Northern Ireland Railways

What can I say, it’s a train station, and a train station is a train station. Close to the centre of town but not right in the centre (tho I don’t think they can fix that). The normal newsagenty shop, a café/​bar and a massive high ceilinged waiting hall. Staff are a bit hit or miss some lovely some wouldn’t say two words. Taxi phone just as you are walking up and make sure and go down the stairs to get picked up. Bus stop out front on the same level. All in all its a train station.

I use the train once a week when travelling to college in Lisburn after work on a Tuesday, and home afterwards. The trains have always been reliable anytime I’ve used them, though they are very busy In the rush hour after work so you’re lucky if you get a seat, and it’s usually quite cramped. The train home from Lisburn after 9pm is a lot better and is an enjoyable journey, as there aren’t too many people travelling then. The trains are comfortable. and each stop is announced before you get there to keep you updated as to where you are. The trains have free Wi-​Fi too which works most of the time.
Lisburn Train Station is small but has indoor seating, toilets and a small shop. I would also go to Central Station in Belfast sometimes, for example when taking the train down to Dublin (a lovely journey with hot food and drinks available to buy on board the train). Central Station has seating, toilets, a café, a shop, a cash machine and even a postbox, so it’s quite a good station. Large screens keep you update on train times, and announcements are made on the platforms. There is also now a bakery within the station with a wide range of items. You can also get taxis outside Central Station easily enough, or there is a bus stop close by to travel into town, or you could just walk as it is only a 5 or 10 minute walk.

I feel like I owe it to Central Station to do a review update, I was a wee bit harsh back in 2010. It’s fair to say that Belfast Central Station is still not the most aesthetically pleasing building in our city but it does the job just fine.
As the name suggests it is extremely central — about a 10 minute walk from Belfast City Hall, a 2 minute saunter to The Waterfront and a stones throw from St Georges Market. The station itself operates trains to Bangor, Portadown and Dublin (Enterprise). I’ve been using this station a lot lately as I find it the most convenient from where I live and (touch wood) I haven’t encountered a single delay. The trains are pretty regular and there’s a large screen that will notify you of any delays.
The staff are great at this station — you can’t pay by card on board the trains so have to stop at the barrier and pay for your ticket if you’ve come from a station with no ticketing facilities. In some stations if you get stopped at the barriers by staff you are made to feel extremely guilty but the staff at Belfast Central always engage in a bit of banter.
The station is clean (although you might need a clothes peg if you’re going in to the toilets) and has all the facilities you’d expect including a shop, ticket office, ATM (near the exit). The facilities are basic but this station is generally used by commuters who pass through in a zombie like state on their way to work so they do the job just fine.
If you’re visiting Belfast and need onward travel there’s often a queue of black taxis waiting at the exit.

Belfast central station is a funny old place. It sort of feels like it’s stuck in the early 90’s like some sort of transportation time warp. There’s not really too much on offer for commuters apart from an Upper Crust Café and a newsagents. Both of which are overpriced but I suppose that is to be expected given that the nearest shop is a 10 minute walk away.
Trains do generally run on time and the staff are friendly which is obviously it’s most important function. Furthermore the platform layout is self explanatory and despite it’s hideous physical appearance it does the job nicely.

I took the Northern Ireland Railway from Belfast to Dublin. The train car was well kept, the conductor friendly — and all in all was a good experience.
The negative is that it’s a 3 hour ride — and easily could be a 90minute car ride.

Warning… this is quite an expensive way to travel unless you order tickets 72 hours in advance. It cost us £30 one-​way from Belfast to Dublin which could have cost € 14 if booked in advance.
The train ride itself was efficient, they have luggage racks at the ends of each car, and tables at many seats. Not bad service with trolley cars of food, but probably best to bring your own onboard as the prices are pretty high.
My biggest complaint was the supposed free WiFi service was attrocious. If you could connect it was so slow that it was basically unusable. They really need to improve this.

Not much here in the way of entertainment when you wait but there is a café that does rolls and hot food, an area to get taxis from, cash machines and maps! You can get a connecting bus into the town on the rail ticket.

Coming from a place with crappy regional rail, being able to zip down to Dublin in comfort without having to worry about navigating or driving was great.

For about a year I endured the commute to Belfast Central Station on the Londonderry line witnessing the changeover from the bumpy old trains to the new ones.
Despite the changes it’s depressing to note that if you got a train from Belfast to Ballymoney in the 1950s the journey took an hour, but now it can be as much as one hour 20 minutes. On the bright side though, the train doesn’t go via Lisburn any more as was the case through the 80s and 90s.
Central Station itself is modern, ugly and functional with the standard (expensive) station café. By and large the Londonderry line trains are on time — it would just be nice if the service was a little faster on a par with commuter lines just about anywhere else.

I can’t give you any more basic information on what NIR offer in terms of services because that has been covered in other posts, but I will give you my take from my experiences.
I drive, and have on site parking in work, so I am happily not a regular user of public transport.
My main usage of NIR has been when I was a student, and then in later years when I spent a certain amount of time working in a city centre office with no parking, and thus had to begin to use our fine public transport, the train.
NIR in the last number of years, have given things an overhaul, and got new fancy pants trains in service. Unfortunately these trains are very rarely on the Larne line, which I used for getting the train from Carrick-​Belfast. In fact, I once heard someone say «What do you call a new train on the Larne line?» Answer: Lost.
We still get the old trains a lot of the time. Sometimes it’s the more recent ones (before the new trains) but on other occasions we get the old 70’s ones where you have to push the window down and turn the stiff handle to get out. How OAP’s manage to get off without injury is beyond me.
These trains, I might add, have windows that don’t close properly, so I can spend a happy half hour freezing to death before I get to work.
And for this lovely service, we still have to pay the same fare as everyone else does on the other lines, despite the fact that they get the comfy new trains. Not fair.
Ah well. At least they turn up on time, and you can (usually) get a seat.

Having commuted to Belfast from Dundalk for 5 months last year I encountered many problems with NI railways.
First of all the price is very expensive. Secondly there is no communication between services North and South of the border, even though it is a mere hour away.
The train is far more reliable and more frequent than the bus but the downside is the E25 price tag.

Being from down where we don’t quite have the wealth that these other towns have and not having a railway station means that I do not frequent the train stations as much as my fellow Unilocalers.
Though the few times I have frequented these electric buses that can travel backwards, I have been less than impressed. We took the train to Bangor to see Snow Patrol and I am aware that this was one of those freak events that meant public transport grinds to halt, but there seemed to be no discernable effort made to accommodate a larger than normal influx of passengers.
We ended up queuing for a train home for nearly an hour, which when you are tired is the last thing you want to do.
Plus whilst on vacation in Munich, the trains arrive within a second of their designated time and any delays are usually a cause for concern. In NI, if trains arrive on time then there seems to be some sort of Independence Day type event happening that a train could actually arrive when it was supposed to.
It’s public service after all. Not totally reliable, but we accept it because there is no other choice.

NI Railways is (surprisingly) the company responsible for all the rail networks in Northern Ireland. This includes five main routes from Belfast, a line between Coleraine and Portrush, as well the Enterprise train route from Belfast to Dublin. The five Northern Irish routes are:
1) Belfast to Bangor (incorporating Holywood)
2) Belfast to Londonderry (including Coleraine)
3) Coleraine to Portrush (as previously mentioned)
4) Belfast to Portadown (including Lisburn)
5) Belfast to Larne (incorporating Carrickfergus)
The main station for all these networks is Central Station in Belfast, and it is here that the Enterprise train begins its journey to Dublin.
Unfortunately, I don’t use the train quite as much as I would like to, due to the fact that I don’t live that close to a station. In saying that, I have travelled to Central and gotten the train to Lisburn, Portrush and Bangor. All the journeys have been very pleasant, and most of the trains are the latest models and have been well kept.
Aside from the enjoyable journey and nice trains, NI Railways have managed to produce some fantastic deals to make the trip even more agreeable. My favourite offer is ¹⁄₃ off a day return ticket, available to any station in Northern Ireland when travelling after 9:30am. This meant that a return ticket to Lisburn from Central was only £3.70, and from Central to Portrush was £10! Other offers include an online day return ticket to Dublin for £10, as well as unlimited travel on any train for £6 on Sundays. Bargain.
Choo, choo! Trains are definitely the way the way forward…