The Ballycastle Railway

Before most people could afford a car, Ballycastle was linked to Ballymoney and the wider rail network by its own narrow-gauge line. Construction started in December 1878, but the Board of Trade’s inspecting officer refused to approve it for the hoped-for 1880 summer season — the line had been built too cheaply — and it didn’t finally open until 18 October 1880, once the defects were fixed.

The railway struggled financially almost from the start. By 1922 the Railway Commission had flagged its troubles and recommended folding it into the Northern Counties Committee (NCC); a single further loss at the end of 1923 settled the matter. The board voted to close the line on 21 January 1924, shareholders agreed on 8 February, and it shut on 24 March 1924.

That wasn’t quite the end. With the Northern Ireland government unwilling to help, the line’s only real option was a sale — either as a going concern or for scrap. The NCC’s initial offer of £10,000 was pushed up by shareholder lobbying to £12,500, and the sale completed on 4 May 1924. After clearing a backlog of maintenance and re-equipping with rolling stock from the NCC’s other narrow-gauge lines, the railway reopened on 11 August 1924 — outlasting every other NCC narrow-gauge line before the Ulster Transport Authority finally closed it for good on 3 July 1950.

Historical detail sourced from Stephen Johnson’s “Lost Railways of Co. Antrim” (Stenlake Publishing) — see Further Reading.