Some hospital workers are ditching the train and taking the car to work following the removal of two stations from the Portadown to Belfast line after the opening of the £340m Grand Central Station.
Trains coming from Portadown and Lisburn now no longer stop at the City Hospital and Botanic train stations and are only included on the Bangor line, since trains started operating from the new Grand Central Station on Sunday.
Those wanting to travel from the Portadown line to City Hospital and Botanic, including from stations such as Moira, Lisburn and Dunmurry, will now have to disembark at Grand Central Station and transfer to a separate train.
Frustrated hospital staff, including those working in the specialist Cancer Centre at Belfast City Hospital, have said they will now drive to work instead of using public transport.
Christopher Campbell and his wife both work as radiographers at the City Hospital and travel from Portadown, but will now take the car due to the changes.
“The simple answer is it’s meant I haven’t gone back to the train this week because it just takes too long,” Christopher told The Irish News.
“We would have to switch at Grand Central which means that you’re then banking on everything running on time.
“I finish work at 5pm and the next train from City Hospital to Grand Central is at 5:15. That means I have six minutes to get from there to get to the next train at Grand Central to get to Portadown.
“The chances of making that connection aren’t great and the next train to Portadown is then 5:41 so it just starts to get too late. Our child’s nursery closes at 6pm so I need to make it back before then.
“It has basically left me with no realistic option other than to drive unfortunately.”
Earlier this week Infrastructure Minister John O’Dowd encouraged the public to try public transport as a way of avoiding increased traffic congestion in Belfast. A DfI spokesperson said the issue was an “operational” one for Translink.
A spokesperson for Translink explained that the new Grand Central Station was designed to be a “terminus” and that the changes have given more “robustness” to timetables.
“As the main terminus station for Belfast, Grand Central Station will offer increased connectivity and integration with the wider public transport network for connections across Northern Ireland, ROI and beyond. It will also increase reliability and efficiency of services across the network.
“All former through services will also now require a change and passengers should allow extra time to interchange to another bus or rail service if continuing on a different route.
“We appreciate that these changes may affect some people differently and we are looking at ways to make it as seamless as possible.
“We understand that it will mean a small delay and an extra change for some passengers but we would encourage them to give it a go.”
