Railway station locations

Poxyshamrock

This may seem like a stupid question but it's something I've always wondered.

Why were so many of our railway stations (particularly those in more rural locations) built so far outside the towns? For example, Adare and Askeaton in Co. Limerick and Sixmilebridge in Co. Clare. Even Kildare and Newbridge would have been quite a distance from the town when initially built.

stehyl15

Pretty normal practice in most European countries its because in would've been costly and timely to divert trains on a branch line into the centre of the town or to loop the track into the centre of a town.

whisky_galore

Railways were privately promoted and owned and land was cheaper outside of towns rather than buying and demolishing existing property and building it slap bang in the middle of town.
Also, there were some cases where landowners didn't want the railway going through their property, so either an approach with a sweetener or a diversion had to be made if that didn't work out. Many stations had the word "Road" appended to the name, indicating it was a good few miles away from where it was supposed to serve.

Where you had state control early on, like parts of Germany, they could afford to buy the land and have a Central Bahnhof.

cml387

The railway wasn't always greeted with open arms. Even in London the first great termini, Euston, Kings Cross and Paddington were forcibly kept at arms length form the capital they were supposed to be serving.

h.gricer

Poxyshamrock wrote: »

This may seem like a stupid question but it's something I've always wondered.

Why were so many of our railway stations (particularly those in more rural locations) built so far outside the towns? For example, Adare and Askeaton.

Adare and Askeaton ain't that far outside town, particular Adare, but I presume in the old days the trains where met by ''pony & trap'' then it was a jaunt into town, Ballymoe on the Mayo line was certainly a great distance, you'd certainly need a pony & trap taxi, certainly never walk it if you where carrying a suitcase. Most of these railway stations where all closed in the big 1963 rationalisation by Tod Andrews.
Regards
h.gricer

Losty Dublin

cml387 wrote: »

The railway wasn't always greeted with open arms. Even in London the first great termini, Euston, Kings Cross and Paddington were forcibly kept at arms length form the capital they were supposed to be serving.

Part of that was that the railway companies were generally unwilling to pay city centre prices to go closer into the city as well as the formal barriers you allude to that decided the dirty trains were to be kept away.

Indeed, the need to link them all up gave rise to the eventual Metropolitan line from Paddington to Kings Cross and Fardingdon Street; this was built below street level via the Cut and Cover technique and became the forerunner to the first underground railway network in the world.....

whisky_galore

Also, there were some stations that didn't seem to serve any discernable centre of population at all. Cashelnagor on the Lough Swilly is literally the middle of nowhere, rocks, bogland and sheep, that's all that's there.
I assume Woodlawn was opened on the insistance of the local gentry.

cml387

whisky_galore wrote: »

Also, there were some stations that didn't seem to serve any discernable centre of population at all. Cashelnagor on the Lough Swilly is literally the middle of nowhere, rocks, bogland and sheep, that's all that's there.
I assume Woodlawn was opened on the insistance of the local gentry.

I though it was to serve Ballinasloe. It's still ten miles away though.

whisky_galore

cml387 wrote: »

I though it was to serve Ballinasloe. It's still ten miles away though.

Ballinasloe has its own station.

Woodlawn House, or rather what's left of it, is close by.

trellheim

Most of the rail network and tram in Ireland has been removed so a look at a 1910 system map might prove a little different