Cabra Luas stop is located at the northern end of the Broadstone railway cutting, immediately to the north of Connaught Street, which crosses the line on the Liam Whelan bridge, which was rebuilt as part of the construction of the stop. The main entrance is a long ramp leading from the eastern side of the bridge to the middle of the southbound platform (there are also stairs which lead from the middle of the ramp to the end of the platform). A second entrance consists of a pathway leading from the northern end of the stop to the nearby Mount Bernard Park.
The cutting is somewhat wider than the stop itself, meaning that there is some leftover space behind the northbound platform. Saplings have been planted in this area in an attempt to reduce the Luas’s carbon footprint. Saplings have also been planted on the southbound platform.
There are volunteer groups who clean up sections of the canals in Dublin on a regular basis and what you see in my photographs is typical of what is dumped into the waters of the canals.
I only visited this station once and that was in 2016 and it was not a pleasant experience because of the lack of space. According to some that I spoke with it cannot cope with demand during morning or evening rush-hour.
Great Victoria Street is a railway station serving the city centre of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is one of two major stations in the city, along with Lanyon Place, and is one of the four stations located in the city centre, the others being Lanyon Place, Botanic and City Hospital. It is situated near Great Victoria Street, one of Belfast’s premier commercial zones, and Sandy Row. It is also in a more central position than Lanyon Place (ironically named Belfast Central until September 2018), with the Europa Hotel, Grand Opera House and The Crown Liquor Saloon all nearby.
Great Victoria Street station shares a site with Europa Buscentre, the primary bus station serving Belfast City Centre. It will be replaced by Belfast Grand Central station, a combined bus and railway station, by 2025.
The station is on the site of a former linen mill, beside where Durham Street crossed the Blackstaff River at the Saltwater (now Boyne) Bridge.
The Ulster Railway opened the first station on 12 August 1839. A new terminal building, probably designed by Ulster Railway engineer John Godwin, was completed in 1848. Godwin later founded the School of Civil Engineering at Queen’s College.
The station, built directly on Victoria Street, was Belfast’s first railway terminus, and as such was called just “Belfast” until 1852. By this time, two other railway companies had opened termini in Belfast, so the Ulster Railway renamed its terminus “Belfast Victoria Street” for clarity. In 1855 the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway was completed, making Victoria Street the terminus for one of the most important main lines in Ireland. The Ulster Railway changed the station name again to “Great Victoria Street” in 1856, in line with a change of the street name.
In 1876 the Ulster Railway became part of the Great Northern Railway (GNR), making Great Victoria Street the terminus for a network that extended south to Dublin and west to Derry and Bundoran.
Express passenger traffic to and from Dublin Connolly station was always Great Victoria Street’s most prestigious traffic. The GNR upgraded its expresses over the decades and in 1947 introduced the Enterprise non-stop service between the two capitals. As Belfast suburbs grew, commuter traffic also grew in volume.
In 1958, the Ulster Transport Authority took over Northern Ireland’s bus and rail services. Three years later Great Victoria Street station was modernised, and a bus centre incorporated into the facility. Then in 1968, a large section of the 1848 terminal building was demolished to make way for the development of the Europa Hotel, which opened in 1971. In April 1976 Northern Ireland Railways closed both Great Victoria Street and the Belfast Queen’s Quay terminus of the Bangor line and replaced them both with a new Belfast Central Station, now renamed Lanyon Place. The remainder of Great Victoria Street station was demolished.
After a feasibility study was commissioned in 1986 it was agreed that a new development on the site, incorporating the reintroduction of the Great Northern Railway, was viable. The Great Northern Tower had already been built on the site of the old station terminus in 1992, and so the second Great Victoria Street Station was built behind the tower block, yards from the site of its predecessor. The new station was opened on 30 September 1995.
The current station has two island platforms providing a total of four platform faces. Platforms 2 and 3 run the full length of the site and open onto the station’s main concourse. Platforms 1 and 4 are half the length and are accessible by walking down the other platforms.
Many years ago I was standing on the platform in Dun Laoghaire railway station and a tourist asked me how to get to Mallin Station and I could not help her. I had lived near Malin Head in Donegal for about ten years and was unaware of a station near there. Over a period of about twenty years I was employed by three different companies in Dun Laoghaire and had been unaware that the station was named “Mallin”. The next morning I asked at least ten people at work if they knew how to get to get to Mallin Station and only one person had heard of it but they thought that it was in Dalkey.
Also called Kingstown Harbour the station was renamed Kingstown in 1861, and renamed Dún Laoghaire in 1921. It was given the additional name “Mallin” on 10 April 1966, 50 years after the Easter Rising, when Córas Iompair Éireann renamed 15 major stations after Republican leaders. It is named in honour of Michael Mallin, a leader in the 1916 Easter Rising. although it is usually referred to simply as Dún Laoghaire.
George’s Dock is a Georgian dock in the Docklands area of Dublin forming part of the International Financial Services Centre.
Located near the Custom House, the dock was originally built in 1821 as a working maritime dock and was named for George IV of the United Kingdom. The Inner Dock (previously Revenue Dock), was constructed a few years later in 1824 following the death of John Rennie the Elder and was completed by his son, John Rennie the Younger.
Along with the old Custom House Dock, designed by James Gandon in 1796, the three docks and the various warehouses formed what was later known as the Custom House Docks. The Old Dock was infilled in 1927 with many of the store buildings and the swing bridge across the inlet removed to make way for an extension of Amiens Street and Beresford Place through to Custom House Quay, thus creating a new stretch of road now known as Memorial Road. It would later link to Talbot Memorial Bridge in 1978.
As with other public spaces within the Docklands, George’s Dock was redeveloped during the 1980s and 1990s with elements of the Custom House Harbour apartment complex being constructed on a new island within the Inner Dock.
George’s Dock has been used by Dublin City Council as an event space including for the annual Dublin Oktoberfest festival and the showing of sporting and live music events.
In 2021, controversial plans to convert the dock into a white water rafting facility were cancelled after a Dublin City Council vote.
From a transport perspective, the George’s Dock Luas stop is served by the Luas Red Line which runs from Tallaght to Connolly and from Busáras to Point Village (3Arena). Dublin Bus serves nearby North Wall Quay and East Wall Road with routes 33d, 33x, 53a, 74, 74a, 90, 142, 151 and the 747 Airlink service to Dublin Airport. The Red Line extension opened on 9 December 2009.
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