Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway

Intended to link Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly across the Inishowen peninsula in north Donegal, the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway was incorporated in 1860. The engineer of the line was the celebrated Irishman Sir John MacNeill. The railway opened on 12th November 1863 as a 5ft 3in gauge line, running from Londonderry to Farland Point with a branch to Buncrana. Farland was closed in 1866.

The Letterkenny Railway opened on 30th June 1883 from Cuttymanhill to Letterkenny to a gauge of 3ft. It was worked by the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway, and absorbed by them in 1887. To avoid transhipment, and under pressure from the Government, the Company relaid its original line to 3ft gauge in 1885. In 1901 the Company extended its line from Buncrana to Carndonagh with a Government grant of 80% of the costs. The 49¾ mile Burtonport extension of 1903 was worked by the L&LSR with nominally separate engines and stock. The Company operated 100 route miles in 1911.

After partition the L&LSR was not included in the Great Southern Railway merger of 1925 since 3 miles of its line was in Northern Ireland. It continued to keep its equipment in first class condition along with its suspicion of Government. It decided to transfer the whole of its business to road transport. The lines from Buncrana to Carndonagh and from Gweedore to Burtonport were abandoned in 1935 and 1940 respectively. The closure of the remainder of the system had to be deferred due to wartime shortages of petrol and oil for the replacement road services. By the end of the war years the Company was carrying nearly 500,000 passengers per annum on its rail services from Derry to Buncrana and Gweedore.

With the ending of hostilities the line from Letterkenny to Gweedore was in a dangerous state of disrepair and the Company re-embarked on its policy of replacing rail services by road transport. The daily goods service between Letterkenny and Gweedore was withdrawn in January 1947, the line finally closing in June. Regular passenger services ceased on the Derry to Buncrana and Tooban Junction to Letterkenny sections in September 1948. Freight workings and occasional passenger specials continued on these lines until 8th August 1953 when the remaining rail services, immaculately turned out to the last, were withdrawn.

The L&LSR continued to operate road services even after the Company was sold in 1981. By this time, the L&LSR had become one of the longest-lived railway companies in either Ireland or Britain, having outlasted nearly all the others by many years.

The “Swilly” buses continued to run until it closed down on Saturday 19 April 2014, having gone into liquidation. The final service was a bus from Derry at 18.00 to Letterkenny where it arrived at 18.40.