The Cairnryan Military Railway
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By Bill Gill. Published by the Oakwood Press, softback, 48 pages, priced £11.95, ISBN; 978-0-85361-762-4
This book was first published in 1999 under the auspices of the Stranraer and District Local History Trust. The author died shortly after completing the original manuscript, so it seems appropriate that this ‘expanded ‘Oakwood’’ edition is dedicated to him.
The book is a classic story of the railway engineering its own demise – perhaps a tale of unintended consequences. First there was Stranraer, then the military port of Cairnryan – and now traffic for Northern Ireland uses the former military facility rather than the traditional ‘railway’ one. Stylishly illustrated with maps,War decline was rapid, although a large proportion of the wartime fleet, along with a number of German U-boats, were consigned to history at Cairnryan.
