Ireland’s Railway Past, Present and Future

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Explore Ireland’s railways across time—from historic lines and stations to today’s network and proposed future projects.

Use the interactive map below to search, choose layers and explore the timeline.

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🗺️ Explore the interactive map 👇

💡 Tip: For the best experience, click the 'Expand' :notion_expand:button on the interactive map (top-right) and view it in a desktop browser, such as Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge.

ireland-railway-route-search-stops.html

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❤️ Support My Work on Dereliction, History & Heritage

If you value my work documenting Ireland’s dereliction and vacancy, and helping to preserve its history and heritage, you can support my future research, restoration and photography through:

:patreon-round-color: Patreon: Become a supporter

:paypal: PayPal: Make a donation

📧 Get in touch by email for commissions, collaborations and general enquiries : [email protected]

Thank you for your support. It helps me continue sharing Ireland’s rich history and heritage with a wider audience.

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🧭 Getting started

Find a place: Start typing a station, route, place or company in Explore. Choose a suggestion to zoom to that record, or select View matches on map to view matches. After selecting a line, click View matches on map to show related mapped stops and their names; click again to restore the previous stop and name settings. After selecting a station, click the button to show matching names, again to show related mapped lines, and again to restore the earlier line and name settings. If you use the button instead of choosing a suggestion, its first click shows the matches. Broad searches use up to 40 matching stops or lines for related records; refine the search or choose a specific suggestion. Use the arrow keys and Enter to choose a suggestion with a keyboard. Matching layers may turn on automatically, and the year filter still applies. Some links are based on proximity or selected route stops and are approximate, incomplete or duplicated—not verified evidence of service at each station. Zoom in if names are hidden or overlap.
Choose what to show: Under Basemap, choose the Historic, Present day or Future projects preset. Click the same preset again to show its stops, again for names, and again for lines only. Choosing a different preset clears search; Present day and Future projects also set a year. Repeated clicks keep your filters. Historic starts with the year filter off, showing available mapped routes from different periods together, including modern railway sections and the 2012 timeline’s line sections. Enable the year filter to explore an approximate timeline; the slider initially shows 1900. Click Historic again for station markers and again for names. The 2012 line and station layers also have separate controls under Past; they may overlap the ATU layers, which can be switched off for clarity. Most historic station records and selected tram stops or termini are undated. Present day uses the current year and 2023 modern-line geometry, and includes the separately mapped Lartigue heritage monorail and Giant’s Causeway and Bushmills heritage railway; Future projects uses 2036 as an illustrative scenario and includes the Limerick–Foynes freight line. The freight line is excluded from Present day because freight service has not been confirmed. The sidebar groups routes under Past, Present and Future & projects; use the jump links to move between them. Expand Route details beneath a View button to read its notes. A route’s View button first turns on and zooms to the line and displays its name above the map; further clicks show stops, then names, then isolate the route and its stops. Click once more to restore the previous layer selection. Year and search filters still apply. Expand Map contents above the map to see non-zero counts of enabled line and stop records and displayed names in the current view. Counts update as you move the map or change the layers and filters; line records may extend beyond the view. Expand Map legend below the map for line colours and patterns, or Sources, data & rights at the bottom for credits. Click a line or dot for its details. Some route View buttons also open a historic photograph; close it to make more room for the map and use Show photo to reopen it.
Use the quick layer controls: Select All lines, All stops and stations or All stop and station names to change groups of layers together. A dash in a checkbox means only some of its layers are on. Turning names on also turns on their stops; turning stops off hides their names. Search and year filters still apply.
Travel through time: In Year explorer, enable the partial year filter, move the slider between 1834 and 2036 or press Play. Use Reset filters to reset the filters. The counters show approximate mapped line kilometres and estimated stop, station or location records across the whole map, not only the visible area. Historic railway and tram stops are approximately linked to compatible enabled lines within 100 metres, even if their marker layers are off; modern railway sections are included in those estimates when a historic rail layer is enabled. Search filters the lines used in these estimates. Known individual stop dates are used where available; otherwise stops are assumed to follow a nearby active line. The additional dedicated narrow-gauge layers count their selected stops against their active route sections; those selected stops are not complete inventories. Other stop and location records are counted when their own layers are enabled. Some likely duplicates are merged, but duplicates and overlapping lines can still be counted more than once. Undated stops can appear before they opened or after they closed, line dates can be wrong, and future projects are illustrative. These are not verified historical network totals. The year filter still applies to search results. Some routes are wrongly excluded because their source dates describe companies rather than route operation. Turn off the year filter to see all available mapped lines, including those with uncertain or invalid dates; this is not a network for a single year.
See station names: Turn on the relevant name checkbox and zoom in. Some labels are hidden to reduce overlap; source names can be townlands rather than formal station names.
Choose a background: Under Basemap, choose OpenStreetMap streets or the built-in simplified map. The street map requires an internet connection and a suitable HTTPS host; if tiles cannot load, the app falls back to the simplified map.

📖 Understanding the map

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This is an interactive research prototype, not a complete or verified historical operating timeline or a live network map.

The Year Explorer is a partial timeline. Many historic line dates are unverified and may refer to railway companies rather than individual route openings or closures. The filter can therefore hide routes that were actually operating. Turning it off shows available mapped lines together, but does not establish that they operated at the same time.

Most historic station records are undated and remain visible regardless of year, although a small researched set follows the timeline. Selected stops on dedicated tramway and narrow-gauge layers may follow broad route or system periods rather than verified individual dates. The separate 2012 timeline covers selected GSR/CIE routes, not the complete island, and can overlap other layers.

Modern railway geometry comes from a 2023 snapshot: some sections have approximate researched dates; undated sections appear from 2023 when filtering, which is not their opening year. Routes and stop locations can be approximate, the counters are estimates, and planned projects and their illustrative dates may change.

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🚉 Routes and projects

The map’s sidebar groups its layers under Past, Present and Future & projects. Explore the historic railway and tramway networks, individual narrow-gauge routes, modern railway and Luas lines, heritage railways and proposed projects using their separate controls. Open Route details in the map for a concise description; select a mapped line or stop for further details and sources.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_Rail_Ireland_Viceregal_Commission_1906.jpg