76 RAILWAYS. 



districts. The Great Northern, as at present constituted, is the result of 

 the amalgamation of a large number of separate undertakings. Even the 

 mam line was built in three distinct pieces. The Ulster Company, once 

 famous for its broad gauge, was incorporated in 1839 to connect Belfast 

 and Portadown. Shortly afterwards another company was formed to build 

 a line between Dublin and Drogheda, a distance of thirty-two miles, and 

 the gap between Portadown and Drogheda remained until considerably 

 later, when the Dublin and Belfast Junction Company completed the com- 

 munication between Dublin and Belfast, a distance of 113 miles, which 

 remained until 1875 under the control of three separate companies. A 

 series of amalgamations then took place, out of which, on ist April, 1876, 

 the present company emerged. It has in the last quarter of a century 

 absorbed a number of smaller lines, notably, the Portadown and Omagh 

 and the Enniskillen, Bundoran and Sligo railways. The main line is along 

 the east coast between Dublin and Belfast, and there are two main branches 

 from Dublin to Londonderry in the north, and to Bundoran in the west, 

 whilst the connection between Belfast and Londonderry, via Portadown, 

 1= only a little longer than the route of the Belfast and Northern Counties. 

 The trains have been considerably improved of late, and the rolling stock is 

 now very good, breakfast and dining cars, and, on one journey, sleeping cars, 

 have been introduced, and the locomotives used for the important trains 

 strongly resemble those of the London and South Western. The Belfast 

 and Northern Counties Railway has grown out of a small company incorpo- 

 rated in 1845 to connect Belfast and Ballymena by a narrow gauge line. 

 It now serves the whole of the north-east of Ireland, connecting different 

 places in Londonderry, Tyrone, and Antrim with Belfast, and has 249 miles 

 of lines. In addition to Belfast and Dublin these two northern railways 

 connect a number of ports which have a considerable cross-channel traffic, 

 notably, Larne, Greenore, Dundalk, Drogheda, and Newry. 



The Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford serves the eastern counties of Ireland, 

 running southward from Harcourt-street via Bray to New Ross, for though 

 the Company was originally incorporated in 1846 as the Waterford, Wex- 

 ford, Wicklow and Dublin, it has not yet got as far as Waterford ; but it 

 will probably soon be extended there in connection with the Fishguard and 

 Rosslare scheme. It now works, under a long lease, the line between 

 Kingstown and Dublin, which has been already alluded to as the first rail- 

 way built in Ireland, and which cost upwards of ^^^63,000 a mile. As this 

 line has been extended to Bray, the Company has thus two distinct ap- 

 proaches into Dublin, one along the coast via Kingstown, and the other 

 inland to Harcourt-street. No other railway in the United Kingdom can 

 show its passengers such splendid sea views. From Merrion, midway 

 between Dublin and Kingstown, it runs along the sea front for over twenty- 

 five miles to the town of Wicklow, and except for two miles of tunnel be- 

 tween Kingstown and Dalkey it is never more than a few yards from the 

 sea shore. This line is more dependent on short distance traffic than any 

 other Irish railway. Its other Dublin terminus, Westland-row, is the head- 

 quarters of the City of Dublin Junction Railway, a short urban line worked 

 by the Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford, which connects together all the 

 railways running into Dublin. 



The Midland Great Western Company has the second largest mileage in 

 Ireland, and serves the whole of the central part of the country from Dublin 

 across to the Atlantic. The Company was originally started in 1845 to 



