The Ballycastle Railway: A History of the Narrow-Gauge Railways of North East Ireland, Parts One.
Author: PATTERSON, E. M.
Dawlish: David & Charles, 1965. 154 pages (plus 4 pages advertisements). Illustrated. Hardback.
“It is true to say that County Antrim cradled the Irish narrow gauge railways, and in those early days its colourful north coast was soon linked to the hinterland by the Ballycastle Railway.
Not far from the coastal terminus there was that rarity in Ireland, a coalfield, but so obvious were the cliff-face outcrops that the best of the coal-seams had been worked out half a century before the railway was built. In spite of the enthusiasm and hopes that brought the little railway into being, this local blaze of industrial enterprise was never rekindled.
For over 40 years the Ballycastle Railway Company struggled for existence, and the shareholders derived little benefit from their investments. But for the benevolence of the Belfast & Northern Counties and their successors, the Ballycastle Company would have succumbed long before it did. The aftermath of the 1914-18 War extinguished its independent existence in 1925. A summer hiatus followed, until the LMS (NCC) bought the concern for a fraction of what it had cost to build. After drastic simplification, the line was reopened and was run as a narrow-gauge appendage to the main line. It survived the 1939-45 War but under Ulster Transport’s ownership, road traffic overwhelmed it.
Against the day to day background, which is based on official documents, the author tells of the crowds on Lammas Fair Days, a runaway train, snowbound carriages and the men who worked this 16-mile railway.”
ISBN: None/Unknown
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