The Banbridge Junction Railway was a

railway line Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road ...

that operated between

Banbridge Banbridge ( ) is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies on the River Bann and the A1 road and is named after a bridge built over the Bann in 1712. It is in the civil parish of Seapatrick and the historic barony of Iveagh Upper ...

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 552,261. It borders County Antrim to the ...

and

Scarva Scarva ( meaning "shallow place, rough ford") is a small village and townland in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is at the boundary with County Armagh, which is marked by the Newry Canal. In the 2001 census it had a population of 320. Scarva ...

County Armagh County Armagh ( ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It is located in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and adjoins the southern shore of Lough Neagh. It borders t ...

. Opened in 1859, it was absorbed into the Great Northern Railway of Ireland in 1887. The line closed in the 1950s.

History

The company that operated the railway line, initially named the Banbridge, Newry, Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway Company, was created by the ( 16 & 17 Vict. c. ccviii). The initial shareholders of the company included several local mill owners and linen producers, such as Thomas Ferguson, John Smyth, Robert McClelland and William Waugh. The company was renamed, to the Banbridge Junction Railway Company, under the ( 19 & 20 Vict. c. xxxiv). Development of the line took place in the mid- to late-1850s, and

railway engineer Railway engineering is a multi-faceted engineering discipline dealing with the design, construction and operation of all types of rail transport systems. It includes a wide range of engineering disciplines, including(but not limited to) civil engi ...

s associated with the survey, design and construction work included James Price and

William Dargan William Dargan MRDS (28 February 1799 – 7 February 1867) was arguably the most important Irish engineer of the 19th century and certainly the most important figure in railway construction. Dargan designed and built Ireland's first rail ...

. The Banbridge Junction Railway (BJR) opened in 1859. The line, which was approximately 5 miles in length, connected the Banbridge Railway with the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway. It served several mills, which were involved in producing

Irish linen Irish linen () is the name given to linen produced in Ireland (including both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland). Linen is cloth woven from, or yarn spun from, flax fibre, which was grown in Ireland for many years before advanced agri ...

, along the

River Bann The River Bann (from , meaning "the goddess"; Ulster Scots dialects, Ulster-Scots: ''Bann Wattèr'') is the longest rivers, river in Northern Ireland, its length, Upper and Lower Bann combined, being 129 km (80 mi). The total length ...

near Banbridge. The BJR was absorbed into the

Great Northern Railway (Ireland) The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) (GNR(I), GNRI or simply GNR) was an Irish gauge () railway company in Ireland. It was formed in 1876 by a merger of the Irish North Western Railway (INW), Northern Railway of Ireland, and Ulster Railway. Th ...

(GNRI) in 1877. The line closed in 1955.

Stations

Stations and halts on the line included: * Banbridge station (1859–1863); Replaced by the Banbridge, Lisburn and Belfast Railway station (1863–1956) * Smyth's Siding passenger halt () * Lenaderg station (1904–1955) * Laurencetown station (1859–1955) * Scarva station (terminus)

References

Sources

* *

Notes

External links

Proposed Banbridge Junction Greenway

"Off the Beaten Track - Scarva to Banbridge and Newcastle", episode 2 of 5-part BBC/RTÉ series (1997)
via YouTube Closed railways in Northern Ireland Irish-gauge railways {{Rail-transport-stub