Whilst in Galloway, don't forget Garlieston, at the end of a branch on the Wigtonshire Railway. IIRC it was closed to passengers c1900, but the branch stayed open for freight. The station was just across a road from the harbour, but the tracks crossed the road to serve sidings on the quay.
D L Smith tells of occasional special excursions being run from Campbeltown to the Isle of Man, with a steamer working from Campbeltown (on the Kintyre peninsular) to Straraer, then a train to Garlieston (reversing at Newton Stewart) followed by another steamer to IoM. An especially challenging operation, given the tidal nature of Garlieston harbour. This working of a passenger train from one harbour station to another must have been pretty unusual. Were there any other examples I wonder?
No easy direct access from the station to the river.Warrington Bank Quay?
That reminds me that the Campbeltown terminus of the Campbeltown and Machrihanish narrow gauge railway was alongside the harbour....although I believe that the Clyde steamers and ferries to Ballycastle in Ireland departed from berths a little further round the bay.Whilst in Galloway, don't forget Garlieston, at the end of a branch on the Wigtonshire Railway. IIRC it was closed to passengers c1900, but the branch stayed open for freight. The station was just across a road from the harbour, but the tracks crossed the road to serve sidings on the quay.
D L Smith tells of occasional special excursions being run from Campbeltown to the Isle of Man, with a steamer working from Campbeltown (on the Kintyre peninsular) to Straraer, then a train to Garlieston (reversing at Newton Stewart) followed by another steamer to IoM. An especially challenging operation, given the tidal nature of Garlieston harbour. This working of a passenger train from one harbour station to another must have been pretty unusual. Were there any other examples I wonder?
Mostyn had a ferry service to Dublin between 2001 and 2004 and briefly in 2020, but the station is long closed.Monk's Ferry (Birkenhead). Became disused after Woodside opened.
And a few that were (probably) freight only - but all had connections to the "main line":-
Foryd (Rhyl); Mostyn Quay; Greenfield Quay (Holywell) - early casualty due to silting of River Dee estuary; Connah's Quay; Hawarden Bridge; Saltney Stage (Chester) - another early closure; Deganwy Pier; Penmaenmawr; Port Penryn; Caernarfon Slate Quay.
(For example, see
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16.0&lat=53.29319&lon=-3.83504&layers=6&b=1
Yes, it's in the OP's first post.Have we included the much lamented Weymouth Quay on the list yet?
There was quite a significant flow, probably mostly in the 1900s-1920s era, of emigrants from Eastern Europe who came by ship from Continental ports to Hull (and likely Goole as well), then by train across to Liverpool, for the ships to the USA and Canada. I read the Lancashire & Yorkshire had much of the traffic, and provided special trains but, alas, their worst, wooden-seated stock for it. The L&Y's own shipping line ran from Goole to a range of European ports. There were surprisingly few direct ships from mainland ports in the northern North Sea and the Baltic to North America. There is a statue to such an emigrant family group on the waterfront at Liverpool.This working of a passenger train from one harbour station to another must have been pretty unusual. Were there any other examples I wonder?
Winston Pier - approximating to the current Ardrossan Harbour station - was G&SWR and Montgomerie Pier was Caley....both became LMS After the 1923 grouping of course.Ardrossan had two - Winton Pier and Montgomery Pier. One GSWR, one Caley - can't remember which was which!
As they also did, beyond Harwich Town station on the Essex coast.The sidings at Mallaig extended onto the Pier and likewise Oban had sidings adjacent to the quayside.
This thread has some good examples in the Republic of Ireland but, apart from Larne, are/were there any others in Northern Ireland?Larne Harbour
1 Reason for this is Commercial - railway companies often owned the Dock, ships, maritime lines or some combination thereof. Airports havent had the same close connection. Another reason is time - when the railways were being built, they could aim for suitable sites to build harbours. Whereas airports came after the railways but needed large areas of flat land so couldn't always be built immediately adjacent to a station.This may be straying a bit too far off topic, but this thread illustrates just how closely integrated rail and marine passenger and freight traffic have been in the past. This seems to be in marked contrast with the lack of urgency there has been over the years in establishing a similar level of integration between rail and air traffic. Even in the era of Railway Air Services, the closest station to Croydon Aerodrome (RAS main operating centre) was the suburban station at Waddon. IIRC there was a short branch line built to serve the Aerodrome site during construction/expansion in the 1920s, but was lifted once the building works were completed.