CDRRL Trail of the Rail


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CDRRL Trail of the Rail Festival 2005

Miniature Railway

In Spring 2005 CDRRL laid some 75 metres of 7¼” gauge track on the old station platform at Donegal Town in preparation for providing an occasional ride-on miniature railway service. For the 2005 Festival CDRRL invited a visit from the Damhead miniature railway in Coleraine who provided a 7¼” gauge steam locomotive for Sat 4^th June. CDRRL had also recently purchased a battery electric 7¼” gauge locomotive with an outline looking like a Bord Móna diesel tractor.

Steam Train

The steam trains ran for several hours on the Saturday and were well patronised. It is strongly believed that these trains are an attraction which brings people to the Festival and Donegal Town. €2 was charged for each train ride but there was a cost of bringing the group to Donegal Town and a large extra insurance payment of €153 to cover passengers.

Diesel Train

While the steam train was in use on the platform the battery train was run on a second short section of track, thus giving, on the Saturday, a second ride-on option at €1 per head. Given the on-cost of insurance was already covered, this was a useful extra supplement to the Festival income, but there was a need for an experienced driver who in this case was available as a volunteer.

Traction engine

Through the Damhead contact a Mr Patterson, owner of a working full-size steam traction engine, was contacted and the engine was brought to Donegal Town on the Saturday as a working attraction. The engine was kept in steam at the Centre and undertook a parade around Town to publicize the event, while carrying the Mayor of Donegal Town. This gave the festival excellent on-the-day promotion. Festival funds were used to make a payment towards the cost of bringing the traction engine.

Live entertainment

A singer was recruited for performances throughout the first two of the three day festival. The singer’s PA equipment was portable and this was used in a car to drive around the town promoting the event.

Children's competitions & entertainment

A tourism Consultant was recruited to assist with the management of the Festival in view of the serious illness of the CDRRL chairman. He brought tourism skills and a number of contacts, plus the ability to operate a PA system, DJ work, karaoke, and a series of children’s games. The games were a huge success and entertained every family with children. CDRRL are absolutely confident that all families with children who participated in the games went away feeling they had had an excellent time at the Festival. Similar games have now been repeated on an Open Day with equal success. The strategy of using such games will be used to attract and entertain local people as well as visitors, an important move when there is a decline in the tourist numbers.

Garden railway

Five models were available to provide motive power for the 45mm gauge garden railway. Two were radio controlled, one being live steam. Rolling stock was a mix of proprietary LGB which children love, and hand-built scale models of the County Donegal Railway which those who remember the railway and model enthusiasts like to see. Two volunteer expert CDRRL members with model railway skills operated the railway over the three days of the Festival attracting occasionally quite large crowds of onlookers.

Covered 45mm gauge railway

This is the same size and scale as the garden railway and is housed inside coach 28 thus being under cover in case of rain. It was operated to order over the three Festival Days by the volunteers running the garden railway using reliable LGB trains which make puffing noises and blow fake smoke making an excellent display for children.

Museum shop

A broad range of shop stock was available to railway enthusiasts who enjoy the books and videos/DVDs on local railway history and families who want to buy these as souvenirs or choose trinkets for themselves and their children. A range of railway toys was also stocked. The shop was staffed by Social Economy workers employed under the scheme at CDRRL and was reasonably busy throughout.

Book stand

Over the past four years CDRRL has run occasional open days where book stands have created a useful amount of trade. A good range of new and second-hand books was acquired very reasonably over the last three months by CDRRL and a special stand was put up with the expectation of it creating considerable interest and sales. The books, a mix of hardback and paperback, new and good second-hand, made an attractive display under the shelter of a gazebo in the station garden. The stand was manned by a combination of Social Economy staff and casual labour brought in for the Festival, but trade was not as much as expected.

Bric-a-brac

Again, over the past few months, CDRRL has acquired a considerable quantity of donated bric-a-brac of good quality. This was set out on a display stand so that goods was available for inspection and sale over the three days of the Festival under cover of a gazebo in case of poor weather. Trade here was again much less than expected and it may be that books and bric-a-brac should be reserved for open days publicised and reserved for second-hand sale purposes. The children’s games proved a much more appealing entertainment for visitors.

Flowers and horticulture stand

This was a new venture for 2005 and a complete display of pot plants and small bushes for easy purchase/carry-out was assembled under the large gazebo alongside the Face-Painter stand and supervised by Robert Ellis and Family. Part of the logic was that there are no local horticultural showrooms in the Town and this would fill a gap as part of the Festival. While a worthy experiment, generously funded by Robbie, there was only one sale and it seems this was not the walk-around attraction expected.

Face painting

A Face-Painting stand had been tried before and this year it was made a feature of all three days of the Festival. CDRRL managed to hire an excellent face-painter whose results were so good that both adults and children visited the stand for “treatment”. The face-painter could obviously only deal with one client at a time so there was a healthy queue of waiting customers for most of the Festival. The face-painter also felt the stand was very successful and has returned for subsequent open days where she again proved an attraction.

Classic car and van display

A large display of cars and light commercial vehicles arrived as a parade for display on the second day of the Festival. Thanks to kind permission from Bus Éireann, the cars were allowed to be displayed in the adjacent Bus Éireann garage car park for easy access by Festival visitors. The large contingent from the car club swelled the apparent number of visitors to the Festival although the net financial result would have been much smaller than this indicated since free refreshments were provided as part of the arrangement to organise so many cars attending.

Video & DVD presentations

These provided constantly running films on new equipment which can be set to repeat automatically without intervention. This means there was a constant presentation for any visitors at any time without staff having to be present to rewind or reset the equipment, enabling them to be able to concentrate on running the shop and model railways. Films consisted of original footage of the railway of County Donegal when running, a more recent compilation by CDRRL of the old railways and the way of life surrounding them with informative commentary, plus Thomas the Tank and Ivor the Engine stories on a separate VDU for children alongside a play-train set. The DVD rooms were a chance for parents to relax with a hot drink from the refreshment machine while the children were entertained by Thomas or Ivor and the playtrain set.

Scale model railways

Three trains representing a scale model of the County Donegal itself, CIE from the 1950s and Thomas the Tank for children were run throughout the Festival on the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre’s OO-gauge layout. Casual labour was recruited to supervise the layout for the three Festival days and to ensure younger visitors did not cause derailments.

Raffle/Draw

This produced a poor return compared with 2004. Visitors were not especially interested in purchasing tickets despite two staff being allocated to promote these in Town on the Festival days. On the other hand, expenses associated with the raffle were very limited too, with prizes being from stock except for the kindly donated meal for two from White’s Hotels which was first prize. The 2004 Raffle netted €792.50 for the railway, the 2005 raffle only €78. Clearly a more appealing and valuable set of prizes would be needed in future to justify a further raffle but this will need management and sales time to set up.

Ticket office

A single point of entry was arranged for the Festival site. The CDRRL caravan was placed alongside and used as the ticket office. Paying visitors through the gate were detectably lower than in 2004 although our numbers were swelled by the large club attendances from miniature railway and classic car clubs. Gate receipts in 2004 were €1688 and in 2005 they were only €745, demonstrating clearly the drop in visitors to this part of Ireland.

Parade in town

The traction engine in steam made a very impressive sight and it was decided that this should parade around town to draw extra attention to the Festival, the more so with the Mayor of Donegal on the footplate. This was done as an addition to the Mayor formally opening the Festival and did create some crowds in Town following the traction engine and there was resultant press reporting of the event in the following days with pictures of this parade.

Signal box refreshments

Refreshments were provided for the classic car clubs on the Sunday. A very large number of sandwiches were provided and a tea urn was hired for the occasion. The latter developed a leak and so electric kettles had to be brought in to supplement! Refreshments were also supplied on the Saturday for the Mayor, his entourage, members attending the AGM of CDRRL and volunteers running the stands. The headquarters of the refreshment supply was the small ex-Newtown Cunningham signal box on site.

Photos on loco

Visitors were offered the option of having family photos taken by digital camera on the footplate of the displayed 3-foot gauge steam locomotive. Colour A4 prints on photographic paper could then be produced in a few minutes. Very few families used this opportunity but some enthusiast visitors had brought valuable railway relics, the most important being the nameplate of County Donegal Railway locomotive No 3, Lydia, and a number of A4 copies of photos of enthusiasts with this nameplate were produced.

Mail-outs & leafleting

Considerable effort was put into promotion of the Festival:

Local flier deliveries
20,000 fliers were produced and plenty of copies were distributed all round Donegal Town to the Tourist Office, hotels, restaurants and cafés, shops, tourist attractions and dwelling houses.
County-wide flier deliveries
Fliers were also delivered to all local tourist offices and hotels in surrounding towns in Counties Donegal and Derry, and B&B establishments all round the north west coast.

Flier deliveries Ireland/Northern Ireland and Foreign
Fliers were delivered by travelling volunteers to key points in Northern Ireland and the UK, such as ports of embarkation and landing such as Stranraer, Cairnryan, Larne and Belfast, and to key coach tour stops on the main route to Stranraer and Larne.

Magazine circulation
CDRRL’s magazine carried a full centre feature on the Festival and was sent to all 350 CDRRL members internationally who were invited to the AGM on the Saturday, plus a number of other key contacts in journalism, railway associations and railway restoration.

Newspapers
i) Donegal Times, a key local circulation newspaper
ii) Donegal Democrat – wider circulation than the Donegal Times - whose Sunday paper carried a free feature on the Festival
iii) Observer Newspapers – covering Northern Ireland
iv) Derry and surrounding areas in Counties Donegal, Derry & Tyrone.

Radio via Highland Radio & North-West Radio.

TV
An affordable filming session was booked with Channel 9 in Derry and a deposit paid. The film company failed to turn up on the day booked thus destroying the opportunity to promote the Festival through this channel.

Web
Web links and announcements were set up immediately the Festival was announced, and special promotional graphics was set up by a webmaster.

North West Tourism
CDRRL agreed, as soon as the Festival was announced, to participate in the €1000 coordinated promotion exercise for the 2005 Festivals Marketing Campaign. A stand was also run at the event to assist Festivals in May and leaflets were distributed to North West Tourism and all local hotels.

AGM

For both 2004 and 2005 there has been a strategy to hold the AGM of County Donegal Railway Restoration Ltd on site on the first day of the Festival as an obvious means of bringing a number of international visitors from the company’s supporters to the meeting and hence to the Festival. The Mayor also attended the AGM on behalf of Donegal Town though a number of volunteer members had to face the difficult decision of working as volunteers on site on Festival attractions or attending the meeting due to the need to keep costs of paid staff down.

Staffing

Last year the review of the 2004 Festival by the CDRRL Board concluded that there were insufficient volunteer staff to be ideal, especially as more people had visited the site over three days than ever before. Additionally it was clearly possible to run an event on the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre site alone, contraction to which would allow much easier gate control by fewer people. As a result the running of the 2005 event was much smoother, with a single gate entry point and the activities confined to the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre and adjacent Bus Éireann car park site which can be controlled from the same entrance.
Given that it was the weekend of the AGM, an appeal was made to volunteers and CDRRL were able to engage the help of four leading narrow gauge railway enthusiasts and their families and colleagues. In addition help was sought from Albanne Tourism. Several teenage staff were also recruited as casual labour but this was not entirely successful and, given the lower number of visitors than expected, they were not employed beyond the Sunday afternoon
Overall, the staffing arrangements were much more controlled and successful than 2004 with every staff member having a job sheet with tasks for the day.

Insurance

Extra insurance to cover the Festival was purchased from McLaughlin & Greaney at a cost of €153. This also covered the passenger-carrying miniature railway trains.

Overall comment

The 2005 Festival enjoyed much better pre-organisation and staffing than 2004 and could have coped with double the number of visitors. There were new and excellent attractions such as steam trains and a working full-size steam traction engine which did indeed attract crowds from the visitors who were in Donegal Town, but the numbers were only about half those of 2005 and the Monday was very quiet. Given the severe downturn in the numbers visiting the area, and in the spending associated with those that do come, the results could not really have been improved. Everything was there for the people but it seems they are not coming to County Donegal and even the best that live steam, classic cars, family attractions and entertainment for children can bring cannot reverse this process, though it may at least make the most for those who do come.
We must be aware that a Festival in Donegal Town however well run, cannot reverse the trends we see in the Country as a whole. On the tours of the County to distribute leaflets, most outlying tourist offices were closed, perhaps understandably, and B&B establishments reported very little trade, even on the Northern Irish Bank Holiday weekend prior to the Festival. We even saw hotels that had thrived in previous years which were now closed in Dungloe and Dunfanaghy. Given this, the overall judgement is that the Festival did as well as could be expected but a full three day event would not be justified in 2006 unless there is a major government initiative to reverse the tourism problem. It would be better to run a series of Open Days with lower set-up costs. The first of these was run as an experiment on 31^st July, the middle day of the Bank Holiday weekend producing a return of €220 compared with the current disastrous average Sunday figures of more like €20 and the Festival Sunday return of €817 albeit with a much bigger prior investment.