The Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway (SL&NCR) was a railway in counties Cavan, Fermanagh, Leitrim and Sligo in north-west Ireland. It consisted of one main line, with no branch lines and remained privately owned until its closure. History From the time that the Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway (L&ER) was completed in 1859 there was a number of proposals to connect the line with Sligo. A "Londonderry, Enniskillen and Sligo Railway" was proposed that would have run west from via Manorhamilton direct to Sligo. The Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway (E&BR) was incorporated in 1862, was opened from on the L&ER to Bundoran on the Atlantic coast in 1868 and had Parliamentary powers to continue from Bundoran to Sligo, but failed to do so. The SL&NCR Company was incorporated in 1875, and its construction started at a junction with the Great Northern Railway (GNR) at Enniskillen and proceeded westwards. The E&BR accepted defeat and in 1878 Parliament passed an Act allowing it to abandon its commitment to extend to Sligo from Bundoran. The SL&NCR adopted as its company seal a picture of two steam locomotives colliding, with one derailed and the other remaining on the track. This commemorated the SL&NCR's success in reaching Sligo and the E&BR's failure to do the same. The SL&NCR opened as far as in 1879, in 1880, Collooney in 1881 and Carrignagat Junction on the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) opened in 1882, completing a line of about . Beyond Carrignagat Junction the SL&NCR exercised running powers over the MGWR to and from Sligo. In 1895 the Waterford, Limerick and Western Railway (WL&WR) was extended to Collooney, forming junctions with the MGWR and SL&NCR. This gave access to a larger area of western Ireland, whose cattle exports formed a significant part of the SL&NCR's traffic. The SL&NCR was one of the railways that the Irish Free State's Great Southern Railways did not absorb in 1925 because it crossed the border with Northern Ireland. It became the last privately owned railway undertaking to survive in Ireland (although the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway still existed as a road transport firm). The company never prospered since the countryside it crossed was poor and sparsely populated, although at one time intermittent heavy cattle traffic used the line. Governments on both sides of the border subsidised the railway in its later years, but the SL&NCR closed on 1 October 1957