Irish Region of British Railways

It is a popular myth that the island of Ireland comes closest to Great Britain at a point 12 miles from Scotland*. However, this is derived from the reproduction of some very early (and incorrect) maps, which  continues in the present day. The following map, courtesy of The True Size Of... shows the real location of the island in relation to Great Britain.

As this map clearly shows, the two islands are in fact closest at three gaps of around 1km. The Padstow crossing - to Killmore - was first bridged by the LSWR, who operate most of the railways in the south of Ireland. The middle crossing, from Marloes, near Milford Haven, took the GWR straight into Dublin. The northernmost crossing was built by the LNWR, who extended their line from Carmarthen for the purpose. The second map is cruder in terms of geographical accuracy, but outlines each of the three companies' routes in Ireland, and is supplied using data from Rail Map online.

At the grouping in 1923, all standard gauge railways in Ireland were grouped in the same way as the companied that built them: into the Southern Railway, GWR, and LMS. When the railways were nationalised in 1948, all railways in Ireland became a part of the Irish Region of British Railways. The Irish Region was perhaps the most interesting on BR as it inherited rolling stock from three of the four pre-nationalisation companies, as well as receiving an allocation of BR standards. Because of the large range of locomotive operated on the Irish Region, and the experience and data available as a result, the Irish Region was also used to test prototype vehicles for use on the rest of the network. Today, services within Ireland are operated by a number of TOCs. Services to from London to Dublin are run by GWR, and there are cross-border local and regional services to south Wales and Devon and Cornwall.

*Other common myths include that parts of Ireland became independent from the UK in the early 20th Century and that Irish railways were built in broad gauge.