Northern Ireland Railways

Northern Ireland Railways
Basic information
Concession and duration	Government-owned subsidiary, no license required
Parent company	NITHCo (Translink)
statistics
fleet	47
Train stations	54
Main region	Northern Ireland
website
Northern Ireland Railways homepage
Route network

NI Railways, NIR 3000 class diesel multiple units

The Northern Ireland Railways (NIR) are a state railway -Unternehmen based in Belfast , which in Northern Ireland under the umbrella of public company Translink rail links to and between Derry , Belfast, Bangor and to Dublin (in the Republic of Ireland offers).

The company was created in 1968 from the Ulster Transport Authority . It has a track network of around 350 kilometers and carried 5.9 million passengers in the 2000/2001 financial year. Northern Ireland Railways has 700 employees. Since the rail network in Ireland is thin, bus transport is far more common. In Northern Ireland, this is also operated by Translink under the names Ulsterbus and Goldline (for intercity and cross-border connections).

NIR almost exclusively has diesel railcars. The Class 3000 and Class 4000 vehicles come from the Spanish company Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) from Bilbao . There are only three diesel locomotives for operational use. The route network is not electrified. Together with the rail company of the Republic of Ireland Iarnród Éireann , NIR operates a direct train connection between Dublin and Belfast under the Enterprise brand . Here, too, the railway companies compete with a range of cheaper and usually faster bus connections.

Rolling stock

Existing vehicles
model series	image	Type	V / max	number	Construction year
Class 3000		Railcar (diesel)	145 km / h	23	2003-2005
Class 4000		Railcar (diesel)	145 km / h	20th	2010–2012
NIR class 111		Diesel locomotive	145 km / h	3	1980-1984
NIR MPV		Construction railcar (diesel)	100 km / h	1	2016

See also

• Rail transport in Ireland
• Iarnród Éireann

Web links

• Northern Ireland Railways homepage