Derrie Danders: From the Walled City to Coleraine by Train

The Derry/Londonderry to Coleraine railway line is one of the most scenic rail routes in Ireland. On this audio tour, you'll hear the story of this remarkable coastal journey, from a city shaped by siege and emigration to a coastline carved by ancient myth and wartime history. You'll also discover how this very line was nearly closed forever in 2003.

The tour starts at the North West Transport Hub in Derry/Londonderry, a Grade B listed station originally built in 1873. As the train pulls away, you'll take in views of the River Foyle and the Peace Bridge, whose deliberately twisting design reflects the complicated path of peace in Northern Ireland. You'll pass Lisahally Port, where approximately 40 surrendered German U-Boats were moored at the end of World War II, and follow the river as it widens into Lough Foyle and meets the North Atlantic.

Travelling inland past Binevenagh mountain – said to have inspired the purple-headed mountain in the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful – you'll return to the coast for the sweeping seven-mile stretch of Benone and Downhill beaches. The tour then plunges through two Victorian railway tunnels, blasted through solid rock between 1846 and 1852, before pulling into the seaside village of Castlerock and continuing along the River Bann to the final stop at Coleraine station.

On this 45-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• See the Foyle Bridge, built with steel sections floated upriver from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast
• Learn how Lisahally Port served as a key Allied naval base, HMS Ferret, during the Battle of the Atlantic
• Spot the Mussenden Temple perched on the clifftop above Downhill beach
• Hear the legend of the blind Irish harpist Denis O'Hampsey, who reportedly lived to 112 and fathered a child in his 80s
• Cross the Bann Railway Bridge, the only operational lifting railway bridge in Northern Ireland
• Discover how this region inspired C.S. Lewis's fictional kingdom of Narnia

Sit back, look out, and let the landscape tell its story.