Irish Railway Record Society

The Bundoran Express A Memoir

Charles P Friel

The Bundoran Express catered for two distinct types of passenger - those attracted to the earthly pleasures of Bundoran and the Atlantic coast and, in a separate layer of society, those intent on spiritual matters at St Patrick’s Purgatory on Lough Derg, not far from Pettigo.

Origins

The name first appeared in the June 1927 Working Timetable when a “Bdn Exp” was shown starting from Clones. It should be mentioned that this abbreviation, “Bdn”, predated the later Station Code for Bundoran - BDN - when these were introduced in the September 1948 Working Timetable.

This Express was formed of carriages off the 9.40am from Belfast and the 10.30am from Dundalk. The Express left Clones at 11.52am while the rest of the Dundalk train then followed at 12.01pm and served all stations to Bundoran. Meanwhile the Express was running non-stop to Pettigo for a stop of only two minutes (1.03pm to 1.05pm) - one can only presume that there were few patrons for Lough Derg in those days. After another non-stop run, the train arrived into Bundoran at 1.53pm.

The Express worked back out of Bundoran at 3pm and served Ballyshannon before stopping in Belleek and Castlecaldwell (Mondays to Fridays Only) specifically to pick up passengers for Dublin, Belfast and the cross-channel steamers. The train then ran non-stop through Pettigo but stopped in Kesh. At Bundoran Junction, the train was combined with the 2.40pm from Derry.

The June 1932 Working Timetable helpfully describes the ‘marshalling and working the Bundoran Expresses’ in some detail. Leaving Clones at 11.57am, the formation was ‘Engine, Dublin J4 (No 43) with Van Compartment in front, K12 (No 437) from Dundalk, Belfast K11 (when required), Belfast J4 (No 44) and “X” Van from Belfast’.

The return working was the 3.15pm Express, Bundoran to Omagh, and its formation leaving Bundoran was ‘Engine, Belfast J4, Belfast K11 (when required), Dublin J4, K12 for Dundalk’. The note continues ‘The two latter coaches will be detached at Bundoran Junction Branch Platform, when engine and remainder of train will pull ahead, set back through Loop and thence to Omagh’.

In those days, there was a loop alongside the Branch Platform at Bundoran Junction, so this shunt would have involved running forward to the South Signal Cabin before setting back, past the Dundalk and Dublin coaches, to the West Auxiliary Cabin and then using the Back Line to gain the line towards Omagh at the North Cabin.

The 4.10pm ex Derry, when leaving Bundoran Junction, pulled ahead and backed into the Branch Platform to add the two Dundalk-bound coaches to the tail of the train. To facilitate this, the Working Timetable instruction concludes with the caution that ‘Derry must not attach any “P”, “Y”, etc Vans to the 4.10pm ex Derry during the operation of the Bundoran Express’. At Dundalk, the coach for Dublin was worked forward in the 5.45pm ex Belfast. The “X” Van remained in Bundoran until the next day when it was worked on the 8.35am to Clones and the 1.45pm from Cavan to Belfast.

The J4s were Tri-compo Brake bogie coaches. There were 27 of these and six were J4s, but in two varieties! The ones used on the Express seated 12 first class, 12 second class and 21 third class passengers, a total of 45, and had a small brake compartment. The K11s were 89-seat Thirds while the K12 class (of which No 437 was the only member) seated 80 Thirds and was fitted as a Tea Car. “P” class vans were bogie parcel vans of 20-ton capacity while “X” refers to a class of six-wheel passenger vans (without corridor connections). “Y” class vans were four-wheel parcel vans, which numbered 26 vehicles in six variations.

The June 1934 summer timetable shows the same pattern though the return working from Bundoran was now labelled “Omagh Exp” in the timetable.

This pattern persisted for many years, though by the summer of 1937, J4 carriages 44 and 43 swapped homes and the Dublin K12 was now a K14, No 279 (a 60-seat Third fitted as a Tea Car). The Omagh Express disappeared from the schedules during the Second World War/Emergency years and the through coaches from Dublin (J4s 44 and 151) now spent alternate nights in Enniskillen and Dublin. 

The post-War Bundoran Express

The Bundoran Express first appeared a titled train in the summer of 1947, when the name was bestowed on a Dublin-based train, which ran seven days a week between the start of June and the end of summer timetable. Once established, the pattern stayed very much the same.

The revamped Bundoran Express made good use of the strategically placed station at Pettigo. The village of Pettigo straddled the border and, after partition, that part in county Fermanagh was known as Tullyhummon. Luckily for the railway, the station was in county Donegal. Partition created many interesting anomalies, and smuggling opportunities, but these are beyond the remit of this article.

Pettigo had its own local traffic but was, principally, the railhead for Roman Catholics making the three-day pilgrimage to St Patrick’s Purgatory on the island in Lough Derg. The island was open from the start of June until 15 August each year. Pilgrims arriving by train were brought to and from the island in a small fleet of Great Northern omnibuses, which were “shedded” here for the season. Ballyshannon sent a bus fitter to look after that side of things and he usually set up shop in the otherwise-disused permanent way shed at the Bundoran side of the signal cabin.

By running non-stop between Clones and Pettigo and between Pettigo and Ballyshannon, the Bundoran Express avoided stopping in Northern Ireland and thus escaped the complications of Customs examination each time it crossed the Border.

Bundoran Express passengers, and their luggage, were relieved of the tedium of being thoroughly scrutinised at Clones, Newtownbutler, Kesh, Pettigo, Belleek and Ballyshannon. The train could never have aspired to any sort of express status if it had to endure the uncertainty of long stops at each of these stations. If the Bundoran Express train did make any sort of stop in Northern Ireland, the guard had to complete declarations for the Surveyor of Customs and Excise at Enniskillen.

From an operating point of view, Pettigo was important in that it had the only water columns between Bundoran Junction and Bundoran.

This new Bundoran Express left Dublin at 8.45am and, with a two-minute stop at Drogheda, arrived in Dundalk at 9.58. Away again at 10.05am, the train made one stop before Clones - and the stop varied according to the day of the week. From Monday to Thursday, the stops were Culloville, Inniskeen, Newbliss, or Ballybay respectively. The train was in Clones from 11.14 to 11.37am and then ran non-stop to Pettigo to arrive at 12.52pm. As Lough Derg traffic was now developing, the train did not get away until 1.02pm and then ran non-stop to Ballyshannon where it waited from 1.32 to 1.40pm, finally gaining the terminus at 1.50pm.

The return Bundoran Express working left Bundoran at 12 noon, though the Working Timetable added the note ‘Shown to the Public as leaving 10 mins earlier’. After a Ballyshannon stop, 12.10 to 12.15pm, Pettigo was reached at 12.45pm. Before leaving at 12.58pm, the down (i.e. from Dublin) Bundoran Express arrived. The up Express then ran non-stop through Northern Ireland to arrive in Clones at 2.15pm. Station business there occupied a full half hour before the Express served all stations to Dundalk with the sole exception of the metropolis of Kellybridge. Arrival into Dundalk was at 4.10pm and, five minutes later, the train left for Dublin. With a three-minute stop at Drogheda, the Express was into Dublin at 5.35pm. In its final year, the up Express stopped daily at Castleblaney, Ballybay and Newbliss while Inniskeen was served on Tuesdays and Culloville on Fridays.

Between Dublin and Dundalk, the motive power could be a V class compound or (in 1948) a brand-new VS class 4-4-0. The S and S2 class 4-4-0s appeared quite often but so, too, did various other 4-4-0s and even a Glover 4-4-2 tank.  We know that No 4 (T2 4-4-2 tank) delayed four of the five Belfast specials on 11 August 1955 when she left Amiens St late with the down Express.  The Belfast specials needed two VSs, two Ss and a Q, so maybe the shed foreman was scraping the barrel.  Another notable loco on the main line was CIÉ D4 class 4-4-0 No  346 which worked the Express between Amiens St. and Dundalk in 1947, reputedly to test her otuside bearings ahead of the proposed VS locos.  Great Southern locos did not usually have a lamp bracket at the chimney, so 346 did not carry the headboard.  West of Dundalk, the motive power most associated with the Express was the glittering blue U class 4-4-0s of either 1915 or 1948 vintage. Having said that, various P and PP class 4-4-0s appeared on the train; indeed PP No 43 was reported moved to Clones for the first (1927) expresses.

The carriages were fitted with Bundoran Express boards and the engine carried the famous headboard. Dundalk had to have a stock of at least three of these - one for the main line workings and two for the Irish North section. In practice, the relief expresses also carried headboards (usually), so even more boards were needed.

The revamped Express included a Buffet Car or Tea Car from Dublin to Clones where it was removed from the train and serviced before being added to the Dublin-bound Express later in the day. Tea Cars were compartment stock with one compartment converted to catering use with the provision of crockery and shelves etc plus a paraffin-powered Primus stove which, for all the world, looked like a blowlamp equipped to boil water. There were some complaints that the sandwiches and buns in the Tea Car ‘always taste of paraffin!’

There was a Customs-inspired instruction that ‘no alcoholic liquors, tobacco, cigars or cigarettes shall be conveyed on the train for sale during the journey’. The aforementioned Tea Car operated solely within the Republic of Ireland and thus avoided these restrictions.

For the first summer of 1947, the through coach from Belfast to Bundoran had no connection with the Express, for it was worked via Omagh and Bundoran Junction, but it did return on the back of the Express as far as Clones. From the summer of 1948, though, the Belfast-Bundoran through coach worked via Clones in both directions and this pattern lasted until the end. From 1954, the 9am from Belfast to Clones, with the Bundoran through coach attached, became an AEC railcar, which ran ahead of the Express from Clones to Enniskillen. The return through coach was attached to another railcar, which left Clones at 2.55pm and served all stations to Armagh then Portadown, Lurgan, Lisburn and Belfast where it arrived at 5.10pm.

The new Bundoran Express ran every day of the week but with a different timetable on Sundays. On that day the train did not leave the capital until 10am and served Drogheda, Dundalk, Inniskeen, Castleblaney, and Ballybay before the Clones stop. After another non-stop run, Pettigo was reached at 2.05pm and left at 2.10pm. Ballyshannon occupied 2.39 to 2.46pm and the down Express arrived into Bundoran at 2.54pm. The up Express, 2.30pm ex Bundoran, crossed its opposite number during its Ballyshannon stop. The up Express then ran non-stop from Pettigo to arrive in Clones at 4.38. Leaving again at 4.45, the train served Ballybay, Castleblaney and Culloville (but not Inniskeen) before arriving in Dundalk at 5.57pm. The Dublin-bound leg began just eight minutes later and Dublin was gained at 7.20pm.

  The remainder of this article appears in IRRS Journal number 164, published October 2007.

Copyright © 2007 by Irish Railway Record Society Limited
Revised: December 10, 2007 .