North coast shoppers and party-goers urged to support new late night pre-Christmas trains from Derry/Londonderry
A railway campaign group has welcomed the introduction of late night weekend trains to and from Derry/Londonderry in the run up to Christmas - and is calling on people on the north coast to take advantage of them.
Translink recently announced that they are running extended evening rail services west of the Bann over the next two weekends before Christmas.
This means that on Friday and Saturday nights up to and including Saturday, December 20, the last train from Belfast to Derry will leave Grand Central at 11:10pm - instead of the usual time of 9:10pm.
Campaign group Into the West said that for people on the north coast looking to make the most of the nightlife and shopping that’s on offer in Derry, an extra late night train will now leave the city’s Waterside station at 11:30pm on Friday and Saturday nights up to Christmas, calling at all stops as far as Coleraine.
Chair of Into the West, Steve Bradley, commented “The festive season sees lots of people enjoying nights out and late-night shopping for presents. Translink’s regular timetable means that the last trains to and from the West of the Bann usually depart no later than 9:30pm – which usually prevents rail from meeting people’s night-time travel needs here.
"That’s why it’s great to see these extra late-night services introduced for Christmas – giving people an extra two hours to spend in the evenings in Belfast or Derry, before taking advantage of the train as a low-cost, convenient and safe way to get home again afterwards.
“Every station east of the Bann on the Derry-Belfast line has much later rail services than the three stations west of the Bann do.
"So these Christmas specials are the one time that every station gets treated equally.”
"So if you want to see later trains to and from Derry all year round, then please do take advantage of these special festive trains whilst we have them. Because the numbers using them will be closely monitored, and that will influence future decisions on whether Derry should get the kind of later rail services that stations east of the Bann enjoy all year round.”