Dublin-Belfast railway line
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The Dublin-Belfast main line is a major railway route in Ireland that connects Dublin Connolly station in the Republic of Ireland and Belfast Central station in Northern Ireland. Three separate railway companies constructed the line. The Ulster Railway began construction in 1839 of a railway line between Belfast and Lisburn, which was extended in stages as far as Clones by 1863. The Dublin and Drogheda Railway constructed the line between Dublin and the town of Drogheda. These two lines were connected by the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway, which connected the Dublin section with the Belfast section at Portadown. In 1876, these three companies, together with the Irish North Western Railway merged to form the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) (GNRI).
In 1921, Ireland underwent partition, with six counties in the north-east becoming Northern Ireland and remaining as part of the United Kingdom, while the remainder formed the Irish Free State. This led to an international border crossing between Newry and Dundalk, which caused significant disruption with trains forced to stop at stations on either side of the border for immigration checks and controls. This disruption only eased in 1947 with the opening of facilities for immigration and customs checks at Amiens Street Station and Great Victoria Street Station. At the same time, the GNRI made its Belfast-Dublin services non-stop with the launch of the Enterprise Express. The GNRI was nationalised by the governments of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in 1953 as the Great Northern Railway Board, before this was split between the Ulster Transport Authority and Córas Iompair Éireann. This led to a running down of rail services in Northern Ireland, with the main line to Belfast closed in 1965. This re-opened again in 1969, with the newly formed Northern Ireland Railways now responsible for running the railway in Northern Ireland. This body purchased new locomotives and rolling stock to restore the Belfast-Dublin Enterprise service as well as local services using new diesel multiple units.
In recent years, the government of the Republic of Ireland has developed a National Development Plan, which has seen major investment in infrastructure. Almost the entire railway network, including the Belfast-Dublin line as far as the border, has been upgraded to Continuous Welded Rail, while signalling is controlled using the Centralised Traffic Control system located at Dublin Connolly station. In addition, in 1997, a set of new De Dietrich Stock coaches were purchased jointly by Northern Ireland Railways and Iarnrod Eireann to operate a revamped Enterprise service along with the new Class 201 locomotives.
In addition to the inter-city service between Belfast and Dublin, both NIR and IE operate local services along the route. NIR operates local services along the northern half of the line (the Belfast-Newry Line) between Belfast and Lisburn, Portadown and Newry, while IE operates its Commuter services between Dublin and Dundalk as part of the Dublin Suburban Rail network. In addition, the line between Dublin Connolly and Malahide is electrified and forms part of the Trans-Dublin DART network.
