Structure type At-grade Owner Iarnród Éireann Platforms in use 1 | Operated by Iarnród Éireann Opened 1862 | |
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Location CobhRepublic of Ireland Similar Cobh Heritage Centre, Carrigaloe railway station, Cork Kent railway station, Midleton railway station, Glounthaune railway station | ||
Cobh railway station serves the town of Cobh, County Cork. It is located in a red brick building adjacent to the town's Cobh Heritage Centre.
Contents
It is the terminus of the on Cork-Cobh section of the Cork Suburban Rail line. Travel to Glounthaune station to transfer to Midleton.
Description
The station is staffed part-time and has a single platform. The station is accessible only via a steep ramp.
History
The station opened 10 March 1862 and was closed for goods traffic on 3 November 1975.
It began life as the terminus of the Cobh (then Queenstown) section of the Cork, Youghal & Queenstown Railway.
The present station occupies only a small part of the old station building. The original station was expanded greatly during the latter part of the 19th century as it served what was then Ireland's largest emigration port which was also an important way-point as the last port between Western Europe and North America. The station was also the main receiving centre for mails for Ireland and Britain from the United States and Canada. Mail would be brought by ship to Cobh, processed and forwarded by mail express trains to Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) on the outskirts of Dublin and on to Holyhead. This was faster than conveying by ship directly to Liverpool.
It is famous for being the station where hundreds of survivors of the RMS Lusitania disaster left the town of Cobh after surviving the sinking.
With the development and growth of transatlantic air traffic Cobh lost its importance as a mail and passenger centre. A significant part of the train station remained largely unused until the opening of the Cobh Heritage Centre in the front part of the station in the 1980s. At that time the station was also reduced to a single platform. The freight yard of the station has now become a public carpark while another part of the station has become a covered carpark for Cobh Garda Station.