It’s very possible that the first sounds heard by Enniskillen native Charles Friel were engines shunting, cattle lowing, wagons clanging, whistles blowing and the shed foreman shouting at the engine cleaners.

This is because he was born in 1946 at the old County Hospital in Enniskillen which overlooked the railway station.

The lifelong railway enthusiast can’t quite remember his first train journey but is certain that he was four months old and in a carry-cot seeping in the experience which would prove to be a significant marker for the rest of his life.

Railways were always part of Friel family life. His father was an instructor in the RUC Depot with roots in Fanad, north Donegal, while his mother came from north Sligo and was a nurse in the hospital where he first encountered the railways.

Charles recalls that back in those days there was simply no other way to travel than by train. 

"We lived in Wickham Drive, now the Belmore Court Motel, and our railway journeys always began with a trek up the length of Westville and then along the Rope Walk to the station. While our parents bought the tickets, the junior Friels tried to peer through the big sliding door onto the platform. But the mighty sound of an engine suddenly blowing off instilled sheer, though short lived terror." 

Childhood railway journeys were to Bundoran and then Sligo on a Great Northern bus. Often there were three trains in the station at Bundoran Junction casting a bewitching spell on the innocent eyes dazzled by the sheer spectacle of the locomotives before them: "To add to the excitement, there was a petrol-driven luggage trolley that banged its way about the platforms with wobbling suitcases and noisy boxes of day old chicks from the hatchery on the Tempo Road. The Junction also had a footbridge that we used on the way home and an imposing-looking refreshment room that occasionally we went into." 

Young Charles soon learned to look out for the stations at Irvinestown and Kesh further along the Bundoran branch line and the advance warnings that came courtesy of Brewster’s and Inglis’ colourful bread containers in the sidings.

Charles Friel.Charles Friel. (Image: Charles Friel)

At stations like Pettigo people got off to “do the island" and soon after that stop, there was the excitement of a glimpse of Lower Lough Erne just before Castlecaldwell. 

"It was along here that part of the railway embankment once slipped into the lough. For a while, you had to get a bus around the slip and I remember having to do the same when a lorry hit the bridge near Letter at the western end of Boa Island and closed the railway for a time." 

After the colourful one-platform station at Castlecaldwell, Charles and his siblings would strain to see the fiddler’s stone and then count how long it took to get through the tunnel at the end of the Belleek platform before the perilous crossing of the dark waters of the river Erne.

Once across the girder bridge, the prospect of the Customs stop was a less thrilling aspect of the journey.

The Belleek customs officers had no interest in passengers leaving Northern Ireland but their curiosity appeared to increase dramatically on arrival at Ballyshannon.

After this stop at the oldest town in Ireland, the yellow tops of the high sandy banks at Tullan Strand signalled the approach of the sea and holidays. Bundoran was a particularly busy stop with excursion trains arriving from all over the country.

There were extra summer Sunday trains from Londonderry and Omagh, Cavan and Clones, Portadown and Armagh as well as from Belfast and Dublin. In Tyrone, Coalisland ran excursion trains to Bundoran and factories from as far away as Sion Mills or Lurgan organised annual day trips for their staff.

Going the other way were very early trains to GAA matches in Clones or Dublin, Schools’ Cup finals in Belfast, the Spring Shows in Balmoral or the RDS in Dublin.

Charles also has fond memories of travelling to his father’s home place in Donegal which involved taking the GNR train to Strabane and then on to Letterkenny on the narrow gauge. 

"These journeys brought a glimpse of the famed Fintona Horse Tram but sadly we never saw Dick, the horse - he (or she) was always safely in the stable while the noisy steam trains were in the station." 

The family also used Enniskillen’s other railway - the Sligo-Leitrim. They rarely travelled further than Belcoo but even that journey was one to be savoured: "First came the excitement of trying to see our house as we skirted the woods of Castlecoole, riding high above the houses in Lower Celtic Park and the green where the circuses used to set up. That was soon followed by crossing the Dublin Road and then the Weirs Bridge, high above Lough Erne. These Belcoo expeditions were really to Blacklion with the return under cover of darkness to smuggle home sugar or whatever food was rationed. After the nerve-wracking silent walk past the Customs caravan on the border, the flickering oil lamp of Belcoo's waiting room was a very welcome sight." 

But all too soon, modes of transport and patterns of travel began to change, the railway gradually lost business and while governments disagreed on what to do, opportunities disappeared and the railway lost out.

The increasing rumours of closure were confirmed in 1956 when Stormont announced that it intended to close the lines between Portadown and Tynan, Newtownbutler and Omagh, and from Bundoran Junction to Belleek.

Such a loss was seen by many as having a catastrophic effect on life in these border counties and was all the more surprising since the Prime Minister was a Fermanagh man.

In June 1957, the government announced that the lines would close on Monday, September 30, 1957.

The dramatic closure led to a great scattering of the railway family. Some found jobs on the remaining railways but many men and women had to look for other work at a time when there were few options.

Staff from the railway offices found it hard to find new positions. Openings for skilled shunter engine cleaners, permanent way men, engine drivers and firemen were few and far between.

This year marks the 67th anniversary of the closure and while Enniskillen is now almost devoid of traces of the railway, places like Ballyshannon, Irvinestown, Pettigo, Belcoo and Glenfarne still have their station buildings and people who are keen to keep the past alive.

The museum at Headhunter’s in Darling Street, Enniskillen continues to provide a unique meeting point for those who were involved, for those who remember and for those who want to know what their relations did on the county’s railways.

Charles recalls the last words that he heard from the late Tom McDevitte, alias Barney McCool: “They can close all the railways they like but they can’t take away our memories!”

For that, at least, this proud Fermanagh man and railway enthusiast believes we can all be very grateful.

Charles Friel, Enniskillen native, railway historian, photographer and preservationist will present an illustrated talk on Monday, September 30, the anniversary of the closure of Fermanagh’s railways in 1957, at Mahons Hotel, Irvinestown at 7.30pm, hosted by Headhunters Railway Museum.