There is a little good news on the rail services in this region. There will be significant investment in the line from Coleraine to Derry. Past Coleraine the line runs to Belfast. There it connects with the rest of what is left of the rail network in Ireland. The good news is only limited because rail services in Donegal and Tyrone were closed in 1965. That was despite the line from Portadown to Derry, via St Johnston and Carrigans, being profitable. The news is relevant, because Waterside Railway station in Derry is only about four and a half miles from Donegal. That is the shortest distance, to the Border at Bridgend. Since 2004 the line from Derry has had a positive change in fortune. In 2004 top civil servants in the North came out with two proposals. One was bad, the other worse. The first was to close the railway west of Coleraine. The second was to close even more railway, from north of Ballymena.
