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CDRRL News Archive

Autumn 2005

Level of activity

We believe there has been more activity here recently than has occurred since the old station reopened as a museum 10 years ago. So much, in fact, that we realised we had our heads down working here and were not writing to tell members about it. A Phœnix was planned for this month and is still in preparation, but with the threat of a mail strike here we thought it best to get some news and our mail order list out to our members while still possible and this has been done. The Phœnix will still appear, with lots of colour, before Christmas. For those accessing our web-site, here is a summary of the news.

Miniature Railway Attraction

The 7¼” gauge line is now laid along the full length of the old station platform. In a mad rush it was made ready for the Festival in June, but the pounding of the heavy Damhead steam loco exposed our amateur efforts at ballasting and in July a volunteer team of John Darch, (seen below) Dietmar Steiner and Neil Tee took up the track and reballasted the whole length. We now have an operational miniature railway with electric Ruston look-alike locomotive and red ride-on coaches. The loco awaits a repaint in CDR colours. Special insurance has been arranged so we can use the railway for more than just Open Days.
Later we hope to have a live steam loco, hopefully a Drumboe look-alike. A training programme is being agreed with Damhead so several staff will be trained as drivers and guards. This will complete the smaller scale attractions to bring visitors to the museum.

Reinstatement of the 3-foot

To help progress further local action on reinstating the 3-foot gauge line here, we took the Mayor of Donegal Town, Ciaran Twomey on an official visit in October to the Chemin de Fer de Vivarais, a highly successful French preserved narrow gauge steam line south of Lyon in the Rhone Valley, France. We also viewed a number of possible useful spare parts in the Vivarais yard and discussed the possibility of applying for a joint European grant.
The Mayor is backing our Park-and-Ride scheme and has suggested we now make full planning application for the first stage of the reinstated line, the loop at Donegal Town Station platform.

Trail of the Rail Festival 05

The second Trail of the Rail Festival was run over the first weekend in June. There were more facilities than ever including a visit by a working steam traction engine, steam rides on our miniature railway, a classic car display, and the special display of the original Lydia nameplate.

Track laying in 3-foot gauge

For three years we have planned to have a siding alongside Drumboe to store Coach 28 and a wagon. Coach 28 needed to move onto this to allow room for the extension to the station.
Member Bill Thrush kindly sponsored some extra track for us. With this and co-operation from the West Clare Railway in Moyasta we managed to bring a length of 45 feet and a further length of 40 feet of ready made up 3-foot gauge track to Donegal Town. We used an artic belonging to local recovery specialist Patsy Meehan. The artic actually broke down near Knock on the way to the West Clare but Patsy and the Chairman fixed it by the roadside!
Local builder Liam Duffy dug out and made the formation for the laying of the siding alongside Drumboe, using 100 tons of hard core as a base! Thanks to further co-operation from Liam, a teleporter was ready on site when the artic arrived from the West Clare. This allowed the 45-feet siding to be passed from the lorry over the fence onto the formation beside Drumboe. The 40-feet track length was then moved behind the bus garage for neat storage of the Rustons from Bord na Móna.

Motive power for the 3-foot

Negotiations with Bord na Móna in Bellacorick actually took place for over a year. It is sad to reflect on the fact that 10 years ago there was a thriving 3-foot gauge line there with visitors being carried in an ex-West Clare coach. Now the whole operation is closing down, turf-cutting and all, and the place has a depressed air about it, particularly in the days of heavy rain when the Chairman and Patsy Meehan visited with the artic to pick up the Rustons. These weighed between 5.9 and 6.5 tons each so a calculation showed the rig coming back from Bellacorick weighed a total of some 37 tons! The Rustons now await tarpaulins on our new storage siding.
We would like to set up working parties for the initial cosmetic protection and repainting of these, while awaiting full diesel servicing from a specialist. Anyone interested, please contact CDRRL.

Coach 28 on bogies

Once the new storage siding was in place beside Drumboe in the station garden, it was time to move the bogies into place on the siding ready for mounting Coach 28 on them - not as simple as it sounds as the bogie pivot pins were missing their bearings and bearer plates. The Coach is in fact resting on blocks on the bogies and not mobile, but it looks ready to run and a much improved display. The bogies are the correct 1893 versions with 4’3” wheelbase. A platform with wheelchair access is being built alongside the coach.

Collection of rolling stock

At last we have been able to embark on the rolling stock collection project and we have already collected wagons 30 and 31, and red wagon 12. In the picture you see Nos. 30 & 31 sitting together in the station yard now, no 30 being the one in good condition. A while ago we put a picture in the Phœnix of a narrow gauge wagon that did not fit any of the CDR or Clogher Valley designs. There are two like this in the Mountcharles area, and we went to case them ready for collection. Director John Darch was with us on the day and spotted a faded CIE logo on one of them. To us that means they must be West Clare wagon bodies and they have the right diagonal metal bracing you can see in some photos of West Clare vans.
There are some stories behind the goods van collections! We went first for no 30 with a 6-wheel lorry with mounted 3.5 ton crane. We got everything ready but the crane would not lift the wagon! So our team left everything, thumbed a lift back to Donegal Town and came back with a bigger crane. – mounted on the same lorry that was the tractor on the artic that went to the West Clare and Bellacorick. Wagon 30 belongs to NWIRS and is by far the best CDR example outside of a museum. We then went to collect No 31 during a howling gale from a field on St John’s Point. At least it was dry or the 6-wheel lorry (but only 1-axle driven) would have stuck in the field. A huge gust during lifting blew the wagon onto its side – it was already in such poor condition that we were lifting it through its roof! We could not right it and it was brought back to Donegal Town still on its side on the lorry! It now sits alongside its twin No 30 in the yard except that they are not exact twins and there are some interesting differences in the bracing. One thing we did notice was the wonderful condition of the long wooden chassis members of all the wagons collected.
Red Wagon 12 looked very weak and was at the bottom of a garden in Castlefin. Member Brian Moriarty and a team built an internal wooden bracing and we bought a dozen round strainer posts for rollers. We winched the wagon across the length of the garden using the rollers pulling with a strap round the strongest part of the buffer beam. Then when we could reach with the crane, we lifted it onto the lorry using the 3.5 ton crane, thus proving the lighter weight of the red wagons. We also used the spreaders specially made for us to ensure that when lifting we did not do any more damage to already weak rolling stock.

Extension

Everything always happens at once it seems. So while we were collecting and laying track and project managing the rescue of rolling stock from around the County, we also had to begin clearing the site at Donegal Town Station for the extension. First we had to remove a tree, which was actually cut down for us by the man restoring Mullanbuoys Crossing Cottage on the Killybegs branch, then we brought in Quinn’s cranes to move the signal box and the signal/telegraphy hut. The latter registered over 5 tons on the crane!
Local builder Liam Duffy then dug out the foundations, laid footings and then laid blocks ready for placing Coach 58 and Railcar Trailer 15 in their new positions where they will be restored as part of the station extension.
When this is completed it will effectively double the covered display space at the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre. We are going to need more sponsorship to complete the work and the Mayor has already spoken to IFI on our behalf with a positive sounding result. A formal application will be made during November.

Interreg

As if this was not enough, our schedule agreed with the Cross-Border administration of Interreg required that the grant-aided work start in October. Our Wickham trolley has therefore been moved to the Giants Causeway workshops in readiness for restoration work to start. Trailer 5 has proved more difficult and it has been decided that it would be much easier if the budgeted-for wheelset was fitted prior to moving it to the Giants Causeway for roof renewal and bodywork attention. This will be a road wheel set as indeed once fitted to Trailer 5 after its removal from the railway in 1960. This will make it mobile as a display both on site and around the County where there is some demand for CDR display vehicles.
After the Wickham and Trailer 5 are tackled, the Interreg grant will sponsor addition of air brakes to our best Ruston and a new dome, chimney, smokebox door and water tanks for Drumboe.

Additions to the museum

Apart from the larger acquisitions of rolling stock we have been stocking the museum with other items of interest. A number of Letterkenny & Burtonport Extension tickets, never previously on the museum’s asset register, have been purchased for display. The Donegal Railway Heritage Centre has also acquired rare old Railway Magazines with articles on the CDR and L&LSR. These came handy recently after a visitor had queries on the Carndonagh extension and they went away with copies of the articles and a timetable of the extension’s railway services.
Also on the register are examples of the Corgi model of a Swilly bus and a GNR period double-decker. We also have a number of CDRJC reports from the 1950s as well as a much older one from 1912.

County Donegal's Railway Heritage

One of our objectives is the protection of key remaining railway buildings. Gordon Morrow has cleared the brush from the parapet of the old road overbridge visible at Clar. In July Brian Moriarty brought a team to clear Falcarragh Station Platform as part of the Creeslough Festival in July, and also arranged a well-attended walk along the old Burtonport Extension trackbed from Cashelnagor to Gweedore.
As most members know, Killybegs branch Crossing Cottage No 9 at Drumark on the outskirts of Donegal Town was restored a few years ago by Connie and Jack Denne. Mullanbuoys Crossing Cottage No 16 has been purchased by Mervyn Johnston and is undergoing restoration. Unusually this cottage has a platform and we were able to locate a supply of spare coping stone for the new owner. Formal offers have now been made by benefactors for Keeney’s Crossing Cottage No 11 on the Killybegs line and Cashelnagor Station on the Burtonport Extension.

CDRRL finances

There has been considerable expenditure during the Summer and Autumn to finance all this activity. The effect of this is always compounded by late arrival of the sponsoring grants which never come till after the expenditure had been proven. This means that while overall the figures balance we are having to finance a costly overdraft. The major Dublin Show at the end of October, our biggest single source of income in a year, required as much effort as ever, but returned only ⅔rds of the revenue of last year, basically due to poor attendance. Our stand was still lively and takings proved how essential it is to have a stock of Thomas the Tank items, sales of which were our main source of income.

Spring 2005

So successful was the first Trail of the Rail Festival in getting this started that a second one is being organised for the Bank Holiday Weekend of 4^th- 6^th June this year. While obviously one purpose of the event is to build further on the promotion of the Trail of the Rail concept and provide more visitors with details of places around Co Donegal which would give them an adventure in railway history, CDRRL know it is important to ensure that the Festival activities in Donegal Town will themselves be a family attraction. So for the Festival, there will be all kinds of other attractions in addition to the railway exhibits at the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre.

Let’s look at some of the planned attractions.

Summer 2004 News

It has been a busy year so far for the narrow gauge enthusiasts in County Donegal. The first railway festival, sponsored by North West Tourism, was held over the Irish Bank Holiday weekend of 5th-7th June in Donegal Town. On the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre site there were a series of model and garden railway trains running, visits to the footplate of one of the ex-CDR steam locomotives on static display, bouncy castles for the children, face-painting, a palmist, bric-a-brac and book sale, a half-size steam traction engine, and a full classic car display.

The objective of the Festival was to launch the Trail of the Rail, a new initiative from County Donegal Railway Restoration Ltd (CDRRL) to safeguard and promote the remaining railway heritage across the whole of County Donegal. This has begun with a Heritage Council sponsored review of all remaining railway structures in the County. The review, which is being continually developed and updated, currently runs to 200 pages with some 400 colour photos, and a recommendation is given on every structure. Already there have been two days of follow-up discussions with the County’s Heritage Officer on listing some structures in original condition and action is beginning on some sites to protect unique station canopies and on others to clear brush and ivy off bridges to protect the structures. The report is available at £37.50/€55 including postage to UK or Ireland. A free leaflet on the Trail of the Rail is available from the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre if requesters send an addressed envelope to the Centre with an unattached 2nd class UK stamp.

History was also made with a special co-operative exercise forming a star attraction at the Festival. One of the original Leyland coaches brought in to replace the County Donegal Railway in the 1960s was on site. In a superbly co-operative gesture, Bus Éireann agreed to adopt the bus for the Sunday of the Festival allowing it to carry fare-paying passengers again. A lucky group were then taken from Donegal Town around the old bus route to Glenties and then on to Fintown where all had a trip on restored County Donegal Railcar No 18. This is owned by North West Of Ireland Railway Society who themselves are co-operating with Cumann Traenach na Gaeltachta Lair (CGTL) who operate the two miles of original County Donegal formation from Fintown towards Glenties. So the bus that replaced the train was used to bring passengers back to the reinstated train.

CGTL are operating trains on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays all summer using the NWIRS railcar, which is now free to operate after being removed from the Foyle Valley Railway Centre in Derry. Although the Centre opened on a few dates last year, it appears to be closed for the duration this year, despite efforts by all the enthusiast groups to find a way of co-operating with Derry City Council to open it. More tragic still was the arson, which caused the destruction earlier this year of an original CDR wagon body in store at the compound just south of the Foyle Valley Centre. Efforts by CDRRL and NWIRS to persuade Derry City Council to release the remaining chassis so CDRRL can put a replacement body on it and store it safely for display at Donegal Town have not yet succeeded.

More and more 15mm and 16mm to the foot scale models of the County Donegal rolling stock are being introduced to the garden railway completed a year ago at the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre in Donegal Town and a 7¼” gauge line is occasionally laid for children’s ride on trains. It is hoped this will become more permanent by next year.

Meanwhile at the 3 foot gauge level, funding has been sought from Interreg for completion of the restoration of a Ruston diesel loco, a Wickham trolley, Railcar Trailer 5, and partial restoration of steam locomotive Drumboe. A submission to the local Donegal Town Plan has ensured the incorporation in that of the CDRRL’s scheme for a ¾-mile Park-and-Ride system along the old trackbed out from Donegal Town station. CDRRL are in the process of forming a new associate company which be allowed to have share capital currently not permitted under the grant aid rules governing CDRRL. Plans have also been drawn for extending the old station house using the rescued Coach 58, with its two halves placed together again for the first time for 40 years, and articulated Railcar Trailer with their restored bodies joined through the corridor connections.

Finally CDRRL have created a new video of the railway and the life around it in 1958 from kindly donated old cine film. While the expensive and sophisticated technology was not affordable, CDRRL co-operated with Altan Studio in Creeslough in old Burtonport Extension country to create a 57-minute video all previously unpublished, entirely with their own resources. This is available at £15.50/€23 (DVD version is also available at £19/€27.50) including post for UK and Ireland.

	Below: The motor coach that replaced some of the County Donegal Railway services picks up passengers at Donegal Town station to go to the reinstated railway at Fintown for a ride in ex-County Donegal Railcar No 18
	Below Right: The garden railway at Donegal Railway Heritage Centre with some of the scale models of the County Donegal stock and an LGB train run for younger enthusiasts.
	Digital copies of these and similar photos are available if required.

22 February, 2002

There has been a lot of work carried out recently at the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre. Some of the recent events and improvements that we have carried out are outlined below. A cosmetic restoration of our showpiece 43-ton steam locomotive, Drumboe, was completed before Christmas and the engine are now back to its former glory. A computer game which can be played in real time for around 45 minutes has been set up in the Heritage Centre. The game is a simulation in which you drive a steam train over the famous Barnesmore Gap pass and is available for members of the public to use. Copies of the game can also be purchased by members of the society. New stock has been purchased for the shop which, includes Thomas the Tank Engine items that appeal to children. A working model railway has also been set up which will further increase the popularity of the centre with children and therefore encourage new visitors. New exhibits will include the history of Donegal Tweed and the story of how it traveled by rail. During the recent Christmas Holidays the Centre had four “Santa days”. On these days children were able to take a ride on a model train, which was a replica of an original railcar no. 10, to visit Santa while their parents were able to relax and have a hot drink of Tea, Coffee or Mulled Wine. These days were a large success and a great time was had by all. With the closure of the FAS scheme a business consultant was hired to write a business plan. This plan produced over 80 new business ideas. It was accepted by the Social Economy who will fund a manager and four employees. Many of the improvements mentioned are as a result of this plan. The scheme also offers employment opportunities for a manager and four other members of staff. Although the improvements and events mentioned above were both successful and profitable they are by no means the end of our task. The Committee and the Manager of the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre remain committed to the improvement of services here at the centre and to the restoration of the railway. Our future plans include the complete rejuvenation of Drumboe and a plan to reinstall the CDR from Donegal Station for ¾-mile out to the proposed new Dunne’s shopping complex at Drumlonagher on the Donegal by-pass. We have obtained outline planning permission to do this and the proposal means we could have a year-round tramway operation for local people with steam trains supplementing it in the tourist season and at other key times of year such as Easter, Hallowe’en and for Santa Specials. This is a unique combination of an environmentally sound transport proposal plus a tourist railway. We would plan to use a restored Drumboe for the tourist services. The North West of Ireland Railway Society are in fact the owners of this loco and we have signed a co-operative agreement with them and they are preparing an agreement to lease Drumboe to us. Our agreement with them will also entitle us to apply for Cross-Border funding. Using the railway to link the proposed Dunne’s shopping complex with Donegal Town means that the operation would not be confined to a short season and is much more likely to be sustainable than the typical limited season tourist railway that does not actually joint two useful points. We have the support of the developers Bennett Construction in the form of a large donation. We still, however, require a substantial amount of additional funding and support in the form of our members is essential to the future of both the Heritage Centre and the CDR.

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