GSWR 90

There are perhaps more still around than you'd think!

BCDR railmotor No. 2 at Holywood. The locos were cut off and the carriages were used as autotrains. The carriage portion of No. 2 became No. 72 and is preserved at Downpatrick.

CSE Carlow No. 3 (Cockerill 3096/1926) seen in 1954, It was withdrawn in 1956. I always wondered why CSE bought vertical boiler Belgian locos, but I recently read that Carlow sugar factory was built under the guidance of a Belgian company so perhaps it was due to their influence. Note that one of the buffers has a curved edge, and the other is flat – standard practice in much of continental Europe to prevent buffers from locking.

Cómhlucht Siúicre Eireann Thurles No. 1 (now preserved at Downpatrick) in use as a stationary boiler, April 1963. CSE was quite a diverse operation, so it's hard to narrow down what the steam is being used for – in addition to refining beet, they made animal feed, lime for fertiliser, and agricultural machinery. In 1957, they bought Ireland's first stored-program computer for making calculations for refining sugar and paying beet farmers across the country

NCC Jinty No. 18 being delivered to Northern Ireland J15 No. 130 in use as a stationary boiler 461, then No. 15, in DSER days

A tale as old as time. Withdrawn locos that are kept for spare parts are sometimes called “Christmas trees” but I’m not sure how common that expression is.

As far as I can tell, 90 was withdrawn in October 1959 along with 100. 90 was reinstated for the IRRS railtour to Courtmacsherry in August 1960; it was still used until around October 1961. The IRRS then negotiated with CIÉ in late 1961-early 1962 to have it put on display. So since it was withdrawn twice, and the first time it was out of use for quite a while, it's very possible CIÉ genuinely wanted to get rid of it at some point – but the fact that the location is Fermoy implies that it was already on display by the time that letter was written.

This is the point that I’m making. The railway has been closed since 2019, and it’s pretty clear that the owner is no longer interested in running it. Why are you interested in donating to a railway that will never run again, but not to one of several other perfectly good railway groups? It’s easy to say “someone at Dromod should run a tiktok”, but running a railway during the week is hard work when it’s on top of a day job, family life, social life, and other obligations, and when it’s compounded by limited volunteer numbers. Heritage railways are not always run by “old heads” – Dromod has a healthy amount of young enthusiastic volunteers, but they simply don’t have the time to spend ages every week making a perfectly-curated TikTok account on top of their other responsibilities. Perhaps you could start volunteering with Dromod and offer to run their tiktok yourself? You said that you’d happily volunteer at Moyasta, which is four hours away from Meath, compared to Dromod, which is only an hour and a half away – even then, I’m sure if you asked them to send you videos you could generally do it remotely. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from railway preservation, it’s that you have to be the change you want to be!

Agreed. If Downpatrick/the RPSI/Dromod/Stradbally/Fintown/Donegal/etc. had €1 for every time someone said “Somebody should do something”, they’d all be millionaires. If people want to make a difference and contribute to railway preservation in our country, they should donate to, or volunteer with, those groups.

Agreed, there is not much anyone can do unless they have extremely deep pockets – hence my sarcasm in my first post. If I had to guess, he’s maybe not replying because he’s not interested in spending his time answering emails from random strangers. Again, not much anyone can do

Don’t shoot the messenger! Unfortunately preserved railways are expensive, time-consuming, and very difficult to run. The poster didn’t even attempt to contact the owner of the railway, which would be a very very basic starting point

Unfortunately I’m being sarcastic. The West Clare is a lost cause, and even if it wasn’t, it would need a bit more than a few vague Facebook posts with a “call for support” for someone to do something

You will be pleased to hear that a burgeoning campaign group has recently been set up on Facebook to bring the West Clare back to life. No doubt they are only a handful of “likes” away from getting the railway running again. Services are expected to resume in the coming weeks

Amazing photo – the elusive silver Park Royal! Do you have a source for this photo?

If you want to help us to get to 30 or even 40 volunteers in at one time, send me an email at info@downrail.co.uk

DCC no, but it will have sound, directional lighting, and flickering firebox

Ashpan out. Big tanks to the lads from Cork for sortin dat dere for me

Great pic, those engines would have been great at Downpatrick. I would be very interested to get a solid date as to when they last operated, I think Mallow No. 3 last ran in 1963.

Does anyone know when steam locos were last in industrial use in Ireland (apart from Harvey, of course)? I'd be interested in hearing about the ones that were the almost-last as well, not just the last one

Impact driver won’t fit as the nut is right next to ashpan. Getting a better spanner or cutting the nut seem to be the best options

Been there done that

Great post. Worth mentioning that one of these coaches still exists, GSWR 69 built 1888, originally with a birdcage but was rebuilt at some point in service. It was one of only three I think to carry black and tan and is currently being converted to a first class saloon/observation brake (based on WLWR 77 which is at Belturbet) at Downpatrick.

This update is the worst-case scenario: they all look great. Now I have no idea whether to go for 800 in GSR, CIÉ, or as-preserved livery...

We recently took delivery of some new 3D enamel badges, which are now available on our online shop. These are based on the celtic-style roundels seen on the GSR 800 class loco nameplates. I'm a big fan of these since they look good to both railway and non-railway people!

Well-placed teaser in a class 73 post