IT'S a love story like no other with a happy ending – all thanks to the brilliant staff at Belfast’s Grand Central and Lanyon Place stations.
The drama began when two swans which had been blown off course by Storm Boelo ended up on the railway line near Lanyon, forcing the driver to halt Sunday’s Derry-Belfast train. When the swans finally moved on, the staff were happy to let them go on their way.
But the pair somehow got separated, one ending up at Botanic and the other at Grand Central. Later that night, a track maintenance team rescued the swan at Botanic. The team were on their way to Craigavon, so why not release it in the famous Craigavon Lakes?
They weren’t aware that the swan had a mate – who had made its way on webbed feet to Grand Central looking for its partner.
Station supervisor Bláithín Irvine and her colleagues were preparing to lock up and head home for the night when the swan “walked past the window”.
“I started laughing – I said am I seeing things? A swan has just walked past the front doors!” she said to her colleagues.
She had been earlier informed of the swans on the track at Lanyon.
Bláithín spots one of the swans
“I wasn’t really surprised because in the last couple of days we’ve had dogs, sheep and cows on the track, but this was a first,” she said.
“There was so much disruption on Saturday because of the storm and there were still delays on Sunday night because there was a lot of debris on the line.
"That’s what we initially thought the delay was, but it was actually because the swans were on the track.”
Staff at Grand Central kept the lonesome swan safe.
“We were holding the swan in a dog hold area at the Boyne Bridge entrance and there were security guards outside it to make sure no one goes near it,” said Bláithín.
Louis in Control then informed Bláithín that swans mate for life and their bonds are so strong that if separated, they can die of a broken heart.
“The swan at Grand Central will wander around here calling for its mate that it will never find, and it could die because it will never find its partner,” she said.
And so a plan to reunite the pair was put into action.
The driver of the maintenance train was told of the situation – thankfully he had not yet reached Craigavon.
The swans at Lanyon
He returned to Lanyon and put the swan in the Lagan beside the station.
Bláithín says: “He couldn’t go to Grand Central because they were doing work on the line, so they sent a crew from P-Way (Permanent Way) to collect it in their van.
“Security guard Sammy gathered the swan up on a blanket and it was driven back to the Lagan to finally be reunited with its mate.”
The Lagan Love story was completed at 11.30pm on Sunday.
“I was delighted,” says Bláithín. “Honestly, I probably would have died of a broken heart myself if they had never been reunited and the swan had died.”
