Listen to the History we have learned about the Great Midland and Western Railway and especially about Ballinasloe.
Signal Box:
Ballinasloe Station has an old signal box. It hasn’t been used since 2003. Now everything is automated.
Tom Earls brought us in groups to the signal box. It was class. It is a little room with a store.
And it had lots of levers red ones, white ones, green ones and black ones. He even let us pull them. There were also lots of old and new telephone box with buttons on them. There was a wheel that you use to turn to open the bridge. We even got to see a train from the signal box, and saw the gates open and close.
Ballinasloe Railway Hotel:
Just up the road from the station is the old Ballinasloe railway Building. It is a lovely building. The architect was James Forth Kempster. See here: http://www.dia.ie/works/view/9358/building/CO.+GALWAY,+BALLINASLOE,+RAILWAY+HOTEL
It is now owned by the FCA. Sean Tully, an historian from Ballinasloe told us that it is meant to be haunted by the ghost of a Train traveller who hung himself in one of its rooms!! Wooooooooooo!
