Victoria Bridge

The tramway junction

Victoria Bridge was the junction where the Castlederg tramway met the Great Northern Railway. Operating from 1884 to 1933, the tramway linked Castlederg with the main railway network, carrying passengers, goods and communications. Its place in local memory was revisited by the Tramway Tales community project, whose 2026 programme used drama, readings and music to explore these former transport links. ^[2]

A contemporary railway account, reproduced with later editorial additions, records five passenger vehicles and twenty-nine goods wagons at the end of 1932. The line had been built to the three-foot gauge, unlike the main railway at its Victoria Bridge terminus. It also experimented with a twenty-four-seat rail motor coach in 1925. These details reveal the small scale of the service behind the village’s role as an interchange. ^[4]

St Eugene’s and the smaller rural schools

St Eugene’s Primary School opened in 1960. Its anniversary account records that children from Liscreevenagh School, closed earlier that year, were among the first pupils. When Legfordrun School closed in 1973, its children also transferred to St Eugene’s, bringing enrolment to 132. The history traces how education in the surrounding district became concentrated in the village school, which marked its sixty-fifth anniversary in 2025. ^[3]