The Belfast to Derry~Londonderry train is the easiest way to understand what the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway was for. Two hours, mostly along the coast, the line hugging the shore of Lough Foyle so closely you could throw a stone into the water. Michael Palin called it one of the world’s most beautiful rail journeys, and he was not wrong about the last stretch. The track you ride was laid by a Victorian company that, at its height in 1903, owned 335 miles of line and ran trains to nearly every corner of the north-east. Most of that network is gone. What survives runs today as NI Railways, and the engineering and steam that built it survive in one place above all: the Whitehead Railway Museum.
If you only do one thing with the BNCR’s legacy, ride Belfast to Derry one way and come back another day, or take the train up and the bus down for variety. The line itself is the attraction.
The history in brief
It started as the Belfast & Ballymena Railway, opening on 12 April 1848 once a Board of Trade inspection had cleared the route. The Belfast terminus got an imposing classical front from architect Charles Lanyon, whose name is still on the city’s main station today.
In 1860 the company became the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway and went on a buying spree: the Ballymena, Ballymoney, Coleraine and Portrush Junction Railway, the Londonderry & Coleraine line, and a clutch of narrow-gauge routes like the Ballymena, Cushendall & Red Bay Railway. By 1903 it held 335 miles of track, 64 of them on the 3ft gauge, when the English Midland Railway bought the lot. Under the Midland it became the Northern Counties Committee, which leaned hard into tourism – the ‘North Atlantic Express’ ran between Portrush and Belfast from 1934, and new railcars cut the journey times.
After that the ownership changed hands the way railways did everywhere: the LMS in 1923, the Ulster Transport Authority in 1948, NI Railways from 1967. The cuts of the 1950s and 60s did the real damage, dropping the network from roughly 900 miles to the 210 still running. So when you ride it now, you are on the surviving tenth.
The lines worth riding
Belfast to Derry~Londonderry is the one. Two hours along the old coastal corridor, with the Antrim Coast Road and the Nine Glens of Antrim – including Glenariff – within reach of the stations along the way. The final approach beside Lough Foyle is the part people remember.
Belfast to Portrush is the route to the Giant’s Causeway end of the coast. The original ‘North Atlantic Express’ coaches are sometimes brought out for special heritage trips if you want the early-20th-century version of the trip.
Belfast to Larne is shorter – about 30 minutes – and connects with the Larne ferries, the modern descendants of the old Larne–Stranraer crossing to Scotland. A day trip to Scotland by train and boat is genuinely doable from Belfast.
The Whitehead Railway Museum
This is the heart of what’s left. The Railway Preservation Society of Ireland runs it from the former BNCR engine shed, water tower and turntable, the buildings dating from 1907. The prize exhibit is WT Class No 4, a 2-6-4T tank engine built at Derby between 1946 and 1950. The class were nicknamed ‘Jeeps’ because they could run round their trains without being turned. No 4 was the last steam locomotive to work in Ireland – withdrawn in 1971 – before the preservation society rescued it; after a long restoration it returned to steam in 2001 and again in 2015, and it still hauls the odd special.
Alongside it sit a 4-wheel Kitson tram from the Portstewart Tramway and a collection of BNCR carriages you can climb into. There’s a train simulator, a working shed where volunteers restore locomotives, and an audio tour through the TMatic app for iOS and Android.
The museum is open Thursday to Saturday, 10am to 2.30pm (last entry). Admission is £9 per adult, £6 per child and £25 for a family. On-site parking is limited, but it’s a short walk from Whitehead’s NI Railways station, so the obvious move is to arrive by train. The catch is the opening days: three a week, seasonally, so check before you travel rather than turning up on a Monday.
The engineering, if you go looking
The Bleach Green Viaducts on the Larne line are twin reinforced-concrete viaducts, the largest of their kind in the British Isles, and you cross them heading towards Antrim.
The Gobbins on Islandmagee is the dramatic one. The cliff-side walkways, tubular bridges and stone steps were the work of BNCR engineer Berkeley Deane Wise in the early 1900s, built to bring railway tourists straight to the coast. It’s a guided walk now and worth the effort if you have a head for heights.
Around Whitehead
The village makes a good base for a half-day. The Blackhead Path runs along the coast from Whitehead out to Blackhead Lighthouse, with views over Belfast Lough and across to Scotland on a clear day. Whitehead Golf Club, founded in 1904, is a seaside course with the sea views to match. And the promenade, lined with colourful Victorian houses, has a small beach that does fine for a picnic.
Tickets and getting there
All services on the old BNCR network are run by NI Railways, part of Translink, and the timetables, fares and updates live on the Translink website. You can buy singles at the station, or a Translink Flexi-ticket for unlimited NI Railways travel over a set period; a Leap Card handles contactless and discounted urban fares.
Most of the big stations – Belfast Lanyon Place, Coleraine, Derry~Londonderry – have step-free access, tactile paving and audible announcements. Older stations like Whitehead keep their original platforms with limited ramp access, though staff will help where they can.
From Belfast, regular trains leave Lanyon Place for Coleraine, Derry~Londonderry, Portrush and Larne, with journey times from 30 minutes to Larne up to 2 hours to Derry. For the full effect, take the Derry train as far as Castlerock or Bellarena and watch for the moment the line breaks out onto the shore – that’s the bit Palin meant.