VIDEO - End of the line for Northern Ireland's Great Victoria Street railway station as last-ever passengers board trains ahead of demolition

The railway station in central Belfast is to be shuttered and eventually razed as part of Translink’s plans to build a far bigger bus-and-rail station nearby called Grand Central Station.

It’s part of a general overhaul of the rail network in Belfast which has seen Central Station revamped and renamed Lanyon Place, and has seen Yorkgate station demolished and replaced with a radically-new York Street station.

• WATCH: A one-minute video whizz through Belfast's brand new York Street railway station as 'grim' old one set for demolition within days

William Watson and Kay McCarthy wave farewell to a departing train at Great Victoria Street Station yesterday morning

The original Great Victoria Street station shut in 1978, and it was then re-opened in 1995.

The reason it needs to close at this particular time is so that Northern Ireland Railways (the subsidary of Translink which runs the rail network) can divert the tracks to the new station, which is due to open in the latter quarter of this year:

• First-ever footage of the colossal replacement for Great Victoria Street Station in Belfast - now renamed Grand Central Station and due for completion in one year

It is expected that substitute bus services will replace train ones in the meantime.

Great Victoria Street station when it opened in 1995

One of those bidding the old station goodbye was Philip O’Neill, aged 62.

He had worked on the railways for 42 years until a couple of years ago, starting as a kind of engineering apprentice in 1979 and working his way up to become chief operations officer.

He recalled the tough times back then, when he was tasked with keeping the cross-border rail line open in the face of IRA bomb attacks on lines and bridges.

"It was a very, very quick education,” he said. “It was almost like dog years – what you learned in one year was like seven anywhere else.”

Asked if the (re)openeing of Great Victoria Street in 1995 signalled Belfast’s emergence from the darkest days of the Troubles, he said: “Absolutely. It was clearly a renaissance – primarily for rail, but more widely for public transport.

"It has been hugely successful, but its success is such that it has outgrown its capacity.”

There were school groups visiting the station yesterday, as well as a choir, to mark its final day.

"It’s one of those bittersweet moments, marking a point in history,” Translink CEO Chris Conway told the News Letter.

"This station itself has been here about 30 years but there has been a Great Victoria Street station going back to the mid-1800s, so there’s a lot of history in this area.

“But by the same token, we’re making way for a brand new station which is going to transform public transport in Northern Ireland.”

The large-scale re-jig of Belfast’s railway stations is intended to rectify a long-standing anomaly: namely, that Belfast’s main station was not actually in the city centre.

For years, Central Station was the principle junction and the departure point for the cross-border Enterprise train.

But its name was always a misnomer, given that it stood about half-a-mile east of the city centre, whilst Great Victoria Street was closer.

Now Great Victoria Street’s replacement station, Grand Central, will be the primary hub for the city’s rail network.

Mr Conway said there were “a lot of reasons” to do away with the old Great Victoria Street station, including that it is "quite compact, quite small” and “there just isn’t enough room for the Enterprise”.