the ‘Big D’, these engines were capable of hauling heavy passenger trains between the two cities. This picture was taken after 1958 when this ‘D’ class engine was renumbered. Photo source: Rev. John Parker /Courtesy Photos from the Fifties

As a parallel, the other two major railways in Northern Ireland had been the former Belfast & Northern Counties Railway, for many years owned by Britain’s London, Midland & Scottish Railway as the LMS (Northern Counties Committee); and the Belfast & Co. Down Railway. Serving the whole six-county area of Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Road Transport Board had operated bus and road haulage services since 1935.

In 1948/9, the LMS(NCC), BCDR and NIRTB had all been amalgamated as the Ulster Transport Authority, a fully nationalised body administered by the Stormont government in Belfast. From the outset, the UTA had set its agenda out as being strongly in favour of the development of road transport, and of the opinion that railways for such a small political area were “outdated” and a relic of the previous century; the view within government circles was therefore that railways had no long-term future in Northern Ireland. For its part, the Dublin government had nationalised CIÉ, which operated most of the railways in the Republic, in 1950.

It adopted a very much more pro-railway policy for many years, but Omagh was nowhere near to its area of influence.

Over the next three years the Stormont government became more and more disillusioned with its commitment to part-funding the continued operation of the GNR(B). Part of the reason for this was undoubtedly a result of their overall anti-railway sentiments and beliefs, but no doubt the GNR’s own 1951 proposal to close its operations north of the border in their entirety was of some influence in growing opposition to funding the railway at all.

In 1957, the biggest single withdrawal of railway lines in Ireland took place when the Stormont government ordered the closure of many of the railways in the west of the six counties of Northern Ireland. In one fell swoop, the Great Northern lines from Enniskillen to Clones, Enniskillen to Omagh, Bundoran Junction to Bundoran and Portadown to Tynan were closed completely. This was opposed by representatives of four of the six counties and gave rise to widespread accusation of political manipulation. Whether by accident or design, the towns which lost their railway service had political majorities of nationalists, whereas most of the places which retained railways were primarily of unionist sentiment.

S Class 4-4-0 No. 174 with a train for Derry leaving Omagh on 4th September 1964. The engine has just passed the North cabin and the single line staff is now in the hands of the fireman. Although the line to Newtownstewart was a single line, it was doubled in 1853. In an attempt to save money, it was singled again in 1869. Wagons full of uplifted sleepers rest in the ‘Convent Siding’ with closed goods wagons. Was this a sign of things to come only months before closure? Photo Source: Roger Joanes

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

Despite the threat of closure, Omagh was still a busy station platform in the 1950s. Here, passengers including ‘B’ Specials and military personnel are undeterred by the rain on the wet platform as they wait anxiously for the arrival of their train. All of the platform signage remained in Omagh well beyond the closure in 1965. A small van has reversed onto the platform from the side entrance where parcels and newspapers were loaded and unloaded. By 1939 drawings were amended to show a proposed door through the booking office into the General Waiting Room.

As can be seen from the different style of signage, these proposals went ahead and the waiting room became the new parcels office and cloak room. Photo source: Rev. John Parker /Courtesy Photos from the Fifties

Analysis of a map of these closures tends to support this idea at first glance, but as always with political matters in Northern Ireland, it was nowhere as simple as this. The UTA, on its formation, had closed much of its railway network within 18 months of taking it over; in particular, it closed the entire former BCDR system in two stages in 1950 – main line and three of its four branch lines – bar the Belfast-Bangor commuter line.

Most of mid-Ulster lost their railway services; and these towns were by no means all of nationalist composition.

As a separate issue, the GNR(B) had itself closed all of its lines in mid-Down in 1955/6.

centres in Northern Ireland being small, buses would do a better job. Low and declining passenger figures on many lines – Omagh – Enniskillen being one of them – were offered as proof of this.

Other realities of years of starved investment resulting in old trains and infrequent services having a detrimental effect on passenger figures were completely ignored in their analysis. The closures of 1957 now reduced the GNR(B) to little more than Dublin-Belfast and Portadown-Omagh-Derry, with several branch lines remaining for the time being. Omagh was now but one stop on the Portadown Derry route, with rail transport on the old Enniskillen line now ended, as weeds grew on the old L&E line south of the town. In a few years’ time these lines would be dismantled and the land sold off. Train services continued much as before on the Portadown-Derry line, or “Derry Road” as it had become known for some years, for another year until from 1st October 1958 the Stormont Government decided that it did not want to subsidise the GNR(B) any longer.

Consequently, from that date the GNR(B) ceased to exist and the line through Omagh became a full part of the UTA. It would remain thus until closure in 1965.

The conclusion may fairly be drawn, therefore, that while many unionist politicians (who held a significant majority in the Stormont government) doubtless held opinions hostile to any sort of transport system which assisted trade and commerce on both sides of the border, they also held opinions hostile to railways in general. They were not alone at that time in taking the view that the future of developed countries – especially geographically small ones - was firmly better off with road transport. Several reports by economists had also suggested the same, and that with most population 82

PP Class 4-4-0 No. 50 at Omagh, 26th May 1955. Passengers make their way to the footbridge on the up platform (left), crossing the line to join the train before its departure to Derry. The footbridge and its cladding were destroyed by fire several months later and much of the timber side panelling was replaced with corrugated sheeting. The engine went to the UTA in 1958 and was withdrawn from service in 1960. Photo source: B.K.B. Green/Author’s Collection

Hugh Donaghy, signalman at the North Cabin, gets his coal scuttle filled by the driver of SG3 Class 0-6-0 No.37 (exGN No.97) on 1st January 1965, just weeks before the closure of the line. An old brake van is parked in the Convent Siding. When Hugh and his brother Packie, also a signalman, went to ‘sign-on’ after the railway closed, the clerk asked them what they worked at and they replied, “We’re signalmen, that’s all we know.” To which the clerk replied, “Well, I’m sorry, the railway’s closed, I’ve nothing for yous!” Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time In keeping with the UTA’s unfortunate anti-rail stance, little further investment would take place. Without connections to Fermanagh and points further south, goods traffic declined somewhat, though it would still remain buoyant until closure against increasing odds.

Passenger services were somewhat improved though, with almost all passenger trains now diesel operated by the newest railcars, the last of which had only just been completed either side of the UTA takeover. However, new investment never extended to diesel locomotives, and for a reason; the UTA was already contemplating a

run-down of all rail-borne goods trains and transfer of same to lorries.

The 1960s beckoned with more of the same. Closure threats abounded. On both sides of the border the common narrative was that rural railways were doomed and better served by bus, and in truth many were now carrying very few people as the post-war economic boom enabled more people than ever before to buy private cars.

By the late 1950s cars were commonplace on the roads as people became more and more independent. Soon, larger vans and lorries began making deliveries to the many town centres, including here in High Street. With increased competition from road transport, the railway began to feel the pinch. Photo source: Valentine/Author’s Collection

In the early 1960s the UTA commissioned another report which recommended the virtual elimination of railways of all sorts in Northern Ireland. The few lines left would basically provide a commuter service around Belfast; even the Belfast-Dublin line was under a cloud for a while. In October 1961 British Rail carried adverts in the Belfast Telegraph seeking the skills of shunters, guards, signal men, locomotive examiners, engine drivers and firemen to take up vacancies in England.

They held interviews in many towns including Omagh offering excellent wages, assistance with travel, holiday pay, pension plan and a free uniform.

The UTA had concluded that it did not need two railway routes from Belfast to Derry. It had the erstwhile NCC’s Belfast (York Road) – Waterside line north of Lough Neagh, and the GNR’s Portadown – Foyle Road line to the south. Accusations of political favouritism towards unionist towns and against nationalist ones stepped forward again as the decision was taken to close the southern route – through nationalist towns.

This was perhaps more controversial than the 1957 closures as it was harder to hide behind a generally anti-rail argument. At the same time that the “Derry Road” would finally succumb to road transport, the Goraghwood-Newry-Warrenpoint line would also close. Again, every local authority in the area affected objected but the plan went ahead. Consequently, on 14th February 1965 the last trains served Omagh station, bringing down the curtain on eighty-two years of the railways serving the communities of Omagh and surrounds.

Day to day life continued in Omagh. The railway was not carrying the same levels of traffic as a few years earlier, it was still busy. Local trains from Omagh to Derry and Omagh to Dungannon were still well-filled, with the new diesel trains attracting new passengers, but Stormont retained its uncompromising agenda.

The long death came about finally in the spring of 1965.

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Platform staff unload sacks of mail and parcels from a parcels van onto the platform at Omagh on 10th September 1964. UG Class 0-6-0 No. 49 (ex-GN No. 149) has just arrived in the station, parking the parcels van next to the parcels office which is situated next to the footbridge. The office had a door at each side allowing vans to collect parcels at the front of the station. After the 1957 closure of the Enniskillen service the down (opposite) platform was seldom busy. Photo source: Roger Joanes

Omagh station just five months after closure, looking towards Derry on 14th July 1965. The water crane stands idle and grass has started to take root between the sleepers. Many of the name boards still remain as do the many travel posters on the notice boards under the canopy. Once a busy junction and place of much activity, it leaves a town without its arterial route east and west. Photo source: Roger Joanes

Chapter 7 - Conversations with Railway Staff The late Alex Clarke, an engine driver, was born in Derry and worked in Omagh.

When he transferred to Omagh he stayed in ‘digs’ and met and married his wife, an Omagh woman. During his time at the station he learned how to shunt and operate the signals. He also trained to carry out guard duties on board the trains.

He recalled: “I started working on the railway in 1948 and I worked in Derry station until I was twenty, then in 1953 I went to Omagh. You stayed in your home station until you became ‘a man’, and then you were transferred out, wherever there was a vacancy. So, I was shipped out to Omagh, there were quite a few Derry fellas in Omagh - firemen, drivers, a lot of railway men. My great-grandfather ‘Gaffer Gallagher’ was the supervisor in the locomotive shed in Derry, an uncle was a fitter, my father was a platelayer, a brother was a porter and I was a boy porter. So, it was a real family affair.”

“It was a good life, it was a very good life, especially around Omagh, it was a very friendly town. Omagh was a busy station, it was 24/7. It was a busy junction, you had Belfast, Derry and Enniskillen trains all arriving in Omagh. The shunters worked a 24-hour day in shifts.

8am to 4pm, 4pm to 12pm and 12pm to 8am, round the clock in shifts and there were goods trains all night, so you were constantly going.”

The crisp sunlight catches the side of SG3 No. 37 (ex-GN No. 97) at Omagh goods yard on 1st January 1965. The busy yard starts the New Year knowing that within weeks everything would be gone. Despite this, shunters and goods staff continue to unload bread units and goods wagons, assisted by the yard crane driven by John Eddie Quinn and Johnny Campbell. Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

Local companies used the railway on a daily basis, as recalled by Alex:

and stored their meal there. Coal came for Nestlé, they had a siding of their own and the shunters would take twenty or thirty wagons down to it almost every day. A goods train leaving Omagh could only take 40 wagons going up towards Portadown because of the Carrickmore bank, so there were wagons left in Omagh to make up a special train, and in Portadown there were ‘out of service specials’, as we called them, and we would have to take an engine up to Portadown to bring them down to Omagh, that was a lot of traffic and that happened very often. In 1965, I couldn’t understand why they closed the railway.”

“Scott’s Mills was a good customer, they kept their wagons at the Market Branch. Three lorries drew from there every day and took the meal to the nearby mill.

They had at least twenty wagons loaded with meal at the station at any one time. Coal came into the market branch for the local gasworks and the McCusker brothers or Jimmy Fee would take it across the road to the gasworks in their lorries. Scott’s Fuels kept their Shell Oil tankers and Esso Tankers on the two sidings outside. There were a few businesses in the market branch, there were Doherty’s, dealing in waste paper, they baled it and sent it away in wagons. Silcocks, Levers and Crossfield’s Cattle Feeds all leased sidings

The Gallows Hill area of town overlooked the entire station area from its raised site. Many families from the ‘Hill’, as it was known locally, were employed by 86

the railway. Railway staff from outside town took digs in Orchard Terrace, Railway View and Railway Terrace because they were within a stone’s throw of the station.

The late Billy Potts was living at New Brighton Terrace which looked across at Gallows Hill on the Kevlin Road...

never came back then. I put in for the job and I got it, it was ‘nights’, night work all the time, so I was there for maybe three or four years. Then, strangely William McGrew, another ‘Hill man’, came to help out and the two of us worked together, cleaning from 11 o’clock at night to seven or eight in the morning.”

”I joined the railway in 1941. I had an uncle in Enniskillen who sort of pushed me to join the railway. So, I went to Enniskillen as a cleaner. I was in Enniskillen for a year or more and I was travelling up and down every day.

Anyway, there was a cleaner on at the shed in Omagh who was almost electrocuted while working on the tender of an engine. He caught an electric cable whilst trying to steady himself from falling and was hurt - he

When the engines were finished working for the day they would be taken to the engine shed for the night. A fire dropper would be cleaning the firebox of the engine.

Using a long steel shovel, the burning coals would be shovelled from one side of the firebox and the dead cinders would be taken out. This was repeated at the other side until there was nothing but hot coals in the firebox.

UTA SG Class 0-6-0 No. 44 (ex-GN No. 176) shunting at Omagh cattle beach on 7th June 1957. In the later years much of the cattle traffic was transferred to the Market Branch where there were pens and the cattle beach was used to ease the transfer of goods to lorries that were unable to access the goods yard. This siding ended at a buffer stop next to the goods store with stone steps to allow easy access to the platform. Photo source: Transport Treasury/Nick Nicolson

“There was a chap called John Quinn, a fire dropper at the shed, he coaled the engines as well. He shovelled coal from the wagons and up into the tender and we as the cleaners would push the coal into the bunk, where the fireman would have been taking the coal from to put into the firebox. I did that for a long time until I got the job of a shunter. Omagh was a junction so all the goods had to be split up. There were goods wagons for Derry, Enniskillen, Belfast and Omagh too. There was always a lot of shunting at night, it was a tough enough job.

We used to take the odd wagon up to Fintona, bread wagons. Bread in those days came in big hampers. We

took them to Fintona and shunted them down into the station for the bread men. Quite often we took wagons for the Northern Ireland Road Transport Board and the Stevenson’s ‘bread units’ down to the market branch, that’s the way it operated. That’s what we called the early shunt, you started at three o’clock in the morning and worked until two in the afternoon. Before the railway closed I was driving a railcar, a C1 and a C2, I was driving them for years. There was great apathy in all the stations about the possibility of closure and I decided to leave, which I did before it closed.”

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

Although the Omagh shed was without a roof and offered little shelter to staff, it continued to be used right up until closure. Firemen continued to service engines here though there was normally one or two shunting engines stored overnight at the goods yard instead (where someone could keep an eye on them and deter thieves of copper and brass). The photo shows an unidentified S Class 4-4-0 on the right and the rear of a C3 railcar on 5th August 1958.

The pits between the rails were used by the fire droppers who raked out the ash from the engines into the pit below.

To the sides of the pit you can see signs of cinders cleared from the pit before removal. Both Billy Potts and William McGrew started work in the shed in 1941. Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

UTA SG Class 0-6-0 No.44 (ex-GN No. 176) has shunted a heavy goods train into the yard on 28th July 1964. On the right, staff are using a rubber-wheeled yard crane to unload the delivery. Behind the engine are a standard covered van and several standard CIÉ ‘Bulleid’ corrugated open wagons which would have come north via the North Wall Dundalk goods. A Dundalk-Belfast (Grosvenor Road) goods would later have dropped them in Portadown until they finally made their way to Omagh. An ex-NCC van, repanelled in planking by the UTA, is parked at the cattle beach.

Meanwhile a UTA bus is parked in their depot above. Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

The McGrew brothers, William and Joe, both lived in Gallows Hill and both worked on the railway. Their parents had made an application on William’s behalf to join the railway and it wasn’t until three years later that the letter arrived...

two trips in the morning and the morning duty included two trips to Cookstown, back to Dungannon and the second trip you went on through to Portadown again.

Then they closed the Cookstown line to Dungannon so it was just up and down to Portadown. If the railcar was out of service and was taken away to Dundalk for repair or overhauling, they would give me an engine and a couple of coaches and a fireman, Gerry Donnelly was my fireman. In September 1957 they closed the Enniskillen line and I was a bit disgruntled. They put me back to fireman again and although I was still getting driver’s pay, I left a couple of years after that.”

“My mother told me that I got offered a job on the railway and I joined the railway exactly a week after the Pearl Harbor attack. I started on a Sunday night, the 14th December 1941, and I worked for three years as a cleaner before I got the job of fireman in 1944.

Eventually in 1952 I got a job driving the railcar, C1, C2 and C3. I was driving up and down to Portadown. I made

Railcar C2 pictured in the ‘back bay’ at Omagh. This daily railcar service for local traffic left Dungannon at 9.54am, arriving in Omagh at 10.45am and for several years was driven by Omagh driver William McGrew. When first introduced Railcar C2 and C3 worked as a two-car set and when it was decided that they would operate separately, they no longer could take advantage of having a cab at either end and had to be turned at the engine shed turntable. Photo source: Ernie’s Railway Archive

His brother Joe spent 21 years of his working life on the railway. “I was keen to leave school and earn some money for the home. I started as a page boy on 1st April 1944. My first weekly wage was five shillings and sixpence and I progressed to boy porter. I was working in the refreshment rooms keeping the place tidy, keeping the shelves stocked up and lighting the fire.”

the pointwork and climbing ladders to fill the oil lamps for the signals. Occasionally he would get a lift with an engine driver out to the signals on the Dromore Road, otherwise he had to walk.

When he did manage to take a ride on the footplate, he got to see the workings of the steam locomotive and the actions of the driver. Joe progressed to assistant shunter and, after gaining the experience of a driver, was passed out as a shunter in 1953.

He remained in his role as boy porter until he secured the role of (senior) porter in 1950. His brother William had also joined the GNR(I) and was just promoted from fireman to railcar driver. Joe remembers working under many stationmasters, the first being Mr. James Carson.

Out of sight of the general public, he shunted wagon loads of coal, cattle and heavy machinery into the goods store where they were dispatched by Wordies’ carts to premises around town. In those days Wordies’ carts delivered everything around the town. Messrs. Wordie & Co. Carting Agents were established as sole agents for the GNR(I) in the early 1900s in Belfast, Drogheda and Dublin. In 1916 this service was extended to Derry, Enniskillen and Omagh drawing goods from General Station by horse and cart. This horse drawn service was operated by Jack Lynch with the help of Jimmy Winters. Prior to this local carter William Hunter worked casually moving goods between the station and the Market Branch.

“The uniform of cap, jacket and trousers provided by the railway had to be kept clean. Even the buttons had to be polished once a week. I would have to lift the mail bags from the parcels office and from the post office vans that were able to reverse onto the platform at the back bay.”

Despite this, a great deal of the work consisted of loading and unloading everyday requisites such as parcels, fresh fish, newspapers, bread and even churns of milk. As his experience grew, Joe found himself oiling 89

Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

One of three daily shunting operations from Omagh General Station to the Market Branch with Driver Billy Parr and Shunter Joe McGrew. Looking north with Townview Avenue on the left, photographer E. M. Patterson takes his picture from the footplate of SG 0-6-0 No.44 (ex-GN No.176) on 28th July 1964. The railing and abutment of the Linn Bridge can be seen below. It was interference with these points which caused the 1933 derailment, with many of the vehicles ending up in the Crevenagh cutting ahead where the line continues to Omagh General station.

The engine approaches the branch terminus with the meal store in the centre of the photograph. The branch was first opened in 1862 and the store is the only original railway building left intact and renovated to its original state. Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

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The engine enters the branch with four goods wagons, one of which has been shunted into the outside line towards the siding of the N.I. Road Transport Board. With his shunting pole in his hand, Joe McGrew walks to the trackside to change the points of the remaining sidings from a small ground frame. Once the points are set, the driver can move the remaining wagons into position. Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

The photographer gets a close view of an ex-NCC 12-ton closed wagon with torpedo vents and two GN closed wagons while Joe McGrew poses with his shunter’s pole having just released the points to allow the driver to reverse from the siding. The GN removed the vents on many of these wagons so the vehicles could get through the Queens Bridge subway in Belfast. Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

After uncoupling a covered goods wagon and pushing the wagon free, No. 44 starts moving back to continue the remaining shunting operations. Photo source: E. M. Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

The three main working lines of the branch entering the covered roof of the branch terminus building ahead. In front of the building is the small branch office on the stone back-filled gravel platform. Behind the engine is the meal store used by Silcock’s and Crossfield’s Animal Feeds. With their wagons shunted into position, Joe returns to the cab of the engine before making the short trip back to the General station. Photo source: E. M. Patterson/ Charles P. Friel collection

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With Joe hitching a ride on the steps of SG 0-6-0 No.44 (ex-GN No.176), the driver reverses out of the branch towards Market Junction. When the engine is clear of the points. Joe will set the points for the General station and they will proceed in a forward direction to continue their duties. On the left is the Omagh High School which opened in 1961. Photo source: E. M Patterson/Charles P. Friel collection

The late Paddy McLoone was a clerk in the Goods Store office: “I had no connections with Omagh as far as the railway was concerned but in Derry, which was my birthplace, my father was on the railway and three uncles were, so there was a connection there. My own start on the railway was like a man coming to the end of a road and he has two roads to go. I had sat two entrance exams, one for the LMS NCC for a clerkship, and I sat one for the Great Northern. On a Thursday I got word

from the Great Northern to report to Omagh and on the Friday morning I got word to report to Portrush from the LMS. So, the dilemma was where to go. My father was working on the LMS but for some quirk I decided to go to Omagh. I really enjoyed my life in Omagh, it was a sleepy little town, lit by gas in those days. Although the town was lit by gas, my office was electric but the gas brackets were still there and we used them to hang the invoices on.”

On a bright morning in Omagh, the 10.17am morning passenger service arrives from Enniskillen with U Class 4-4-0 No. 197 on 26th June 1952. To the left, the 9.35am ex-Derry train will be leaving soon for Belfast.

Photo source: Ernie’s Railway Archive

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

An exterior view of Fintona Station pictured on 7th June 1957 showing the passenger entrance to the left under the ‘Great Northern Railway’ sign. This took passengers up a set of steps to the platform area where a small wooden shed was situated. This shed was the home of the famous horse Dick who pulled the tram. The station platform was covered by an upright wooden structure securing curved steel girders that carried the corrugated tin roof.

The platform contained a ticket office, general waiting room and toilets and across the station was the goods store which was occupied by two stores, one which belonged to the railway and another which was used to store meal for Silcock’s. Their sign could be easily seen above the stone wall of the goods entrance. Local farmers had access to the yard and would visit the stores frequently for animal feeds. Photo source: Transport Treasury/Nick Nicolson

Fintona man Ken Donald worked at both Fintona and Omagh and remembers his brief employment there well.

to a power supply in the station to charge the battery for lighting inside the tram. The last thing at night, I would walk the line and fill the oil lamps and light them along the trackside. On a Friday night after the last train left, I would drive the horse and tram back to the station.

It was a downhill run all the way, so I would have to apply the brake all the way. Now and again the horse would break loose when you were putting him in for the night and he would stampede down the line. It was a job trying to catch him. When the station closed I remember helping to push the tram up the length of the goods store and hooking it up to an engine. It was taken to Omagh and then on to Belfast.”

“I joined the railway in Fintona in 1955 as a boy porter.

I started work at 11.00am in the meal store, unloading Silcocks wagons. Customers came to the station and I weighed out the meal. There were a lot of tractors back then arriving so I would drive them off the back of flat back wagons. A lot of them went to Johnstons of Clogher. I would go home at 5pm for a drop of tea, change out of my uniform and then go back and clean out the horse tram. I’d sweep it out every day and once a week washed it out. In the winter I had to connect it up 94

Willie McClean (driver) and Dick leave Fintona junction bound for Fintona station on 7th June 1957, some fifteen minutes away. On the left is the island down platform and to the right is the signal cabin and horse shed. Locals who used the tram said it was often quicker to walk. In the distance is the up-home branch line to Omagh, only six miles away. Willie would cover seven trips with the tram each day and the remainder of the day was covered by Noel Hamilton and Sonny Monteith. Every morning the tram carried school children and the general public to and from the junction before making their way to Omagh by train. Photo source: Transport Treasury/Nick Nicolson

Ken was lucky enough to continue his employment on the railway. When Fintona closed he got a transfer to Omagh as a boy porter.

years sorting the parcels that arrived by train. There were wagons full of parcels from Littlewoods and Great Universal, shoes, jackets, household goods - everything came by rail back then. The mail would arrive at four o’clock from Derry and I had to sort the mail for Omagh and send the Enniskillen mail on. It was the best place I ever worked. I worked with good, decent, responsible men. They would do anything for you.”

“I started a shift from 8.30pm to 3.30am. I had to ride my bicycle back home to Fintona after my duties. I was ‘number taking’, taking note of wagon numbers and the contents of the wagon. The dockets were attached to the side of the wagons with a metal spring. I was sent to the goods store and this kept me busy for three

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

The long shadows of a bright summer’s evening and a rare view of both steam and horse power at Fintona junction on 8th June 1957. GN PP Class 4-4-0 No. 71 leaves with a passenger train to Omagh while local passenger Mrs. Meta McCoy and relief driver William (Sonny) Monteith (goods checker) prepare to leave for Fintona station. Behind the tram is the evening goods that would remain there until the early morning. Photo source: Transport Treasury/Nick Nicolson

Billy Boyle worked as a goods porter at the Market Branch where he enjoyed his job and had fond memories of the many shunters who worked the branch daily.

“Everything came into the branch from bread to machinery. We unloaded perishable goods by hand from wagons and these were brought to the shops in small three wheeler trucks. The larger stuff was taken by transport lorries. When the Enniskillen line closed Omagh was twice as busy because everything for Fermanagh had to come through here, so we would be checking the labels, loading it up and sending it on.”

Frank Curran joined the railway near his home town of Trillick, a month before his 16th birthday. “I joined the railway two months before my 16th birthday in 1954 and started as a boy porter in Trillick Station. One of my duties was to man the gate crossing about 2 miles out of the town. The signalmen from Dromore Road station or Bundoran junction would phone through to Trillick to warn me that the train had left. I’d pick up the phone and they would say ‘She’s on her way’, I’d have plenty of time to get the crossing gates closed, it usually took about twenty minutes before the train would come.”

After spending around six months at Trillick he was told he was being transferred. Frank wasn’t disappointed as he didn’t have much to do in Trillick and was glad of the news.

“I got word that I was being transferred to Fintona station. They needed someone up there so I went and spent my time loading and unloading cattle meal from Silcocks in the meal store. It was hard work. I had to unload the heavy bags of meal from the wagons, stack them in the store and then when the UTA lorry came to lift them, I’d have to load them again onto the lorry. I was there two weeks.”

He soon realised that working on the railway wasn’t always easy and his dreams of working near engines and railway carriages were about to come true. “I then got a job on the platform in Omagh. I wore a uniform, a peaked cap, and brass buttoned waistcoat. The station master was James Bracken and I would help passengers on and off the train when it arrived on the platform, with their cases, and open and make sure doors were closed on the carriages. The guard’s van would be full of parcels, boxes, rolls of cheese, heavy goods and everything labelled for the shops in town.

The goods for Omagh were always stacked at the door ready for unloading. Now and again, sides of beef would arrive from the army headquarters in Lisburn tied in hessian bags and they would be set out onto the platform. Two squaddies from Lisanelly camp would come and take the beef away in an army lorry.”

Staff at Omagh prepare to couple up a carriage on the right (almost out of picture) to a waiting passenger train at the south end on 3rd September 1957. Joe McGrew, shunter at Omagh, often spoke of the dangers of coupling up corridor coaches, the limited space and the risk of being trapped between them. Beyond the footbridge to the left the Derry train lets off some steam as it prepares to leave the station. Waiting passengers on the platform are seen wearing flowers on their lapels, maybe they are seeing off a bride and groom! Photo source: Norman Simmons / Courtesy Photos from the Fifties

As Frank became a popular man on the platform and became more and more responsible in his role there, the chief clerk asked him to join the clerk’s office of the freight office and he did. “I was promoted to the position of a messenger in the freight office in the goods yard.

There were four clerks all sitting at high benches and I had a small table in the corner. Paddy McLoone and Hubert Logue from Omagh, Jimmy Murtagh from Armagh and Jimmy Corr from Belfast, they travelled to Omagh every morning by train. Wagon loads of goods were arriving by train every day and I had to sort

out the invoices and delivery notes. I had to sort the carbon copies in numerical order and file them away in a cupboard. I would have to go to shops in the town like Harvey & McGraths or J.B. Andersons and collect carriage for the transporting of the goods. Now and again, I would go with engine driver Billy Potts to the Market Branch. I would have to unlock the lever with the staff and change the points for the branch and let the driver take the goods train into the sidings. I was offered a transfer to Belfast but it wasn’t worth it to stay in digs up there so I left the railway in 1959.”

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

A view of the Goods Yard taken from the footbridge on 30th March 1964 with SG3 Class 0-6-0 No. 35 (ex-GNR No. 41) parked in the up straight siding. The exterior sheeted doors on all the entrances into the goods store are closed for the Easter Monday holiday. On the right of the yard, the Derry siding has many wagons sitting right up to the buffer stop and the street front while the rubber-tyred crane sits idle next to the outside road. Across the road you can see McGale’s Garage and the houses of Mullan Terrace, Fairmount Road and Fairmount Avenue behind. Derry man Paddy McLoone moved to Omagh to join the railway as a young clerk in the Goods Store, serving both the GNR(I) and UTA up until the closure progressing to Chief Clerk in the Freight Office. Photo source: John Langford

Davy Graham worked as a UTA goods porter in the goods yard. He worked 6am–2pm and 2pm–8pm shifts. He remembers his short time on the railway “One minute we were busy, then it just all stopped.” His days involved tough manual labour assisted by crane driver Johnny Campbell. “I had to climb up onto flat wagons and strap slings around Massey Ferguson tractors and the crane would lift them off. We would park them in a row until Charlton’s garage mechanics would come up to the station and drive them down Castle Street. Farm machinery arrived regularly and was delivered by lorry all over the country.” Apart from tractors and machinery, building materials, coal and bread containers were arriving every day too. “Wagon loads of coal would arrive from Derry and we had to shovel it by hand onto lorries and it was taken to the gas house on the Dublin Road. Tons of bagged cement came in closed wagons and we had to build the bags up in lorries before it was taken to Lisanelly Camp for all the building work there.

When I was on the early shift, bread containers arrived every morning at 6am from Derry and were sent out to Irvinestown and Enniskillen. Mick Gilheany, Peter Judge, Billy Kettyles and Davy Vennard were the main shunter/drivers in the yard back then.”

from Gallows Hill, living within reach of the railway meant that they got to know the drivers and the firemen.

The railway was their playground and, within a stone’s throw of the line, they would walk across the lines to the engine shed.

“Our house on Gallows Hill looked down on the engine shed and line. As young lads we would sneak down to the shed and watch the firemen lighting the fires in the boilers for the morning trains. They would rub oil on a shovel with a rag and hold it in the engine’s firebox until it heated and fry eggs and bacon on it. When we got home and were called for dinner, I wasn’t hungry but I was afraid to say why.”

His childhood is still full of memories of a childhood spent next to the line.....

“We were the original ‘railway children’. We played around the turntable when there was nobody around it’s a wonder no-one was killed. I remember my mother having to draw the net curtains and closing the windows every evening. The soot and ash blowing from the shed used to blacken the windows and curtains all around Gallows Hill - and there weren’t complaints about the pollution back then”.

Although not an employee, one young boy always dreamt of working on the railway. For many small boys 98

S2 Class 4-4-0 No. 192 hauls the Belfast to Derry train entering the station on the down line on 7th June 1957. The photographer is standing on the embankment opposite Railway Terrace and has captured the fireman preparing to exchange his staff with the crew of the South Cabin. The carriages are crossing over the bridge at James Street and the houses of Starr’s Crescent can be seen to the left in Gallows Hill. Photo source: Transport Treasury/Nick Nicolson

UTA S2 Class 4-4-0 No. 63 (ex-GN No. 192) approaching the turntable at Omagh shed on 30th March 1964. Since it is Easter Monday and schools are closed, it provides much entertainment for children from nearby Gallows Hill.

Above the rooftops of the houses to the left of the picture, a row of wagons can be seen in the siding of the closed Enniskillen line. Assorted wagons sit parked outside the roofless engine shed. Photographer John Langford was in Omagh with his father’s folding Kodak bellows camera to take these pictures and today still has fond memories of the day. Photo source: John Langford

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Omagh Staff General Station While l cannot provide a definitive list of every member of staff who ever worked in Omagh, the following names and occupations have survived. I should point out that very few of these people are alive today.

Station Masters William Williamson – Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway Company (1854 - 1859) Hugh Morrow – Irish North Western Railway Company (1860 - 1862) Bernard Cooney - Irish North Western Railway Company (1862 - 1863) Valentine W. B. Wall – Ulster and Irish North Western Railway Companies (1863 - 1865) Edward McFee – Ulster and Irish North Western Railway Companies (1865 – 1867) Hugh Mulholland – Ulster and INWR/ First GNR(I) Stationmaster (1867 - 1880) Richard Reville – GNR(I) (1880 - 1898) – Retired after 20 years of service John lrvine – GNR(I) (1898 - 1917) – Retired after 20 years service Thomas Anderson - GNR(I) (1917 - 1927) - Transferred to Lisburn Jason Johnston – GNR(I) (1927 - 1932) – Retired after 40 years of service Samuel Jeffers - GNR(I) (1933 - 1937) - Retired Albert Evans – GNR(I) (1937 - 1943) – Appointed to Portadown Goods Station James D. Carson - GNR(I) (1943 - 1950) – retired after 46 years of service Reginald Harold Wesley Reavey – GNR(I) (1950 -1955) – Transferred to Strabane John Rodgers – GNR(I) (1955 – 1956) – formerly stationmaster at Ballyshannon James E. Bracken - Last GNR(I) Station Master(1956 - 1959) – former station master at Kesh William J.Ross – UTA Station Master (1959 – 1965) District Superintendents’ Office F. Grayson – (1896-1898) W. A. Scott – (1898-1923) The position of D.S. was abolished 1923-1943 H.A. Evans – (1943-1944) Alexander Mulvenna – (1944-1950) John O’Donnell – Chief Clerk Station Building Staff Stanley Jennings – Chief Clerk Percy Wray – Booking Office Clerk Michael McCrossan – Booking Office Clerk (promoted to Station Master for Dromore Road in 1940) Sarah Hannigan – Cleaner Bridget Sharkey - Cleaner Marie Cummings – Switchboard (opposite the Booking Office) Vera Hurst – Telephonist.

Stanley McKelvey – Switchboard (between 8am – 9am) Paddy Teague – Messenger Eileen Howard - Head of Refreshment Room Frank Heagney – Checker Tess Woods – Refreshment Room manageress Margaret Jennings – Refreshment Room Miss K. Mackle - Refreshment Room John Mullan – Page Boy in Refreshment Room Margaret Rowe - Eason’s Bookstall manager Paddy Given – Eason’s Bookstall Eileen O’Neill – Bookstall (by 1961 ‘Gormley’s’ Newsagents of Castle Street had taken over from Eason’s. She was assisted by Margaret McCullagh) Mella Shannon – Mella lived in Abbey Street and spent most of her life in the town. She joined the GNRi in 1948 and worked in the refreshment rooms of the station, later promoted to serving refreshments on the Belfast to Derry restaurant car. After the closure in 1965, she then transferred to the Belfast-Dublin ‘Enterprise’ service and remained there until her retirement in 1992. She was later recognised for her service with a British Empire Medal.

Freight Office Staff Bernard McPeake – Chief Clerk (Worked with GNR 1935-1959) Patrick McLoone – Chief Clerk James Ballantine – Parcels Clerk Jack Burby – Clerk Cecil Stewart – Clerk John McCusker – Goods Clerk (John started work with the GNR in Dundalk the same day as another clerk, Joe Sweeney. He spent some time 100

in Howth and then Letterkenny with the County Donegal Railway until he finally moved to Omagh) Hubert Logue – Clerk Jimmy Murtagh – Clerk Jimmy Corr – Clerk Frank Curran – Messenger (promoted from Porter on platform) Joe Sweeney – Clerk E. O’Brien – Clerk Goods Yard Goods Porters Michael O’Neill (senior) Davy Graham Felix Sheridan Sam Brown Joe O’Neill Billy Boyle (later moved to Market Branch) Noel Hamilton (previously at Fintona station) Jimmy Cuthbertson Jack Lynch (Checker) Bertie Colhoun (Checker) Frank Hegarty (Checker) Davy Crawford (Checker) John Sharkey – (Checker) John Eddie Quinn – Crane Driver Johnny Campbell – Crane Driver Stanley McKelvey (after working on Switchboard between 8am-9am, he worked in the Goods Store and as a Clerk in the Claims office) UTA Lorry Drivers (Goods Yard) Jim Moore Walter Noble Terry Keys Tommy Ballantine Milford Hall Willie Carmichael George Fitzpatrick Joe Smyth Gerry Boyle Davy Elliott John McCusker Sam Dixon Goods Foremen Tommy McKittrick Jimmy McCallion Edward McCrory Henry McMullen James McCallin Fred McGirr – Goods Yard delivery man (with Bob Smith he drove a 3-wheel delivery lorry and trailer taking supplies from Goods Yard to local traders) Bob Smith - Goods Yard delivery man Harry McIvor - Driver Platform Staff Foremen James Lockhart - Traffic Manager Bob Rankin – Station Foreman Billy Walker – Station Foreman Billy Kerr – Station Foreman Bobby Colgan – Works Foreman (1957-1965)

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time Ticket Office Staff/Collectors Paddy Mullin Barney McKinney Andy McAleer Tommy Shanks Tommy McKittrick Tommy Mullan Andy Aiken Wesley McCombe Claims Office Sam Burns (manager) Bob Bell Stanley McKelvey Fred Buick Porters Brian Kelly Tommy McNally Ernie Hutchison John Fitzpatrick Ernie Newell Ken Donald Jimmy Robinson David Moore Kieran McGlynn James Shannon William Dickson Signal Cabin Staff Charles McElroy Jackie Thompson Packie Donaghy Hugh Donaghy Johnny Loughran Tommy Kerr Patrick Devine (former shunter) Hughie Crawford (also acted as Trade Union Representative) Herbie Dixon Willie Maguire John Fitzpatrick Tommy Hamilton John Kyle William McConville Billy Mann John O’Neill – Signal Fitter Engine Drivers Michael Gilheany Barney McGirr John Wallace Billy McKee (from Derry) Herbie Dean Tommy Turner Fred Lambert (from Drogheda) Tommy Kelly Freddie Rankin (from Enniskillen) Billy Potts John Breslin (from Derry – worked the Market Branch shift) William McGrew – Railcar Driver Jimmy Donnelly Paddy Kerr Norman Thompson Paddy Ingram (fireman promoted to driver in Omagh after Enniskillen line closed) Gus Kelly (transferred to Omagh after Enniskillen line closed) James Kelly (transferred to Omagh after Enniskillen line closed) 102

Billy Kettyles Davy Vennard William Wallace Billy Parr (also worked as a Locomotive Examiner) Firemen James Sweeney Robert Chesters Tom Patterson Gerry Donnelly (progressed to shunter) Jackie Ballard Jackie Ewing Johnny Campbell George Dunn Michael Smith Peter Judge Norman Thompson (from Derry but stationed in Omagh) Johnny Greaves Paddy McShane Engine Shed Staff Richard O’Neill – Locomotive Examiner Jimmy Marron – Locomotive Examiner Billy Patterson - Fireman John Quinn – Fire Dropper Pearse McKeown - Fitter John Holland – Cleaner Hector Elliott – Cleaner Shunters James McMaster Peter Donnelly Peter Judge Patrick Devine Joe McGrew Alex Clarke John McLaughlin Tommy McCauley Herbie Dixon Michael O’Neill (promoted to Guard) Jackie Thompson (progressed to Signalman) Barney McNamee (killed on ‘Convent Siding’ by incoming Derry train when it caught his ‘shunters pole‘ and dragged him onto the line) Guards Joseph Cuthbertson Johnny Mullin John Rooney Eddie ‘Ned’ McCrory Charlie Leonard Bob Henderson Peter Donnelly (progressed from shunter) Permanent Way Staff Frank Donaldson – Railway Examiner Gerry Maguire – General Labourer Michael Maguire – General Labourer Issac Armstrong – Time Keeper John Garrity – Crossing Keeper (Tully Road) Bernard O’Donnell – Crossing Keeper (Tully Road) Billy Jefferson – Crossing Keeper (Edenderry) Charles Gormley – Permanent Way Signalman W.J. Ross - Traffic Inspector (1956 - 1959)

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time Permanent Way Inspectors John Bell Philip Murphy Billy Wilson Patrick Quinn – Inspector (transferred to Portadown 1950) Paddy McGartland (promoted to Sub-Permanent Way Inspector from ‘Ganger’) Permanent Way Gangers Paddy McGartland Arthur Kerr (Billy Kerr’s father) William Carson (killed as a result of being struck by engine, 1924) John Nelson Platelayers James McGale Jack O’Neill (father of John O’Neill – North Cabin) Charles Flanagan - Ganger (tragically killed 1950 in Station) Daniel McCrory (tragically killed 1950 in Station) John Cassidy (tragically killed 1950 in Station) John Cleary (tragically killed 1950 in Station) John McCrory (tragically killed 1950 in Station) James McElroy James Colhoun Joe Cox Willie Judge James McGale Pat McGlone Pat O’Brien Joe Patterson Tradesmen Mark Breen - Foreman Billy Caldwell – Carpenter Jackie Graham – Painter Eddie Chesters - Painter Robin Bell - Painter Phelix McRory – Stone Mason Johnny Bowes – Mason’s Apprentice Sam Fleck - Electrician Jimmy McCullins – Plumber John Moore – Plumber’s mate Market Branch Goods Station Andy Robinson – Stores Foreman Billy Boyle – Goods Porter Jackie Dolan – Goods Porter (also worked as relief signal man in North Cabin) Wilmour Roulston – Goods Porter Billy Greer – Clerk The Lifting Train – Omagh to Beragh Leo McGurk (Contractor from Carrigans, Co. Donegal) William Brogan (Winch man) Matt Donnell (Railcar driver) Billy Caldwell (Clerk of Works) Billy Wilson - Supervisor Michael Gibson Barney Boyce Jimmy McGale Packie McCallan John Bond Jim Brown Paddy Peoples Liam Duffy

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Our Heritage

In Omagh, there are many individuals who promoted and raised our awareness of our railway heritage – Brian McDaid, Tom Davidson, Michael Pollard, Des Fitzgerald, Haldane Mitchell and Norman Johnston - all sadly no longer with us. They took photographs, wrote and compiled regular articles in the local press, magazines and books. Tom Ferris, a native of Omagh, now based in Shrewsbury, has written and edited many books on Irish railways.

‘Ernie’s Railway Archive’ on ‘Flickr’ continues to host an outstanding collection of railway photographs, including many of Omagh.

In June 2001, the Omagh Boys and Girls Club opened its doors in the new purpose built ‘Station Centre’, on the site of the former goods yard. The new development provides facilities for sport, after-school clubs, drama, a social area and coffee bar. The interior of the building features various replica railway arches built partly from stone preserved from the original goods store. A model of Omagh Station, built by the author of this book, is on permanent display there.

On the 50th anniversary of the Omagh Railway Tragedy, OmaWest Community Group unveiled a unique memorial to the five railway workers who lost their lives while repairing track in Omagh station. The memorial plaque and stone feature were erected on the site of the stationmaster’s house at James Street. Family members and relatives of the five men killed were present to mark the occasion which was attended by many ex-railway employees, church leaders and members of Omagh District Council. St. Eugene’s Brass and Reed Band, who led mourners at the funerals of the five men in November 1950, played a selection of hymns. The ceremony was concluded with the recital of a poem by Mella Shannon, who was the cook in the dining car of the train on the morning of the incident.

The 50th Anniversary of the closure of the line was remembered at Omagh Library in 2015

when over 700 visitors attended a special presentation of railway film, memorabilia and photographs of the station. Many ex-GNR staff were in attendance during the course of the day. Railway enthusiast, the late Fred Cooper showed some of the 8mm ciné film which he had taken while the line was open, recording the last days of the steam on the ‘Derry Road’.

This footage has since been broadcast by the BBC in a short film entitled ‘Farewell the Derry Road’.

In November 2020, 70 years after the Omagh tragedy, a special film was produced by Fermanagh and Omagh District Council in conjunction with Omagh Railway Heritage Group. The 20 minute film featured interviews with family and relatives of those who died.

The film was produced with the help of local enthusiast Mark McGrath by local film maker Oscar Bradley and narrated by Paddy Hunter.

More recently the ‘Into the West’ campaign, championed by Steve Bradley, hosted a series of roadshows in Dungannon, Omagh, Strabane, Derry and Letterkenny to highlight the growing demand for a ‘North West Rail Corridor’ to reconnect the west’s rail network.

This growing campaign has received much public support and is growing in momentum.

It would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention ‘Headhunters’ railway museum in Darling Street, Enniskillen who have one of the largest collections of Irish railway artefacts on display and provide a lasting legacy of the railways of Tyrone and Fermanagh. A model of Omagh Goods Yard, also built by the author of this book, is on permanent display there.

When Barney McGirr retired from his job as engine driver in Omagh, he spent some time writing and reflecting about his life and experiences as he observed it from the footplate of his steam engine or cab of his diesel locomotive. Before he died in 1981, he wrote his own final epitaph. (with permission – Courtesy Maurice McGirr)

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time An Engine Driver’s Epitaph Each railway milepost I’ve passed, My destination in view at last, Age brakes my wheel and slows my speed No more my guiding hand they need.

The distance passed with amber beam I hope all other signals are green Steam has always been my urging breath Its pressure is now condensed in death Life’s railway over, each station passed In death I’m stopped and rest at last.

(Barney McGirr, Omagh)

Picture taken by David W. Lang, June 1959, of Barney McGirr at Omagh. On the rear of the photograph Barney has written ‘Picture taken by David Lang, he travelled with me in the cab from Belfast to Omagh and took this photo on arrival in Omagh at 1.25pm on arrival of ex-Belfast to Derry train. He wrote to me from England thanking me for the enjoyable run and enclosed a copy of the photograph.’ Photo source: Headhunters Museum, Enniskillen

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A view of the south cabin taken on 19th March 1961 with the up-platform starter signal for Beragh to the left of the cabin. Both sidings on the closed Enniskillen line are backed up to the buffer on the Dromore Road with goods wagons. Railway Terrace can be seen behind the cabin with the Railway Bar on the left gable, a popular place for staff of the station on a Friday evening. Photo source: J.D. FitzGerald/Charles P. Friel collection

Ex-NCC W Class 2-6-0 No. 98 ‘King Edward VIII’ on the 5pm relief to Belfast on 8th July 1961. The engine was built in 1937 and saw most of her service on the NCC lines between Belfast York Road and the North Coast. Seven of these moguls were transferred for use to the Derry Road, though by then they were pretty much worn out. To the left, passengers on the down platform wait to board the 2.45pm Belfast to Derry worked by S Class 4-4-0 No. 61 ‘Galtee More’ (ex-GN No. 173) with a parcel van attached to the rear. Parked in the bay on the right are a 20-ton brake van, 4 plank open wagon and a 10-ton closed goods wagon. Photo source: J.D. FitzGerald/Charles P. Friel collection

Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

Above: S Class 4-4-0 No. 61 Galtee More (ex-GN No. 173) taking water at the down platform with the 2.45pm Belfast – Derry passenger service on 8th July 1961. The engine, partly obscured by the down main starter signal, retained her blue livery until withdrawal in 1964. The carriages are all former Great Northern vehicles with one still in GN mahogany livery and the rest in UTA green. To the left, the palings of the timber fence on the up platform hide the goods yard and shunters’ hut behind, a place where cups of tea were often brewing. Photo source: J.D. FitzGerald/ Charles P. Friel collection Opposite Top: S Class 4-4-0 No. 171, formerly Slieve Gullion, with the 4.30pm Derry to Belfast passenger service on 6th July 1963, skirts the curved up platform out of Omagh passing the south cabin on the right, with a couple of permanent way bogies dismounted in the vee between the lines to Portadown and the former line to Enniskillen.

After the UTA bought No.171 from CIÉ in 1963, she was used frequently on the Derry Road. Nowadays, she belongs to the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland and has travelled all over Ireland heading steam rail tours. Photo source: J.D. FitzGerald/Charles P. Friel collection Opposite Bottom: CIÉ A class locomotive No. A51 is arriving in Beragh with the 12.55pm Omagh to Dublin pilgrim train on Monday 3rd June 1963 and meets the BUT railcar forming the 11.15am Belfast to Derry service. On the platform, the signalman and the snatcherman are exchanging an Omagh South to Beragh electric train staff for a Beragh to Pomeroy staff. Photo source: J.D. FitzGerald/Charles P. Friel collection

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

Above: In the last summer of the line, CIÉ General Motors diesel-electric No. B159 is speeding downhill towards Carrickmore with the 9.00am pilgrim train from Dublin on Monday 13th July 1964. Upon its arrival in Omagh, passengers were transferred to buses and continued on their journey to Lough Derg. Photo source: J.D. FitzGerald/ Charles P. Friel collection Opposite: CIÉ General Motors diesel-electric No. B153 is seen climbing towards Pomeroy with the 12.55pm Omagh to Dublin pilgrim train on Friday 1st August 1964. The pilgrim trains had only another fortnight to run as Lough Derg closed on 15th August each year and the need for the train evaporated for ever. Photo source: Sam Williamson/ Charles P. Friel collection

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Omagh Railway Station – A Journey through Time

About the Author

Tony McGartland comes from a railway family, it is in his DNA. His grandmother Veronica was married three times and each of her husbands were railway employees. Two of her husbands worked with the Glasgow & Caledonian Railway Company. One died of TB at a young age, the other was ‘killed in action’ as a serving soldier in WW1. When she returned to Omagh from Motherwell, she married his grandfather Paddy McGartland.

Paddy joined the GNR(I) on 26th Jan 1924, as a platelayer, progressing to permanent way ganger and subpermanent way inspector until the closure of 1965, he died the following year.

For over 30 years, Tony has collected railway photographs and artifacts about Omagh station and spent a lot of time talking to former railway employees in town about railway life there. In 1992, he completed a model of Omagh Station which is still on permanent display in town.

With the wealth of information he gained at first hand from former GNR(I) employees he pieced together the story of Omagh station from its humble beginnings to becoming one of the most important junctions of the Derry Road line. The book is dedicated to all railway employees, railway families and railway enthusiasts of Omagh.

Bibliography: Arnold, R.M. (1979) The Golden Years of The Great Northern Railway (Part 1) – Blackstaff Press Belfast Challoner, Eric T. (2010) Farewell the Derry Road – Colourpoint Books GNR(i) Timetables – 12th May 1957 & 1st October 1957 Irish Newspaper Archive, Dublin Irish Railfans’ News – 1955-1965 (Courtesy Leslie Hyland) Johnston, Norman (1999) Locomotives of the GNR(I) – Colourpoint Books Johnston, Norman. (1992) The Fintona Horse Tram – West Tyrone Historical Society Mitchell, Haldane. Images of Omagh and District – Rotary Club, Omagh Patterson, Edward M. (2003) The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) – Oakwood Press Tyrone Constitution, newspaper Omagh (Alpha Media News Group) Ulster Herald, newspaper Omagh (N.W.I.P.P Omagh) References: Charles P. Friel. (2007) IRRS Journal Vol. 23, No. 164.

Enniskillen Chronical, 7th October 1852 Eric T. Challoner. (2010) Farewell the Derry Road – Colourpoint Books Evening Herald, 22nd September 1914 Fermanagh Herald, 11th March 1933 Johnston, Norman. (1991) The Great Northern Railway in County Tyrone - West Tyrone Historical Society Londonderry Journal, 30th July 1862 Mitchell, Brian. (2019) The Port of Derry and its Diaspora - Genealogical Publishing PRONI “Rail Strike of 1933” (COM/64/3/28) Strabane Weekly News, 2nd August 1913 112

O M A G H R A I LWAY S TAT I O N : A J O U R N E Y T H R O U G H T I M E

OMAGH RAILWAY STATION A Journey through Time

Omagh General Station was on the arterial railway route to the North West of Ireland connecting it’s capital Dublin with the port of Derry. For many decades the town also served as a busy junction to another important line from Enniskillen and In its heyday the station might be busy for more than 22 hours out of 24. When the Derry Road closed in 1965, not only did Omagh lose its railway but the town lost a sense of community - of railway families who for generations lived in houses that surrounded the railway and provided steady employment. This book brings together the history of the railway in Omagh – researched over many years and told by railway staff who worked the station.

The Transport Treasury Price:- £18.95

Railways of Omage Cover.indd 116-1

TONY MCGARTLAND

For anyone who lives in Omagh and beyond, with an interest in Irish railways, this is the first and only book that documents the history of the towns passenger and goods station and is presented here with over 140 images, many of which have never been published before, captioned in great detail by the author. The book is a vital part of every railway enthusiast’s collection and serves as a reminder of Omagh’s importance in railway history.

Tony McGartland 10/05/2023 16:34:07