New technology means it is the end of the line for the signal box at Mullingar railway station.
For more than one hundred years signal boxes at Mullingar railway station in County Westmeath and nearby Killucan railway station ensured train traffic passed smoothly from Dublin to Sligo and Galway.
The signal box at Killucan Railway Station for the old Galway line has been decommissioned as Iarnród Éireann transitions to a computerised signalling system.
Now it is the end of the line for the services of the Mullingar railway station signal box. The Dublin Connolly Station to Sligo train is the final one to pass through before manual lever system is replaced by new technology.
Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) is spending 16 million euro on a computer coordinated system leaving all but four signal boxes in the country obsolete. The numerous levers and their associated cables, bells and keys are being replaced by a single computer screen.
Mullingar signalmen Paddy Begley recalls the time when the station was a workplace for hundreds of men. His colleague Seán Casey notes the historical importance of the station,
Trains at one time from Belfast to Cork never had to touch Dublin.
The signal box at Mullingar railway station also part of a key scene in the 1979 heist film 'The Great Train Robbery' starring Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Anne Down.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 14 November 2005. The reporter is Ciarán Mullooly.
