Great Victoria Street is a railway station serving the city centre of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is one of two main stations in the city, along with Lanyon Place, and is nearest the city centre. The station is off Great Victoria Street and shares a site with the Europa Buscentre, Belfast's main bus station. Both will be replaced by Belfast Grand Central station, which is being built beside them.^[2] Great Victoria Street railway station will close permanently on 10 May 2024, several months before the new station opens in late 2024.^[3]

Quick Facts Great Victoria Street, General information ...

Great Victoria Street
General information
Location	Belfast Northern Ireland
Coordinates	54.5942°N 5.9362°W / 54.5942; -5.9362
Owned by	NI Railways
Operated by	NI Railways
Platforms	4
Construction
Structure type	At-grade
History
Original company	Ulster Railway
Post-grouping	Great Northern Railway (Ireland)
Key dates
August 12 1839 (August 12 1839)	First station opened
November 13 1848	First terminus completed
November 1968	Terminus largely demolished
April 24 1976	First station closed
September 30 1995	Second station opened
May 10 2024 [1]	Scheduled closure
NI Railways Translink NI railway stations
Location
Great Victoria Street Location within Northern Ireland

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Great Victoria Street is the busiest railway station in Northern Ireland, with 3,939,261 passengers passing through the station in 2022–2023.^[4]

The station is on the site of a former linen mill, beside where Durham Street crossed the Blackstaff River at the Saltwater (now Boyne) Bridge.

The Ulster Railway opened the first station on 12 August 1839 (1839-08-12). A new terminal building, probably designed by Ulster Railway engineer John Godwin, was completed in 1848.^[5] Godwin later founded the School of Civil Engineering at Queen's College.^[5]

The station, built directly on Victoria Street, was Belfast's first railway terminus, and as such was called just "Belfast" until 1852. By this time, two other railway companies had opened termini in Belfast, so the Ulster Railway renamed its terminus "Belfast Victoria Street" for clarity. In 1855 the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway was completed,^[6] making Victoria Street the terminus for one of the most important main lines in Ireland. The Ulster Railway changed the station name again to "Great Victoria Street" in 1856, in line with a change of the street name.

In 1876 the Ulster Railway became part of the Great Northern Railway (GNR),^[6] making Great Victoria Street the terminus for a network that extended south to Dublin and west to Derry and Bundoran.

Express passenger traffic to and from Dublin Connolly station was always Great Victoria Street's most prestigious traffic. The GNR upgraded its expresses over the decades and in 1947 introduced the Enterprise non-stop service between the two capitals.^[7] As Belfast suburbs grew, commuter traffic also grew in volume.

In 1958, the Ulster Transport Authority took over Northern Ireland's bus and rail services. Three years later Great Victoria Street station was modernised, and a bus centre incorporated into the facility.^[7] Then in 1968, a large section of the 1848 terminal building was demolished to make way for the development of the Europa Hotel, which opened in 1971.^[7]

During the conflict known as The Troubles, the station was attacked several times. On 22 March 1972, 70 people were injured, a train was destroyed and the station significantly damaged by a Car bomb.^[8] Another bomb explosion happened on 21 July, destroying four busses but causing no casualties. This was one of 20 bombs that exploded that day, planted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in an event that became known as Bloody Friday^[9]

In April 1976 Northern Ireland Railways closed both Great Victoria Street^[7] and the Belfast Queen's Quay terminus of the Bangor line and replaced them both with a new Belfast Central Station, now renamed Lanyon Place. The remainder of Great Victoria Street station was demolished. After a feasibility study was commissioned in 1986 it was agreed that a new development on the site, incorporating the reintroduction of the Great Northern Railway, was viable. The Great Northern Tower had already been built on the site of the old station terminus in 1992,^[10] and so the second Great Victoria Street Station was built behind the tower block, yards from the site of its predecessor. The new station was opened on 30 September 1995.^[11]

The current station has two island platforms providing a total of four platform faces. Platforms 2 and 3 run the full length of the site and open onto the station's main concourse. Platforms 1 and 4 are half the length and are accessible by walking down the other platforms.

Great Victoria Street is the hub of Northern Ireland's suburban rail services, with Bangor line, Derry~Londonderry line, Newry line and Larne Line trains all terminating there.

Service

On Mondays to Saturdays, there are half-hourly services to Bangor or Portadown on the Bangor and Portadown Lines, with some Portadown-bound trains continuing on to Newry.

There is also a half-hourly service on the Larne Line, with the terminus being Whitehead every half hour and Larne Harbour being the terminus every hour.

Derry~Londonderry Line trains operate hourly from Great Victoria Street to Derry~Londonderry. There is a connecting shuttle service from Coleraine to Portrush via the Coleraine-Portrush railway line.

On Sundays, the Bangor, Larne, and Portadown Line services all reduce to hourly operation. Derry~Londonderry Line services reduce to two-hourly operation, with only seven trains running each way. Derry~Londonderry Line trains are still hourly but alternate between Derry Waterside and Portrush, except for the final train of the evening, which terminates at Coleraine.

More information Preceding station, Northern Ireland Railways ...

Preceding station		Northern Ireland Railways		Following station
Terminus		Northern Ireland Railways Belfast-Derry		City Hospital
		Northern Ireland Railways Belfast-Larne
		Northern Ireland Railways Belfast-Bangor
Adelaide		Northern Ireland Railways Belfast-Newry		City Hospital
	Proposed
Terminus		Enterprise Belfast-Dublin		Portadown
	Historical railways
Terminus		Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Enterprise Express		Amiens Street Line and station open

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Great Victoria Street is part of a major public transport interchange, being adjacent to the Europa Buscentre. This was built in 1991 as the ground floor level of a multi-storey car park.^[16] The Buscentre is the Belfast terminus for most Ulsterbus "Goldline" services in Northern Ireland. These serve various destinations that are not on the railway network, including Enniskillen, Banbridge, Omagh, Downpatrick, Cavan, Newcastle, Strabane and Armagh. Also, services from the Buscentre serve both Belfast City Airport and Belfast International Airport directly.^[17] Ulsterbus runs joint services with Bus Éireann for its direct express service to Dublin and Dublin Airport, with National Express to Dumfries, Carlisle, Manchester, Birmingham, Milton Keynes and London, and with Citylink to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

• View in 1975 with the Enterprise to Dublin Connolly.
• View of the former GNR railway station when used by Ulsterbus in 1988.
• The closed station being rebuilt in 1995 for NIR services bar the Enterprise.
• View of platforms in 1995.
• Platforms 2 and 3 at Great Victoria Street in August 2007.
• NIR service in 2011 on the Derry~Londonderry railway line.
• The permanent way down the platforms in 2011.