The station was opened on 12 August 1839 by the Ulster Railway. The station buildings were rebuilt in 1878 to designed by William Henry Mills, for the then newly formed Great Northern Railway of Ireland. On Wednesday 20 December 1978, there was a fatal collision between two trains. The fire brigade attended and cut out the person killed from the wreckage. A number of other people were treated for minor injuries and shock.
Current building
It has been renovated, with a new waiting area on platform 1, new toilets and vending machines. addition, on platforms 2 and 3, a coffee shop operates on weekday mornings, to accommodate commuters travelling towards Belfast. To make the station more accessible, lifts have been installed on each platform.
The Northern Ireland Digital Film Archive holds a clip of black and white film. It was made in 1897 and was filmed from a moving train going through Lisburn Railway Station on the way from Belfast to Kingstown, Dublin. The name of the station can be seen and in addition, the view includes the platform, train carriages, station buildings and large houses along the length of North Circular Road, Lisburn.
Service
Mondays to Saturdays there is a half-hourly service towards or in one direction, and to, or in the other. Extra services run at peak times, and the service reduces to hourly operation in the evenings. Only one Enterprise service calls at the station, the Sunday 09:13 to Dublin Connolly. Certain peak time trains also run as expresses between here and. On Sundays there is an hourly NIR service in each direction.
Until 2003, Lisburn was also a stop on the Belfast-Derry railway line. However, in 2001, the Bleach Green route was re-opened, after being closed in 1978. This provided a faster route for Derry Line trains than the Lisburn-Antrim line. A skeleton service was operated on this line until 2003, when passenger services were withdrawn. The other reason why the line was cut was because of the congestion on the route which caused considerable problems with the Enterprise Service for over 20 years. The line itself is still maintained for rolling stock transfers and emergency diversions. Passengers now wishing to travel to destinations on the Londonderry Line can no longer travel directly from Lisburn station, and must travel to to change trains.
There is a possibility of reopening the line to Antrim and possible reopening of the line from Portadown to Armagh railway station in Armagh. The Armagh Line has been listed in proposed plans to reopen the line.
