Services run to M3 Parkway during peak times, Monday to Friday. The station is closed on Saturday and Sunday. Passengers need to change at Clonsilla for connection with the Maynooth service.
Docklands Station is a terminus railway station serving the Dublin Docklands area in Ireland. It is owned and operated by Iarnród Éireann and was part of the Irish Government’s Transport 21 initiative.
The station is one of three termini for the Western Commuter service run by Iarnród Éireann, the others being Dublin Connolly and Dublin Pearse.
The station was officially opened for commuter services by then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at a temporary location on Sheriff Street in the North Wall area of Dublin’s Northside on 12 March 2007, construction groundbreaking having taken place on 9 March 2006 with Transport Minister Martin Cullen. It is the first new heavy rail station in Dublin city centre since Grand Canal Dock opened in 2001. It was required because the nearby Connolly Station had reached capacity and could not support additional commuter services to County Meath.
However, in March 2008, it was reported that the transport minister, Noel Dempsey, would allow CIÉ to seek new planning permission to keep the station on a permanent basis as a terminus for services from Maynooth and Navan following his decision to allow the Railway Procurement Agency to use Broadstone Station for extensions to the Luas.
The one thing that you need to know should you ever visit Dublin is that everything has a history or a background story but the associated problem, that may catch you by surprise, is that everyone will tell you a different story and different versions every time they meet you.
When I first photographed this bridge, many years ago, a self appointed local historian explained to me that the lifting bridge was built by Earl Spencer the paternal grandfather of Diana Spencer. The problem with stories such as this is that the facts may be “alternative” but they are often, to some extent, true so they should be dismissed with further research or investigation. I did, however, have problems with the story for the following reasons.
[1] Spencer Dock was originally known as the Royal Canal Docks [2] Diana’s Grand Father or his father had no connection with Ireland. [3] The bridge appears to have an electric motor dating from the 1940s or 1950s
Anyway I decided to check a history of the docklands published by Turtle Bunbury [by the way the book features one of my photographs] and I came across the following: “The new dock was a work of ‘entirely private enterprise’ and cost £58,000. On the beautiful afternoon of 15th April 1873, (Sir) Ralph Cusack, Chairman of the MGWR, opened the new dock and formally named it Spencer after the Lord Lieutenant, Earl Spencer, great-great grandfather of Diana, Princess of Wales.”
So there was some basis to the local historian’s claim however the bridge associated with the development was at the time described as “an ingenious hydraulic bridge” and it was the work of the railway’s engineer Mr Price. The bridge in my photographs does not really match the description above.
The available information is confusing. The bridge in my photographs appears to be referred to as the Sheriff Street Lifting Bridge but also as the Sheriff Street Spencer Drawbridge but it was built in 1941 as a replacement for an older swivel bridge dating from 1873.
Just before I published my original photographs I came across this “However, on 17 October 1941 the Irish Times reported on the opening of the new Sheriff Street drawbridge, which had cost £18,000; it was a structure unique of its kind in these islands.
Anyway I like the bridge and I keep hoping that it might be restored.
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