Naming conventions for train stations and lines

Sam Russell · 25-02-2025 09:38AM

Limerick Junction opened in 1848 when there would have been little of any importance around there. So naming it Barronstown might have been better. There used to be a racecourse next to the station but it looks abandoned judging by Google maps..

Railway construction at the time it opened had great difficulty getting access to land near cities as the local landowners would not cooperate. Hence many stations are not well placed and routes built tended to be less than direct. Judging by the M17 and M18, times have not changed much.

L1011 · 25-02-2025 09:43AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123207127#Comment_123207127

The racecourse is still active, and indeed doesn't even look vaguely abandoned on Google Maps?

Your posts on this thread are incredibly confused and confusing.

KrisW1001 · 25-02-2025 09:48AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123207127#Comment_123207127

That’s Tipperary Racecourse. Next meeting 24. April, 2005.

I’m not claiming to be a local - I’ve only ever passed through here on the way somewhere else, but the lack of knowledge about this area on show in the last few posts is surprising.

Sam Russell · 25-02-2025 10:26AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123207147#Comment_123207147

Quote: That’s Tipperary Racecourse. Next meeting 24. April, 2005.

That is twenty years ago!

No meetings for 2025 due to new all weather development of the course. I was there once and my bet came in last in the bumper.

L1011 · 25-02-2025 10:29AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123207246#Comment_123207246

It's a typo. The website lists 24th April 2025; and three in May listed.

Either way, it is very much not abandoned.

KrisW1001 · 25-02-2025 10:39AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123207246#Comment_123207246

You didn't consider for one second that that was a typo?

They're still stating April 2025 on their own website. But if that's been postponed for renovation work, it's hardly the "abandoned" racecourse you described it as.

There's nothing wrong with the words "my mistake", you know... I use them all the time myself.

DylanQuestion · 16-03-2026 04:22PM

I wonder why it is Dublin Heuston, Dublin Connolly and Dublin Pearse, but then just Tara Street and Docklands (rather than Dublin Tara Street and Dublin Docklands)

thosewhoknow · 16-03-2026 04:42PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124317304#Comment_124317304

Because those first three were termini of major railway companies (Heuston for GSWR, Connolly for GNRI and Pearse for DSER). Tara St was an intermediate stop on the Loopline and Docklands wasn’t opened until more than a century after any of the others mentioned.

icdg · 16-03-2026 07:15PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124317304#Comment_124317304

The answer is that it isn’t, if you visit each of those stations you will find the signs on the platforms read “Heuston Station”, “Connolly Station” and “Pearse Station” respectively.

Now that hasn’t stopped Irish Rail using the “Dublin ….” form in announcements and timetables, but it’s never been used on the platform signs or the sign over the door at the station entrance (although Heuston still doesn’t have one of those!)

But Tara Street isn’t a terminal station, no trains terminate there, unlike the other stations you mentioned. It’s a through station that happens to be the closest to Dublin City centre.

DylanQuestion · 16-03-2026 08:13PM

Irish Rail's website lists the stations names as Dublin Heuston, Dublin Connolly and Dublin Pearse. Those names are also used on Intercity services. I'm not sure why they don't use Dublin in the station plaques (like they do for the other named stations in the country), but I don't think that makes their names official. In Kent Station, signs swap between Cork Kent, Cork Kent Station and just Kent Station (the Irish name also swaps between Ceannt and Kent).

That reasoning is fair enough for Tara Street, actually (it not being a terminus). But Docklands is a terminus, and there are multiple Docklands around the country so I always found it a bit weird they didn't make the name Dublin Docklands.

On an unrelated note, I wonder if the new station in Waterford will be named Plunkett as well, or will it get a new name (I'm unsure if the existing station is remaining too)