THROUGH THE ARCHIVES: Letter writer calls for railway accommodation at the quays in Belfast

A traveller took up his pen this week in 1895 to write to the News Letter protesting against the lack of railway accommodation at the quays in Belfast

They wrote: “It has often struck me as very odd that in this enterprising city [that] no steps have ever been taken to deliver passengers coming in by our principal lines of railway at the quays. In almost all the principal ports in the United Kingdom such accommodation has been found indispensable in order to secure or retain traffic, and in Ireland we have it at Kingstown [now Dun Laoghaire], at Dublin, at Greenore, and at Larne.”

The letter writer continued: “Why should Belfast not be on an equality in this respect with Greenore and Larne? Why should not the Great Northern Railway and the Northern Counties Railway run their passengers alongside the cross-channel steamers every evening?”

In the correspondent’s view there was no obstacle for addressing this issue, they wrote: “There appears to me to be no obstacle whatever worth talking about, if the railway companies and the Harbour Commissioners would put their heads together. Practically all the steamers leave between eight and half-past nine o’clock, and passengers from Armagh, Portadown, and elsewhere along the Great Northern line, and from Londonderry downwards on the Northern Counties line, might well be brought alongside the Glasgow, Fleetwood, Barrow and Liverpool boats.”

The letter concluded: “I trust that pressure will be brought to bear upon all concerned to see if something cannot be done here in this direction, which has been found successful wherever tried.”