Great Victoria Street: Station closing after 200 years
Great Victoria Street: Station closing after 200 years
Belfast’s city centre railway station will close on Friday to make way for the opening of a new public transport hub later this year.
The last train will leave Great Victoria Street station at 23:32 BST on Friday.
It means there will be no city centre rail service for at least three months.
The new transport hub, Belfast Grand Central Station, is not due to open until the autumn.
Essential infrastructure work is required to link the rail network to the new hub, which explains the imminent closure of the nearby Great Victoria Street station.
The new hub is situated near the current Europa Bus Centre and Great Victoria Street rail station
The adjoining Europa bus station will remain open as will other Belfast train stations, including Botanic and Lanyon Place.
Rail services in Great Victoria Street in Belfast date back almost 200 years.
The new station is being built nearby and will combine rail and bus services.
From Saturday, Translink is introducing a revised train timetable which will operate until the Autumn.
Translink chief executive Chris Conway says the new Grand Central Station is close to completion
In a message to passengers, the chief executive of Translink, Chris Conway, said: “We recognise this will cause disruption, but Belfast Grand Central is coming very close (to completion).”
Later in the summer, the rail line will close between Lanyon Place and Lisburn.
During this time, bus substitution services will operate.
Trains will run as normal on Friday with the last departure from Belfast’s Great Victoria Street station, the 23:32 service to Bangor, likely to be popular with rail enthusiasts and historians, as well as regular travellers.
Landmark moment
Hilton Parr, head of rail customer services at Translink, said the closure was a landmark moment.
He said: “It has been a key rail station for the region for some 185 years.
“It played a significant role in several key moments in history including both World Wars, facilitating ambulance trains in the first and American troops in training for D-Day during the second.”
The first railway terminus in the area was called Glengall Place and opened in August 1839 providing a service to Lisburn.
It was renamed Belfast Victoria Street in 1852 and then, in 1856, Belfast Great Victoria Street.
Part of the original station was demolished to make way for the new Europa Hotel, which opened in 1971.
The remaining parts of the station were then damaged by two separate bombings in 1972.
Four years later, the station was closed with all rail services moving to the newly-built Belfast Central Station, now renamed Lanyon Place.
In 1991 came the new Europa Bus Centre and Great Northern Mall shopping area. Great Victoria Street Station re-opened in September 1995.
There is no exact date yet for the opening of the new bus and rail transport hub.
A new station opened last month at York Street in north Belfast, as part of the ongoing rail revamp in Northern Ireland.