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Are you modelling the County Donegal or Lough Swilly Railways? Perhaps you would like to tell us about your current or past projects or send us some photographs to include in our Gallery section.

We have a lot of resources for modellers here on the website but we also have a large knowledge base not only here at the centre but also out there among the County Donegal 'enthusiasts'. If you can't find the information you are looking for, why not e-mail us here at the Heritage Centre via the link at the bottom of this page. If we can't help you, we will publish your query here on the website. Of course, we will then be relying on the rest of you to help out if you can. Let's give it a try.

September 2010

Heritage Centre Improvements
The L&LSR Signal Box and Coach 28 have both been repainted by Joe and Tom Galbraith and they now look very smart. They also did several other painting and repair jobs while they were on site in August. Many thanks.

Killybegs Model
As part of the programme for refurbishing Neil Tee's model of Killybegs, work is well underway on the replacement station building. This has a plasticard structure faced with Das modelling clay which is then carved to represent the stonework.

station

This is the street elevation which still awaits brackets to the barge boards, rainwater goods, slating, chimnies, etc., not to mention the roof over the single storey section. It will then need painting, which will just leave the train shed to be built. Still plenty of work to do!

Forthcoming Attractions

Donegal Railway Heritage Awareness Day
Wednesday 8th September 2010

At the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre

Half-price entry for adults and children, Senior Citizens & concessions free
Special Talks from experts, approx 1 hour each
General history of the County Donegal line, illustrated slide talk, by George Haire, at 2pm
The Variety of Railway Buildings in the County –An illustrated talk showing the pleasant architecture of railway buildings all around County Donegal, by Neil Tee, at 12 noon and 3pm
Experiences as a steam train driver around Derry and Donegal, a personal talk by an ex-driver, by George Sweeney, at 4pm
Trail of the Rail: Outline A5 guides available of where to see railway attractions and relics in the County – considerable remains of the once ubiquitous narrow gauge lines.
All visitors will be given a brief informative tour of the museum and its displays to raise awareness of railway heritage in the area resulting from the once active 225 miles of narrow gauge railway in County Donegal alone.
Displays of accurate models of Donegal and other railway buildings and rolling stock in several scales, with models under construction.
Restored items of rolling stock that can be inspected and, in the case of a coach and a railcar trailer, visitors can explore inside the vehicles.
The story of the County Donegal Railways in displays and exhibits plus the option to purchase specialist publications and rare out of print books on the railway.
Films of the old railways in operation. Copies of some of these can be purchased in the railway shop
Guidance on finding other museums and railway operations in Donegal such as Fintown and Foyle Valley, and the Dunfanaghy hostel.
Operational garden railway with working scale models and miniature passenger carrying railway on the old station platform (both weather permitting).

This event is part-funded by Donegal County Council under the County Donegal Heritage Plan

July 2010

We have had a fairly quiet month at the Heritage Centre although we have had three group visits, two from local schools and one from Athlone Historical Society. The fifty two 52 people who came from the Historical Society were very impressed with what we had to offer and went away happy. Now that we are into the school holidays, we are giving train rides on the 7 1/4 inch railway on the old platform weather permitting. Needless to say, the start of the holidays heralded a break in the weather and we are now getting the rain we haven't had all year!

June 2010

Heritage Centre Improvements
We are hoping to move the L&LSR Signal Box from its current location behind Coach 28 to a more prominent position adjacent to the station building. where it can be adapted for use as a disabled toilet, a facilty which we have been unable to offer in the past. In the meantime, it will also be receiving a coat of paint, as will Coach 28. Moving the signal box would enable us to move Grey Wagon No.30 onto the site from its temporary home behind the CIE garage.

The seats have been removed from Trailer 5 and the floor given several coats of varnish. Needless to say, the seats are being refitted!

May 2010

Donegal Town Station Improvements
The RPSI have been on site repainting trailer 5, which is now looking very smart indeed. While they were here, with the assistance of CDRRL staff, they also painted the windows on the outside of the station building.

Donegal Live
Neil Tee and Ann Temple represented the CDRRL at Donegal Live in Dublin. This event to promote tourism in County Donegal was organised by Failte Ireland, Donegal County Council and The Donegal Association in Dublin and took place in Temple Bar on 16th May. We hope that more people will have been encouraged to visit the North West, and Donegal Town and the Railway Heritage Centre in particular.

Website
We are indebted to member Mick Thornton for drawing our attention to a few errors on the Gallery web page which have now been corrected. We always welcome comments on, or input to, the website, so please click on the banner at the bottom of any web page if you have something you would like to pass on.

You may also have noticed that,on advice from local businesses involved in Donegal Live, we have opened Facebook and Twitter accounts. We will be monitoring these to see if CDRRL are gaining any benefit from them.

April 2010

Donegal Town Station Improvements
Apart from the completed bargeboard repairs, we now also have a canopy to cover Trailer 15 and protect it from the worst of the weather. This will also allow restoration work on the trailer to progress during inclement weather. This is a major advance and helps us to start overcoming that major problem of all railway restoration groups – how to store stock out of the weather during the long years of restoration work.

Railcar Trailer 15
Thanks to last year’s grant from the Heritage Council, we have been able to order large quantities of wood to be used in the restoration of Trailer 15. The first consignment was cut and shaped to the trailer’s tumblehome and curved roof shape by joiners at the RPSI and a kit of parts delivered to Donegal for trial assembly by John Darch. This skeleton framework is shown in the picture overleaf. This looked a pretty good start so the parts were dismantled for final finishing and a further large quantity was cut and shaped, all parts having to be numbered in true old coachbuilding fashion ready for assembly.
In the meantime the canopy to protect the work on Trailer 15 was constructed so the final assembly work of the skeleton framework can be done while protected from the weather. The chassis has received two coats of protective paint and next the wooden floor will be tackled. There is much still to do and even when the skeleton is completed, we will need to fund the wood for the roof and then the metal sheeting will need to be added professionally. Only after that will we start to have the function and presentation room that this trailer is to become – part of the long term plan for the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre development.

Drumboe
A huge amount was achieved with Drumboe under Interreg. Since that project was completed, the RPSI have kindly continued work on Drumboe as a training scheme, in the last year repairing the rust in the frames. Now the money for Drumboe has run out, CDRRL Chairman Chris Romain has begun a campaign to raise further funds at all the model railway shows were we have representation. At the first show, Chris had the help of Joan Campbell and by all accounts there was a high level of interest in Drumboe and some donations received.

Our Rustons
The Ruston is running at Whitehead on their specially laid 3-foot gauge track. Our currently working 6-cylinder Ruston could be a useful back-up loco for Fintown if it had the air-brakes fitted. We have purchased the parts for fitting air brakes under Interreg and they await fitting at the RPSI in Whitehead. A good liaison strategy would be to fit the air brakes and then move the Ruston to Fintown If it was required.
At the same time we could transfer the best two of our 4-cylinder Rustons currently at Donegal Town to Whitehead. The idea would be to get these running, one with our spare air-brake system already purchased. Neil Tee as Company Secretary and owner of Cashelnagore will contribute funds to have one Ruston running for use at Cashelnagore in the hope that carefully allocated donation money could cover the costs for getting two of these Rustons running. The ideal in the long term would be one running at Cashelnagore, one running at Mullanboys part subsidised by Mervyn Johnston and one spare runner. The fourth machine could be cannibalised for spares. Moving two of the Rustons to Whitehead would also reduce the pressure from Bus Éireann who want us to vacate some of the yard space we are using.
This strategy action could help Fintown, and create a positive relationship with our colleagues there, and move the Rustons away from Donegal town thus pleasing Bus Éireann. Any unusable heavy gear could be sold for scrap.

Railcar Trailer 5
Although it is proving a very useful extra seating and observation are inside, Trailer 5 is suffering badly externally from peeling paint, particularly on the south side. This looks like a result of the paint not keying onto the aluminium. A repaint will be needed, and we may need to look at using a different keying primer. Joe Galbraith, who is a member both of CDRRL and the RPSI visited recently and said he would arrange a repaint team from the RPSI.

Goods Vans
Red Van 12 still in a good state after two years in the open on display, and the brightly coloured vehicle has been a real asset to the look of the grounds.
Grey Van 84 could do with another coat of grey paint and a decision on future location as its owners, NWIRS, originally wanted us to move it to Fintown who have no particular use for it. The thinking at CDRRL is that maybe Van 30, also owned by NWIRS and currently at Whitehead, should have its wheel bearings restored and be sent to Fintown as a usable tool van. If all concerned approved, Van 84 stay at Donegal for the foreseeable future as storage for displays and we would move it to behind Coach 28 on the track there for access by visitors using the ramp to the coach. We would assemble a diorama of a goods office display with labelled goods and weighing machines etc for greater display interest.

February 2010

Donegal Railway Heritage Centre

Funding from Pobal has now been confirmed although we understand that this will only cover salaries. We are in the process of appealing the decision to withold the payment of an overhead allowance. However, staff have returned to work this week and the Heritage Centre will be open to the public on weekdays only from 22nd February.

We understand that there has been an aricle in the railway press claiming that the Centre had closed down. Happily that is not the case at the moment.

January 2010

Fiftieth Anniversary of CDR Closure
There were two special events to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of closure. The first took place at the St John Bosco Centre on 30th December 2009. This was a historical commemoration and the main content was a slide presentation by the well-known historian Charles Friel who showed some rare material previously unseen by Donegal Railway enthusiasts who had come from as far as Dublin and Belfast by road and also by air from England. These enthusiasts easily outnumbered the attendance from local people whose journey in the snow and ice would in fact have been far easier.
New Year’s Eve was the actual fiftieth anniversary of closure and the ice and snow continued although the day was bright and sunny. One difficulty was how to convey the Wickham permanent way trolley to the site at Mullanboys where track had been re-laid and trains were to be run. This was eventually achieved by a 1972 Land Rover and transporter trailer using four wheel drive for the whole distance from Donegal Town. The Wickham performed perfectly and, after a ceremonial opening by the Donegal Town Mayor, Paul Keeney, trains ran for two hours alongside the platform at Mullanbuoys for the first time for 50 years.
Honoured guests at the train rides included Charles Friel who gave the previous day’s presentation, members of the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland team who laid the track, Peter Marsden who sponsored the tracklaying, Peter Scott MBE whose team got the Wickham into running order, and Johnny Glendinning, Chairman of the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland and Mervyn Johnston, owner and restorer of Mullanbuoys Crossing Cottage. The Wickham was driven by the Chief Operating Officer of CDRRL, Neil Tee, who sponsored the sleeper purchase.
Ice-cold weather and failing light caused an adjournment at Mullanbuoys shortly after 3pm and those with the time available completed the proceedings at a reception at the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre until 5pm.
Both the Donegal Town Mayor, and Neil Tee, who introduced Charles Friel’s presentation the previous day, emphasised that the whole exercise did not just commemorate the closure 50 years ago nor just act as a source of enormous fun for those taking train rides, it demonstrated that CDRRL and its partners have the wherewithal and skills to restore railway buildings, relay track, and run restored railway vehicles. The implication is that a reinstated tourist line in Barnesmore Gap is perfectly possible; it simply needs local support and tourism funding.

trolley 1 trol

Closure Repeated after 50 years, hopefully temporarily
The last three months of 2009 had seen repeated hopeful emails from the Pobal office on the subject of grant aid for the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre in 2010. After the dangers of a lack of grant aid were flagged to senators and TDs in late October, Minister O’Cuív even telephoned Chief Operating Officer Neil Tee in November to say he would prefer to sponsor jobs in Community Service Programme projects like the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre rather than through the dole. Despite this and the hopeful emails there was no actual confirmation of any grant and still none by 5th January 2010. The Centre has used all its liquid funds to pay the first week’s wages of 2010, a week which ended on 1st January as 2010 is a 53-week year financially. The Centre’s other reserves are in capital items and artefacts. Therefore staff were laid off as from 1st January and the Donegal Railway Heritage Centre closed until further notice.
Protests on the lack of information and lack of confirmation thus prejudicing jobs have been made to several TDs, senators and the Tánaiste who is the local TD for Donegal Town. A number of CDRRL supporters are amazed that this situation can be allowed to occur for a project that brings thousands of tourists to Donegal and organises spending of many thousand Euros locally, for example some €10,000 on wood alone for local timber yards in the last financial year. Voluntary visits are still being made to the Centre to pick up post, emails and phone messages and to deal with sales orders, and we hope matters will be settled by March at the latest. In the meantime, benefactors have guaranteed the CDRRL overdraft with AIB bank so that the organisation remains solvent and thus eligible for grant aid.