Animated scenes as Christmas travelling takes grip (1927)

Large numbers of people had been coming into the city from the provincial towns and rural areas to do their Christmas shopping, and “perhaps nowhere is the joyous spirit of the season more in evidence than at a big railway station as the trains go out in the evening heavily laden with tired but happy shoppers,” noted the News Letter.

It commented: “Tightly gripping mysterious parcels and packages, men, women and children, but mostly women and children, surge and struggle at the platform barriers. They are, however, good-humoured crowds, for this hustling and jostling is all part of the fun and excitement of the Christmas shopping adventure. This week we shall see an even greater influx of visitors from the country, and towards its close the big exodus from the city will take place.”

The report added: “All this coming and going throws a considerable strain upon the staffs of the railways, but thanks to the admirable arrangements made a long time beforehand by the respective managements, travellers have nowadays to put up with the minimum of inconvenience, and delays and discomforts are nothing like what they used to be during the festive season.

“All the companies having their termini in Belfast, as well as the various steamship lines, have issued their holiday programmes, from which it will be seen that prospective travellers are to be catered for in a very comprehensive manner.”

On the Belfast and County Down Railway tickets will be issued at weekend rates on Friday and Saturday, and also on Christmas Day, and these were available for return up to and including Monday, 2nd January.

Meanwhile, on Christmas Day itself and the two following days there were excursions to Newcastle, Killough, Ardglass, and Donaghadee, whilst on the Bangor line the usual cheap rates would apply throughout the holiday period.