Railways
Clones was linked by rail to Dundalk from 1855, Enniskillen from 1859, Cavan from 1862 and Armagh from 1863. Clones railway station was opened on 26 June 1858 by the Dundalk and Enniskillen Railway. From 1876 all of these lines were part of the Great Northern Railway.
The partition of Ireland in 1922 made Clones a border post on the railway, which combined with road competition to cause the Great Northern to decline. In 1954 the governments of the Republic and Northern Ireland jointly nationalised the GNR and in 1957 Northern ireland made the GNR close its lines from Armagh and Enniskillen to Clones. This made it impractical to continue services on the Cavan and Dundalk lines so the GNR withdrew passenger services on those lines as well, leaving Clones with no passenger trains and a freight service truncated at the border. The GNR closed Clones station to passenger traffic on 14 October 1957.
In 1958 the two states partitioned the GNR between the Ulster Transport Authority and CIÉ. CIÉ withdrew freight services from the Cavan line in 1959 and from the Dundalk line in 1960, leaving Clones with no railway at all. CIÉ closed Clones freight depot on 1 January 1960.
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Famous quotes containing the word railways:
“There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection.”
—H.G. (Herbert George)