I was a student at the University of Strathclyde, studying Electronic & Electrical Engineering, and as I come from Northern Ireland, I regularly took the Larne - Stranraer ferry when travelling between home and University in Glasgow, taking the train between Stranraer Harbour and Glasgow Central Station. In fact back then, when the ferry was SeaLink, an British Rail company, in the days before the ferry company was sold off to Stena Line, and the trains were also British Rail, if the ferry from Larne was late, which could happen if the weather was bad and it was too rough to dock, they would hold the Glasgow train in Stranraer Harbour until the SeaLink ferry had docked. It might be better for Car drivers, docking at Cairnryan, as it’s a shorter drive, but for foot passengers, as there’s no railway station at Cairnryan, it must be a lot more difficult for them, especially if they want to get to Glasgow, or anywhere along the Ayrshire coast. On a couple of occasions I also took the sleeper train, from Stranraer to London. You could get the last ferry from Larne, and then just sleep all the way to London. Well, apart from when they took off the Diesel locomotive at Carlisle, and changed to an electric locomotive. I always got woken up when the electric locomotive shunted into the front of the train. Still, you were usually in central London earlier than the first flight from Belfast International to London Heathrow, so it was a useful option.
They used to be a line from Dumfries to Stranraer but sadly it was closed and today it really does have a limited train service, I'm still yet to ride the line from Ayr to Stranraer but might do it one day. Great video
Do it soon, as I reckon it may close in the near future as it loses a fortune and has little reason for it's existance any more (rail passengers for the Northern Ireland ferries at Cairnryan are now routed from Ayr Station by bus). The refusal to spend money on building a better located station platform nearer Stranraer town centre might be a clue to what is going on in the planners minds. And don't cross your fingers for any cheap fares on this line, as I found out: 'We don't do cheap day returns to Stranraer from Girvan, laddie!' You might think they are trying trying to deter passenger use...
Recently travelled from Ayr to Stranraer, the service was so bad, I got about 7-minutes in Stranraer. The harbour station is now in completely the wrong place, a new station is needed near the football ground. Cairnryan was once rail connected (during the war) and should again be connected, it might take some of the wagons off the A75. Reopening the line to Dumfries will be great but unlikely to happen.
Passed through there in 1984 en route to Larne. The train had broken down twice (once outside Carlisle and again outside Girvan) and was many hours late. They held back the ferry for it and gave everyone a free breakfast on board.
Portpatrick, right down on the coast at the end of the A77, may be my favourite place in the world. Sitting out on the restaurants on the crescent watching the sunset, I adore it. There's so much that could be done down here, and Stranraer could be a real tourist hub, a Gateway to the Mull. It's got a fascinating maritime history too like you said. As for the station, I'd move it back so it's in the town rather than just serving the harbour, lobbing a few hundred metres off.
Despite it's pitiable state it has potential, it's already got a station, why not a hub for jobs or a tourist attraction, youve got the water and the views, the station has charming character
Nice to go somewhere different, like Scotland, the station is quite derelict, but does have cute elements to it, nice one Bryn Building a road bridge there is near impossible both scientifically and engineering wise even a tunnel is out of the question
A sad case of municipal stupidity. Wee Jimmy was standing fishing from his dinghy when a big wave from a ferry got him , so he contacted the council and asked them to"dae something", so they introduced a speed limit for the ferries, later more complaints and the speed limit was reduced further, resulting in the ferry company relocating away from Stranraer to save time and money.
I worked on the Stena Navigator back in 2010 for the last year of ferry operation from Stranraer, and commuted by train once a week from Ayr, so I'm very fond of this particular station and line. It's sad to see it in this state. The local community rail partnership seems to have gone very quiet in the past few years.
it moved to Cairnryan which is only 7 miles away so Stena could squeeze in an extra sailing to Belfast . Stena obviously didnt give a toss about the town it was leaving behind . The council is now culpable for allowing a large area of the town to be in such a sad state .
Great video. I remember ending up in Stranraer by accident in the mid/late 1980s - should have got off the sleeper at Carlisle but overslept... It wasn't that great a place even back then, unless you were heading for the ferry, which clearyl I wasn't!!!
Another well presnted video. As a young child in the early 1960's I moved with my parents from Northern Ireland to Whitley Bay, but we seemed to return to NI at least twice a year for many many years. We would usually drive to Stranraer, then take one of the old Sealink Ferries to Larne. if I travelled with my mother only, we would take a train .. Newcastle to Carlilse at about midnight, then Carlisle to Stranraer, via Ayr arriving just in time for the early morning ferry. I always enjoyed the ship, but it always seemed to me that the journey was a bit long .. it would be at least 30 minutes before the ship actually was in the open sea, as the first section was still in Loch Ryan. Some time in the 70s, P&O started a new service, but built a new port at Cairnryan, to shorten the journey time to Larne .. a wise move I think. More recently, Stena have built a new port too, a little bit further north of the P&O harbour .. no doubt to save even more time. Sadly Stranraer has had it's day
with the station, surely the obvious thing to do would be relocate it? Either at the base of pier, or on the already-named-for-it Station Street. The reality of course for train-ferry connections in most places is that budget airlines have more or less killed that market, especially when the train connection is slow like Stranraer- it's nearly an hour and a half from Ayr, even driving is faster. Another hour to get from Glasgow down to Ayr. I'd love travelling as a foot passenger on ferries to be more viable, but really it's a hobby for the very determined
yes, but the ferry foot passengers now get bussed from Ayr to Cairnryan if they are travelling by train from Glasgow. Station Street is non-starter as all the railway infrastructure that was there has been removed and the land is currently up for redevelopment.
I stayed in Ayr and got the train/boat to Ireland in '87. I was going cycling in Ireland. On the way back my bike was in the guard's van at the back and the train was so long it didn't fit Ayr station so I had to get my bike off in the marshalling yard. That train went down to Euston every night. I used the Ayr - Euston section to take my bike down to London when I moved there in '88. They used to run a loco hauled corridor coach from the ferry that ran north though Ayr in the mid '80s. It left Ayr just after 0900 so it was off peak and a bit cheaper for getting to Glasgow.
It all started with Dr Beeching closing the direct railway line from Carlisle to Stanraer meaning all English travellers had to go up to Glasgow to then come via Ayr to Stanraer. The line could still be reopened as there has been no building over the abandoned line which is normally deliberately done to stop reopening
There is a short stretch of A75 dualling near Glenluce that's been built on top of the railway but this is about 1 mile. If the line was restored I'd be looking at making it more direct and not just reinstating the twisty old like so that's big expensive sadly. Agree it would be nice to get a Carlisle-Cairnryan freight route at least.
After closure of the 'Port Line' from Dumfries to Stranraer Harbour there were initially boat train services routed between Auchinleck and Ayr using the old GSWR Nith Valley line, and up until a decade back there was still one direct rail service a day from Newcastle, Carlisle and Kilmarnock to Ayr - though I doubt it connected with any train to a ferry service to/from Stranraer. We also used to have a direct daily Ulsterbus/National Express coach service using the ferry to/from Belfast from London via Dumfries, Carlisle, Manchester and Birmingham but this ended before covid.
The semaphores are definitely neat, BNSF and the State of New Mexico have been in the slow process of replacing the remaining Semaphore signals along the Raton Pass over the past few years with newer, PTC-equipped wayside signals. These semaphores are the last operating mainline semaphore signals in the US, featuring motorized 3-aspect blades on them (all of the other surviving semaphore signals in use elsewhere are fixed approach ones, and are typically on branch lines coming out of "dark" (unsignaled) territory). Thankfully, as I understand it, each and every semaphore on that route's already been earmarked for preservation, and a few have already found new homes at various museums. The line was also home to the last operating mainline wigwag in the US, located in Delhi, CO, which is now preserved at the Colorado Railroad Museum. I also will say, checking out abandoned infrastructure is always neat. A trip I've taken a few times (and have enjoyed every time) is looking at the decaying remains of the defect detectors and crossing signals along what used to be the SCL Americus Subdivision between Montgomery, AL, and Americus, GA, ripped-out between Montgomery and the Georgia State Line back in the 80s with most of the remaining part in Georgia going defunct by the end of the 90s.
Remember reading that when Stranraer Harbour and Cairnryan were still both running, there was a pact between fans of the two sides that when they were heading to Auld Firm derbies, each team's fans would stick to the one route, to avoid confrontation on the boat \m/
They moved up to Cairnryan because its more profitable for the shipping company-Stenaline!(Scotland-Northern Ireland ferry-2 hours) Stranraer is too far away!
I have heard that Stranraer can be a very lonely place in Scotland. And also can be very miserable when there’s rain around. But I have to say that it does look very picturesque.
it's a beautiful area and growing up there was no problem, the town is big enough (pop. 10,500) to have industry (plus farming) and a very large High School, also if you're into golf, curling, fishing, camping, hillwalking/trails and cycling then you are pretty well sorted.
Great video, Bryn - it’s clear that moving the ferry really hurt that part of town. I wonder why they did it? To shave a few minutes off the journey? There’s a lot of space there - maybe they need to build some industry - make it a tech hub and have some commercial activity there still? That would help give jobs to the area and it would be well connected with transport links
The Beaufort Dyke, the deep trench between Stranraer and NI is not just home to old U-boats, it has thousands of tons of discarded munitions. These cannot be disturbed for obvious reasons. Johnston's "bridge" was just a bit of flag-waving of no consequence. There is now a half-mile walk across open ground to reach the town. A wet Westerly wind is not appealing! It would be far better to invest in a new station with car-park at the point nearest to the town, where the line split originally, to serve "Stranraer Town" station. It needs political will and some money.
Absolutely - the whole bridge idea was just silly for so many reasons, the dyke depth, weapons and U boat dump being just some, and the requirement to provide 150 miles of new motorways to connect it to existing networks either side as well pretty much puts it in the "never happening" pile.
Indeed. The bridge was also supposed to unite the UK railway network. Imagine COBRA meeting where some poor DfT minion was wheeled in to brief Johnson of the small matter of the difference in track gauge between GB and ALL of Ireland. The consequences would have probably failed to register with the prune. Pass the cakes, there's a dear boy.
@@gingertom2355 why would track gauge be that much of an issue that it would be the straw that breaks the projects back? either just 1 have dual gauge across the bridge, with an extra rail inside the irish gauge serving for the standard gauge or 2-do what renfe/sncf do at portbou/cerbere and have one standard and one broad gauge track with large transfer yards either end. either would work fine, don't see why that would be the ultimate problem...
@@andrewyoung749 Money and who would pay not only for a hugely ambitious bridge structure but the work to convert the NI network to dual gauge which I guarantee would be seriously underestimated at feasibility stage. You're also comparing nations that invest in their rail networks with one that largely talks about investment, but when it comes to paying fails dismally to do so and frequently abandons even committed projects before complete - due to underestimating at the outset. Funding rail infrastructure to completion then ongoing maintenance is always the UK's ultimate problem.
Goes to show that it is vital for any system to bare systems integration in mind. If this station was built for the ferry connection, its purpose has disappeared the moment the ferry was moved. Unless it had in the meantime achieved another purpose. Or it can be given other (railway/transport) purposes. But they have to be given. That decision has to be linked with the decision to move the ferry terminal. Whoever may be responsible for this decision (ferry operator, railway operator, both in conjunction). In the end always the government, may it be on the national level or on the local/regional. You can't move the ferry terminal, as long as you haven't decided upon the future of its railway station. If you are the ferry operator and want to move the terminal, (why not) take the railway [station] with you.
why not take the statin with you? easy, because you operate the ferry and not the train, the railway is owned by the state. and the state is broke so cant move it. and secondly you as the ferry operator notice that 99 percent of your traffic is by road vehicle and 1 percent by foot arriving by train, why on earth would you spend millions on moving a station up the loch when people can just be bussed up to the port for a fraction of the price...
If I lived in town, I dont think I would enjoy that long walk down the pier road to the station. I would think twice about getting the train. How hard would it be to relocate a travel platform down the other side or the road? This area of Scotland, which I have not visited reminds me a bit of the fly over states in the US> overshadowed by the big cities, the highlands and the outer / inner isles. People pass by or through simply to get to somewhere else
if that's true then it's one of the very early Concrete Utilities and barely any from the 50s survive even if it's just the base (some had the very tops replaced due to issues where water could leak in and destroy the cables)
Used to step off the ferry onto the train then down to London via Dumfries, line closed in the sixties, many times I’ve used Stranraer to ferry between both countries both for pleasure and work, missed the ferry once and it was midnight but a kindly publican kept the bar open so we could stay warm until the next ferry at 4am true gentleman not the same using Cairnryan it’s too far out from the town so it’s stopped many day trippers to Stranraer but it’s still the quickest way between Northern Ireland and the mainland only thing is it must be the dearest piece of water in the world to cross but then again politicians don’t give a toss they let the most direct rail line disappear so they obviously don’t care about Stranraer port either
8:18 it's not just 360. There's 923 (to Glasgow from Stranraer) and 358 (To Ayr), i will apologise for taking forever to watch your video and commenting for the third time
@@BrynBuck yeah, it's quite useful to get extra information about things, I only know as I live in the local area, in the background (8:23 to the right but out of sight) is where the depot where 923 runs out of
It's a shame they moved it at expense to the local economy and direct rail connection at an attempt to increase profits. You know the move wouldn't have happened if it was still under British Rail Sealink, but why own our own ferries when other countries could own them for us?
private enterprise put that ferry operation there before crappy br turned up and ripped train/boat integration apart by allowing government control in this case the conservatives to sell off the ferries, just like br allowed the labour governments under sec state fraser/castle to close most of the closed railways. get government control=get government results, as we will all be re learning soon. and even as i type i see lner, gov owned toc running on gov owned tracks, remains one of the worst performing tocs as it has been ever since it was formed, a disaster soon to be spread out across the network again... what expense to the local community by the way, how many people alighting the boat train do you imagine decided to head into town before getting the boat?
Didn't there used to be a mainline Express train from Stranraer to London ? The Ulsterman ((same idea as the Red Rose Express from Liverpool Lime Street to Euston.)) Ulstrtman which traversersed the great & many arched viaduct at Goldie lea ( not far from the ICI . and on via Dumfries .where it joined the Main Line from Glasgow. Onto Annan , Gretna Carlisle ( Citadel as was and built by the Caledonian Railway - Lion Rampant atop the turret) and South. Dumfries Station is in good order and worth a visit. There is a voluntary group maintaining the gardens, and a small layout / museum.of times and trains gone by. The track joining is still there. The Ulsterman was replaced by a National Express vehicle to Carlisle ( John Prescott idea ) passengers would alight 😅 and wait for the next train to London. Not sure if that still happens ( the bus connexion, that is) . Those were the days.😢
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranraer_railway_station#:~:text=Stranraer%20railway%20station%20;%20Decrease%2056%2C386%20%C2%B7%20Increase%2065%2C862%20%C2%B7%20Decrease%209%2C014. Horrible link, to Wikipedia
Recently travelled from Ayr to Stranraer, the service was so bad, I got about 7-minutes in Stranraer. The harbour station is now in completely the wrong place, a new station is needed near the football ground. Cairnryan was once rail connected (during the war) and should again be connected, it might take some of the wagons off the A75. Reopening the line to Dumfries will be great but unlikely to happen.
I was a student at the University of Strathclyde, studying Electronic & Electrical Engineering, and as I come from Northern Ireland, I regularly took the Larne - Stranraer ferry when travelling between home and University in Glasgow, taking the train between Stranraer Harbour and Glasgow Central Station. In fact back then, when the ferry was SeaLink, an British Rail company, in the days before the ferry company was sold off to Stena Line, and the trains were also British Rail, if the ferry from Larne was late, which could happen if the weather was bad and it was too rough to dock, they would hold the Glasgow train in Stranraer Harbour until the SeaLink ferry had docked. It might be better for Car drivers, docking at Cairnryan, as it’s a shorter drive, but for foot passengers, as there’s no railway station at Cairnryan, it must be a lot more difficult for them, especially if they want to get to Glasgow, or anywhere along the Ayrshire coast. On a couple of occasions I also took the sleeper train, from Stranraer to London. You could get the last ferry from Larne, and then just sleep all the way to London. Well, apart from when they took off the Diesel locomotive at Carlisle, and changed to an electric locomotive. I always got woken up when the electric locomotive shunted into the front of the train. Still, you were usually in central London earlier than the first flight from Belfast International to London Heathrow, so it was a useful option.
They used to be a line from Dumfries to Stranraer but sadly it was closed and today it really does have a limited train service, I'm still yet to ride the line from Ayr to Stranraer but might do it one day. Great video
They've slapped a short length of the A75 on top of some of that railway too so hard to reinstate in places.
Do it soon, as I reckon it may close in the near future as it loses a fortune and has little reason for it's existance any more (rail passengers for the Northern Ireland ferries at Cairnryan are now routed from Ayr Station by bus). The refusal to spend money on building a better located station platform nearer Stranraer town centre might be a clue to what is going on in the planners minds. And don't cross your fingers for any cheap fares on this line, as I found out:
'We don't do cheap day returns to Stranraer from Girvan, laddie!' You might think they are trying trying to deter passenger use...
@@frglee that wouldn't surprise me...
Recently travelled from Ayr to Stranraer, the service was so bad, I got about 7-minutes in Stranraer. The harbour station is now in completely the wrong place, a new station is needed near the football ground. Cairnryan was once rail connected (during the war) and should again be connected, it might take some of the wagons off the A75. Reopening the line to Dumfries will be great but unlikely to happen.
Passed through there in 1984 en route to Larne. The train had broken down twice (once outside Carlisle and again outside Girvan) and was many hours late. They held back the ferry for it and gave everyone a free breakfast on board.
Back in the days of Sealink I take it?
@@BrynBuck Yes, in 1984 it was still Sealink.
Portpatrick, right down on the coast at the end of the A77, may be my favourite place in the world. Sitting out on the restaurants on the crescent watching the sunset, I adore it. There's so much that could be done down here, and Stranraer could be a real tourist hub, a Gateway to the Mull. It's got a fascinating maritime history too like you said. As for the station, I'd move it back so it's in the town rather than just serving the harbour, lobbing a few hundred metres off.
Despite it's pitiable state it has potential, it's already got a station, why not a hub for jobs or a tourist attraction, youve got the water and the views, the station has charming character
There are plans to regenerate the area around the station, they moved the ferry port because it wasn't deep enough for the ferrys
Nice to go somewhere different, like Scotland, the station is quite derelict, but does have cute elements to it, nice one Bryn
Building a road bridge there is near impossible both scientifically and engineering wise even a tunnel is out of the question
A sad case of municipal stupidity. Wee Jimmy was standing fishing from his dinghy when a big wave from a ferry got him , so he contacted the council and asked them to"dae something", so they introduced a speed limit for the ferries, later more complaints and the speed limit was reduced further, resulting in the ferry company relocating away from Stranraer to save time and money.
I worked on the Stena Navigator back in 2010 for the last year of ferry operation from Stranraer, and commuted by train once a week from Ayr, so I'm very fond of this particular station and line. It's sad to see it in this state. The local community rail partnership seems to have gone very quiet in the past few years.
it moved to Cairnryan which is only 7 miles away so Stena could squeeze in an extra sailing to Belfast . Stena obviously didnt give a toss about the town it was leaving behind . The council is now culpable for allowing a large area of the town to be in such a sad state .
Great video. I remember ending up in Stranraer by accident in the mid/late 1980s - should have got off the sleeper at Carlisle but overslept... It wasn't that great a place even back then, unless you were heading for the ferry, which clearyl I wasn't!!!
Went to Stranraer in 1987. The place looks like Fleetwood in Lancashire
Used to be directvservices to Euston in the 70s and 80s including an overnight sleeper.
Hi Bryn Good video shame it has a sad story to it, take care
Another well presnted video.
As a young child in the early 1960's I moved with my parents from Northern Ireland to Whitley Bay, but we seemed to return to NI at least twice a year for many many years.
We would usually drive to Stranraer, then take one of the old Sealink Ferries to Larne. if I travelled with my mother only, we would take a train .. Newcastle to Carlilse at about midnight, then Carlisle to Stranraer, via Ayr arriving just in time for the early morning ferry.
I always enjoyed the ship, but it always seemed to me that the journey was a bit long .. it would be at least 30 minutes before the ship actually was in the open sea, as the first section was still in Loch Ryan.
Some time in the 70s, P&O started a new service, but built a new port at Cairnryan, to shorten the journey time to Larne .. a wise move I think.
More recently, Stena have built a new port too, a little bit further north of the P&O harbour .. no doubt to save even more time.
Sadly Stranraer has had it's day
Interesting video although it's sad to see that it's been abandoned like that
with the station, surely the obvious thing to do would be relocate it? Either at the base of pier, or on the already-named-for-it Station Street.
The reality of course for train-ferry connections in most places is that budget airlines have more or less killed that market, especially when the train connection is slow like Stranraer- it's nearly an hour and a half from Ayr, even driving is faster. Another hour to get from Glasgow down to Ayr.
I'd love travelling as a foot passenger on ferries to be more viable, but really it's a hobby for the very determined
yes, but the ferry foot passengers now get bussed from Ayr to Cairnryan if they are travelling by train from Glasgow. Station Street is non-starter as all the railway infrastructure that was there has been removed and the land is currently up for redevelopment.
I stayed in Ayr and got the train/boat to Ireland in '87. I was going cycling in Ireland. On the way back my bike was in the guard's van at the back and the train was so long it didn't fit Ayr station so I had to get my bike off in the marshalling yard. That train went down to Euston every night. I used the Ayr - Euston section to take my bike down to London when I moved there in '88.
They used to run a loco hauled corridor coach from the ferry that ran north though Ayr in the mid '80s. It left Ayr just after 0900 so it was off peak and a bit cheaper for getting to Glasgow.
It all started with Dr Beeching closing the direct railway line from Carlisle to Stanraer meaning all English travellers had to go up to Glasgow to then come via Ayr to Stanraer. The line could still be reopened as there has been no building over the abandoned line which is normally deliberately done to stop reopening
There is a short stretch of A75 dualling near Glenluce that's been built on top of the railway but this is about 1 mile. If the line was restored I'd be looking at making it more direct and not just reinstating the twisty old like so that's big expensive sadly.
Agree it would be nice to get a Carlisle-Cairnryan freight route at least.
After closure of the 'Port Line' from Dumfries to Stranraer Harbour there were initially boat train services routed between Auchinleck and Ayr using the old GSWR Nith Valley line, and up until a decade back there was still one direct rail service a day from Newcastle, Carlisle and Kilmarnock to Ayr - though I doubt it connected with any train to a ferry service to/from Stranraer.
We also used to have a direct daily Ulsterbus/National Express coach service using the ferry to/from Belfast from London via Dumfries, Carlisle, Manchester and Birmingham but this ended before covid.
Miniature cruise liner terminal?
The semaphores are definitely neat, BNSF and the State of New Mexico have been in the slow process of replacing the remaining Semaphore signals along the Raton Pass over the past few years with newer, PTC-equipped wayside signals. These semaphores are the last operating mainline semaphore signals in the US, featuring motorized 3-aspect blades on them (all of the other surviving semaphore signals in use elsewhere are fixed approach ones, and are typically on branch lines coming out of "dark" (unsignaled) territory). Thankfully, as I understand it, each and every semaphore on that route's already been earmarked for preservation, and a few have already found new homes at various museums. The line was also home to the last operating mainline wigwag in the US, located in Delhi, CO, which is now preserved at the Colorado Railroad Museum.
I also will say, checking out abandoned infrastructure is always neat. A trip I've taken a few times (and have enjoyed every time) is looking at the decaying remains of the defect detectors and crossing signals along what used to be the SCL Americus Subdivision between Montgomery, AL, and Americus, GA, ripped-out between Montgomery and the Georgia State Line back in the 80s with most of the remaining part in Georgia going defunct by the end of the 90s.
Remember reading that when Stranraer Harbour and Cairnryan were still both running, there was a pact between fans of the two sides that when they were heading to Auld Firm derbies, each team's fans would stick to the one route, to avoid confrontation on the boat \m/
it wasn't a pact between the fans, it was between the ferry companies to stop the fighting and hooligan damage.
@@dcanmore makes sense \m/
They moved up to Cairnryan because its more profitable for the shipping company-Stenaline!(Scotland-Northern Ireland ferry-2 hours)
Stranraer is too far away!
Railway station? Looks more like a prison from the outside 😬. Here for the ad-hoc content 👍
I only used the station and ferry once that was in 2010 when that volcanic ash was about. Shame to see the state of it now though.
Scotland's most southerly railway station.
I have heard that Stranraer can be a very lonely place in Scotland. And also can be very miserable when there’s rain around. But I have to say that it does look very picturesque.
it's a beautiful area and growing up there was no problem, the town is big enough (pop. 10,500) to have industry (plus farming) and a very large High School, also if you're into golf, curling, fishing, camping, hillwalking/trails and cycling then you are pretty well sorted.
Indeed.
Great video, Bryn - it’s clear that moving the ferry really hurt that part of town. I wonder why they did it? To shave a few minutes off the journey?
There’s a lot of space there - maybe they need to build some industry - make it a tech hub and have some commercial activity there still? That would help give jobs to the area and it would be well connected with transport links
1:53 we used to have more trains than 2, we started to have now, we didn't have any for 10 months, we have one through to glasgow but at 7:05am
How about a Railway depot? (Construction in the best case, but at least maintenance of Rolling stock.) 5:37
The Beaufort Dyke, the deep trench between Stranraer and NI is not just home to old U-boats, it has thousands of tons of discarded munitions. These cannot be disturbed for obvious reasons. Johnston's "bridge" was just a bit of flag-waving of no consequence.
There is now a half-mile walk across open ground to reach the town. A wet Westerly wind is not appealing!
It would be far better to invest in a new station with car-park at the point nearest to the town, where the line split originally, to serve "Stranraer Town" station. It needs political will and some money.
Absolutely - the whole bridge idea was just silly for so many reasons, the dyke depth, weapons and U boat dump being just some, and the requirement to provide 150 miles of new motorways to connect it to existing networks either side as well pretty much puts it in the "never happening" pile.
Indeed. The bridge was also supposed to unite the UK railway network. Imagine COBRA meeting where some poor DfT minion was wheeled in to brief Johnson of the small matter of the difference in track gauge between GB and ALL of Ireland. The consequences would have probably failed to register with the prune. Pass the cakes, there's a dear boy.
@@gingertom2355 why would track gauge be that much of an issue that it would be the straw that breaks the projects back?
either just 1 have dual gauge across the bridge, with an extra rail inside the irish gauge serving for the standard gauge or
2-do what renfe/sncf do at portbou/cerbere and have one standard and one broad gauge track with large transfer yards either end. either would work fine, don't see why that would be the ultimate problem...
@@andrewyoung749 Money and who would pay not only for a hugely ambitious bridge structure but the work to convert the NI network to dual gauge which I guarantee would be seriously underestimated at feasibility stage.
You're also comparing nations that invest in their rail networks with one that largely talks about investment, but when it comes to paying fails dismally to do so and frequently abandons even committed projects before complete - due to underestimating at the outset. Funding rail infrastructure to completion then ongoing maintenance is always the UK's ultimate problem.
Goes to show that it is vital for any system to bare systems integration in mind. If this station was built for the ferry connection, its purpose has disappeared the moment the ferry was moved. Unless it had in the meantime achieved another purpose. Or it can be given other (railway/transport) purposes. But they have to be given. That decision has to be linked with the decision to move the ferry terminal. Whoever may be responsible for this decision (ferry operator, railway operator, both in conjunction). In the end always the government, may it be on the national level or on the local/regional. You can't move the ferry terminal, as long as you haven't decided upon the future of its railway station. If you are the ferry operator and want to move the terminal, (why not) take the railway [station] with you.
why not take the statin with you?
easy, because you operate the ferry and not the train, the railway is owned by the state. and the state is broke so cant move it. and secondly you as the ferry operator notice that 99 percent of your traffic is by road vehicle and 1 percent by foot arriving by train, why on earth would you spend millions on moving a station up the loch when people can just be bussed up to the port for a fraction of the price...
That is why an integrated transport policy is important, otherwise it’s a costly hodgepodge of inappropriate solutions….
If I lived in town, I dont think I would enjoy that long walk down the pier road to the station. I would think twice about getting the train. How hard would it be to relocate a travel platform down the other side or the road? This area of Scotland, which I have not visited reminds me a bit of the fly over states in the US> overshadowed by the big cities, the highlands and the outer / inner isles. People pass by or through simply to get to somewhere else
Needs a pop-up pirate ferry service to NI.
Amazing vid!!!
7:54 fellow streetlight nerd here
Do ya know what date were on the Concrete Utilities light posts Bryn?
I didn't notice any dates but looking at them we're talking late 1950s I think.
if that's true then it's one of the very early Concrete Utilities and barely any from the 50s survive even if it's just the base (some had the very tops replaced due to issues where water could leak in and destroy the cables)
Used to step off the ferry onto the train then down to London via Dumfries, line closed in the sixties, many times I’ve used Stranraer to ferry between both countries both for pleasure and work, missed the ferry once and it was midnight but a kindly publican kept the bar open so we could stay warm until the next ferry at 4am true gentleman not the same using Cairnryan it’s too far out from the town so it’s stopped many day trippers to Stranraer but it’s still the quickest way between Northern Ireland and the mainland only thing is it must be the dearest piece of water in the world to cross but then again politicians don’t give a toss they let the most direct rail line disappear so they obviously don’t care about Stranraer port either
8:18 it's not just 360. There's 923 (to Glasgow from Stranraer) and 358 (To Ayr), i will apologise for taking forever to watch your video and commenting for the third time
Extra info is always welcome!
@@BrynBuck yeah, it's quite useful to get extra information about things, I only know as I live in the local area, in the background (8:23 to the right but out of sight) is where the depot where 923 runs out of
It's a shame they moved it at expense to the local economy and direct rail connection at an attempt to increase profits. You know the move wouldn't have happened if it was still under British Rail Sealink, but why own our own ferries when other countries could own them for us?
private enterprise put that ferry operation there before crappy br turned up and ripped train/boat integration apart by allowing government control in this case the conservatives to sell off the ferries, just like br allowed the labour governments under sec state fraser/castle to close most of the closed railways. get government control=get government results, as we will all be re learning soon. and even as i type i see lner, gov owned toc running on gov owned tracks, remains one of the worst performing tocs as it has been ever since it was formed, a disaster soon to be spread out across the network again...
what expense to the local community by the way, how many people alighting the boat train do you imagine decided to head into town before getting the boat?
I like you.
Didn't there used to be a mainline Express train from Stranraer to London ? The Ulsterman
((same idea as the Red Rose Express from Liverpool Lime Street to Euston.))
Ulstrtman which traversersed the great & many arched viaduct at Goldie lea ( not far from the ICI .
and on via Dumfries .where it joined the Main Line from Glasgow. Onto Annan , Gretna Carlisle ( Citadel as was and built by the Caledonian Railway - Lion Rampant atop the turret) and South.
Dumfries Station is in good order and worth a visit. There is a voluntary group maintaining the gardens, and a small layout / museum.of times and trains gone by. The track joining is still there.
The Ulsterman was replaced by a National Express vehicle to Carlisle ( John Prescott idea ) passengers would alight 😅 and wait for the next train to London.
Not sure if that still happens ( the bus connexion, that is) .
Those were the days.😢
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranraer_railway_station#:~:text=Stranraer%20railway%20station%20;%20Decrease%2056%2C386%20%C2%B7%20Increase%2065%2C862%20%C2%B7%20Decrease%209%2C014.
Horrible link, to Wikipedia
Recently travelled from Ayr to Stranraer, the service was so bad, I got about 7-minutes in Stranraer. The harbour station is now in completely the wrong place, a new station is needed near the football ground. Cairnryan was once rail connected (during the war) and should again be connected, it might take some of the wagons off the A75. Reopening the line to Dumfries will be great but unlikely to happen.