TRACE THE LINE - Wilson's Bridge (10) Traditional Cache

In 1836, an Act of Parliament was passed granting the Ulster Railway Company licence to "lay a line of rails from the town of Belfast to the city of Armagh".

Radiating from its Great Victoria Street station in Belfast, which was both the terminus and headquarters of the company, the Ulster’s line reached Lisburn and the first train rolled into Lisburn on 12 August 1839. Trains first ran into Lurgan on 18th November 1841 and on 31st January 1842 a temporary terminus was brought into operation at Seagoe on the outskirts of Portadown. Because of the soft nature of the ground it was not until 12th September 1842 that the Ulster made it to its new station at Watson Street, Portadown.

The engineers involved were a distinguished trio: William Bald, who directed the project, was the designer of the Antrim Coast Road; John Godwin, engineer, had trained under Sir James McAdam, and William Dargan, the contractor, had worked under the famous Thomas Telford.

Portadown was to pose yet another challenge in the form of the River Bann and the need to construct a bridge over it resulted in the first trains not rolling into Armagh until 1848. It was not until 1852 that the line from Portadown was built through to just north of Drogheda with completion of the viaduct at Bessbrook. Dublin was finally reached in 1855 after a bridge over the River Boyne was completed. The Armagh line was subsequently extended to Clones in 1863 and, from there on to Enniskillen. Another railway line, opened in 1858, radiated from Portadown towards Omagh via Dungannon (see my other caches) operated by the “Portadown, Dungannon and Omagh Junction Company” and this firmly established Portadown as a major railway junction.

A major problem arose when the Ulster Railway began to construct its line between Belfast and Armagh. They chose a gauge of 6ft 2in, whilst the proposers behind the Dublin and Drogheda Railway intended to build their line to a gauge of 5ft 2in. The Dublin & Kingstown Railway was initially built to George Stephenson's gauge of 4ft 8½ inches. Immediately this caused political wrangling as the different gauges between Ireland's three railways would lead to problems whereby trains from one railway could not run on another.

At this point, the Board of Trade stepped in. The opinion of the Stephenson’s was sought, who, while committed to the 4ft 8½in used in Great Britain, suggested a compromise gauge for Ireland between 5ft 0in and 5ft 6in. A simple calculation proved to be the solution - the exact average between all three gauges was 5ft 3in, and so this became the adopted standard gauge throughout Ireland - a brilliant example of a political compromise! The gauge of the Ulster Railway was altered about 1846, and that of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway in 1857. This unusual gauge is otherwise found only in the Australian states of Victoria, southern New South Wales and South Australia where it was introduced by the Irish railway engineer F.W. Shields. (5ft 3in was not the only gauge to operate in Ireland - numerous narrow-gauge systems were built, usually to a gauge of 3 feet – again see other caches).

1876 saw the amalgamation of Irish North Western Railway (INW), Northern Railway of Ireland, and Ulster Railway, which, in themselves were largely the result of earlier amalgamations, to form the Great Northern Railway (Ireland). A combination of the increasing road competition facing all railways, and a change in patterns of economic activity caused by the partition of Ireland in 1921 reduced the GNRI's prosperity. By the 1950's the GNR(I) had ceased to be profitable and in 1953 the company was jointly nationalised by the governments of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The two governments ran the railway jointly under a Great Northern Railway Board until 1958, although since 1948 the creation of the Ulster Transport Authority had effectively taken all Northern Ireland railway lines, including the Northern Ireland part of the GNR(I), under its remit.

The UTA was dogged with accusations of anti-rail bias; the Stormont administration at that time being strongly lobbied by many road hauliers, indeed several senior politicians were themselves closely linked to the road haulage business. By 1967 the Authority was wound up and replaced by Ulsterbus, Northern Ireland Carriers (for freight, which soon passed into the private sector) and Ulster Transport Railways which became Northern Ireland Railways in 1968. However, the dissolution of the UTA (or Ulster’s Terrible Affliction as it was often referred) came too late for the 65% of Northern Ireland's rail network which was lost in those twenty years. What is particularly interesting to consider is that within 12 months of our branch lines being closed all were systematically ripped up, thus ensuring no chance of them coming back to life. Compared to mainland Great Britain, it is difficult, in places to trace our old railway lines, something I hope to try to remedy with this series of caches.

As early as March 1949, the UTA applied to the Transport Tribunal for authority to proceed with large scale closures of former Belfast &County Down Railway lines, sounding the death knell for Northern Ireland’s branch lines. The main line from Comber to Newcastle, and the branches to Ardglass and Ballynahinch were closed in January 1950. The Belfast to Donaghadee line was closed and services on the Newcastle to Castlewellan line ceased three months later, thereby leaving Belfast to Bangor as the only part of the former B&CDR. The Authority then turned its attention to the former Northern Counties Committee section and closures here were equally drastic. County Antrim branch lines were decimated covering Ballyclare, Larne Harbour, Macfin, Kilrea, Magherafelt, Draperstown, Ballymoney, Ballycastle, Limavady and Dungiven.

September 30th 1957 saw the last train run from Armagh to Portadown. The services to Dungannon, Omagh and Londonderry disappeared eight years later on 14th February 1965, only six weeks after Newry and Warrenpoint were denuded of their railway links. At this time too freight trains disappeared from our railways, and a little later, the UTA too gave way to Northern Ireland Railways.

These caches are located primarily around bridges (but also other features) on the Portadown to Armagh section of the Ulster line. Collect them, plot them on a map and see the route which the line followed. Enjoy.

The Cache

These caches are not considered difficult, but I have, where I feel appropraite, included hints and spoiler pictures although I doubt they will be needed.

I also suggest that as you move from cache to cache that you use back roads so that you can better see the route which the line followed and the engineering involved with some of the substantial embankments needed, particularly from Battlehill to Salter's Grange.

Please take time to also visit Davynessie's cache GC1NVZH - "Stonebridge" which, by default forms part of this series.