Portrush railway station is the terminus of the Coleraine-Portrush railway line and serves the seaside town of

Portrush Portrush () is a small seaside resort town on the north coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It neighbours the resort of Portstewart in County Londonderry. The main part of the old town, including the Portrush railway station, railway stati ...

County Antrim County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, County Antrim, Antrim, ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, located within the historic Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the c ...

, Northern Ireland.

History

The station, which is 67¾ miles from Belfast, was opened on 4 December 1855 by the

Ballymena, Ballymoney, Coleraine and Portrush Junction Railway The Ballymena, Ballymoney, Coleraine and Portrush Junction Railway was an Irish gauge () in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. History The railway was established under the chairmanship of the Rt Hon Hugh Seymour, with an authorised capital of £2 ...

. To accommodate excursion and holiday traffic, extensive reconstruction by the

Belfast and Northern Counties Railway The Northern Counties Committee (NCC) was a railway that served the north-east of Ireland. It was built to Irish gauge () but later acquired a number of narrow gauge lines. It had its origins in the Belfast and Ballymena Railway which opened ...

, under the direction of its engineer and architect

Berkeley Deane Wise Berkeley Deane Wise (2 October 1855, New Ross – 5 May 1909, Portrush) was an Irish civil engineer who made a significant impact on the development of railways and tourism, particularly in Northern Ireland. Early years Berkeley Deane Wise ...

, was completed in 1893. Three platforms were provided (only one is now in regular use) together with a

train shed A train shed is a building adjacent to a station building where the tracks and platforms of a railway station are covered by a roof. It is also known as an overall roof. Its primary purpose is to store and protect from the elements train car ...

(demolished) and a station building in a "half-timbered"

Mock Tudor Tudor Revival architecture, also known as mock Tudor in the UK, first manifested in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture, in rea ...

style with a

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure that house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another building ...

, described by Currie as "certainly one of the most handsome railway buildings in Ireland"; it is now occupied by a retail unit, with a small newer concrete block ticket office behind it serving as the current station building. Goods traffic to the station ceased on 20 September 1954. The large 1892

grandfather clock A grandfather clock (also a longcase clock, tall-case clock, grandfather's clock, hall clock or floor clock) is a tall, freestanding, weight-driven pendulum clock, with the pendulum held inside the tower or waist of the case. Clocks of this styl ...

from the station was returned to Portrush in 2007 and is displayed in Barry's Amusements complex adjacent to the station. Other survivals from the past are some semaphore signals (of the "somersault" type) and an early water tank. Formerly the railway owned the Northern Counties Hotel, the largest visitor accommodation in the town. The

Giant's Causeway Tramway The Giant's Causeway Tramway, operated by the Giant's Causeway, Portrush and Bush Valley Railway & Tramway Company Ltd, was a pioneering narrow gauge electric railway operating between Portrush and the Giant's Causeway on the coast of County A ...

began in Eglinton Street alongside the station. A single branch line was built from the station to Portrush harbour in 1866. It closed in 1949. Part of this line is now a pedestrian walkway; a footbridge has replaced the railway's former harbour bridge.

Modernisation

In 2018, Graham Construction was appointed as the Principal Contractor to carry out development works to Portrush Station. This formed part of a wider £17 million investment to regenerate

town ahead of

The Open The Open Championship, often referred to as The Open or the British Open, is the oldest golf tournament in the world, and one of the most prestigious. Founded in 1860, it was originally held annually at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. Later th ...

golf championship. The works involved demolition of the existing ticket office in order to replace it with a larger, station building complete with concourse waiting area, staff rooms and public toilets. The platforms were extended to improve and increase commuter access. New steel canopies have been installed to Platform 1 and to central Platforms 2 and 3. The old masonry walls on Eglinton Street were replaced with newly constructed, stone-clad walls and artistic metalwork. Works to the new station commenced in April 2018 and were completed in Spring/Summer 2019 in time for The Open in July 2019.

Service

Monday to Friday, first 2 trains from Portrush are through trains to Belfast Grand Central. The rest of the day, an hourly service operates to . On Saturdays, the first train from Portrush is a through train to Belfast Grand Central. The rest of the day, an hourly service operates to Coleraine railway station. On Sundays, there is an hourly service to Coleraine railway station, with the service extending to Belfast Grand Central every two hours. Monday to Sunday, all passengers for , and Derry~Londonderry railway station must change at Coleraine.

Ulsterbus Ulsterbus is a public transport operator in Northern Ireland and operates bus services outside Belfast. It is part of Translink (Northern Ireland), Translink, the brand name for the subsidiary operating companies of the Northern Ireland Transpor ...

services connect Portrush to nearby

Portstewart Portstewart () is a small seaside town in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 7,854 people in the 2021 United Kingdom census. It is a seaside resort, neighbouring both Coleraine in County Londonderry and Portrush in Cou ...

and

Bushmills Bushmills may refer to: * Bushmills, County Antrim Bushmills (From Irish language, Irish ''Muileann na Buaise'') is a village on the north coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Bushmills had a population of 1,247 in the United Kingdom Censu ...

References

External links

* {{UK railway stations Railway stations in County Antrim Railway stations served by NI Railways

Railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

Railway stations in Northern Ireland opened in 1855