GSWR 90

Time to start un-wrecking the place. Things are very bad, but it’s important to stay positive – like I said before, at least the water didn’t get into any carriage bodies or diesel engine rooms. 458 seems to have made a lucky escape, everything else not so much. On top of everything else, the place is filled with condensation, so the electricity is slowly getting worse. We’ve had the green light from our insurer to do a fundraiser, so we should be getting started with that over the next weeks or so. I was hoping that we’d start 90’s fundraiser about now, but sin an saol!

Thank you very much for your donations. It’s really been heartwarming to see the amount of support that we’ve been given from both the local community in County Down and the railway enthusiast community across Ireland, the UK, and beyond. We will hopefully start a fundraising appeal over the next week or so, following discussions with our insurers.

Well, as far as I can see we won’t need to scrap any rolling stock. But it’s important to bear a few things in mind. For a lot of the spares that we have, they stopped making them 30+ years ago (particularly railcar parts), and a lot of the track machinery will cost a fortune to replace. For the diesel locos, we don’t have the facilities to simply lift them up to take a look at the condition of the bogies or replace a traction motor. And we only have 4-5 people who work on our diesel locos regularly. When everything settles down and we have everything assessed, we will need people + money to sort this out.

FLOODING UPDATE Since I last posted, a few of us have gone on site to make a preliminary assessment of the damage. Apart from the station building, all of the buildings/sheds have had at least some water in them, ranging from a max of about 5 foot in parts of the Workshop to about 18 inches in the Maghera Shed. Containers for track equipment and railcar spares were also under about 3 foot of water as well. This means that the water level has gone above the axleboxes of a lot of our rolling stock, and that the traction motors are wet on most of our diesel-electric locos and railcars. The Diesel Gala in January has been cancelled, but we’re looking into different formats for our Christmas trains. If you’re interested in supporting us, you can become a member of DCDR at https://www.downrail.co.uk/get-involved/become-a-member/ The red line on 836 shows approx where the water went up to in the Carriage Gallery.

Worth bearing in mind that the frames, wheelsets, dome, and cab front are all original!

Important to remember that there is a ‘hump’ between Market Street and the railway – so even though the Street is dry the railway is still very wet, although the water levels have gone down by about 2 foot or so

I went out round the back of the yard today (closest I can get) and took a look. Water has dropped by maybe an inch – mercifully it’s stayed below station/carriage body/engine room level.

Worth clarifying then – only independent branch line!

Unfortunately Downpatrick has been severely affected by flooding over the past three days. The railway and many businesses are under several feet of water. We won’t know the full extent of the damage until we can get on site, hopefully in a few days time. We’ve never seen anything close to this level of flooding in the 40 years that the railway has been there. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves! https://www.downrail.co.uk/flood/

The 90 badge is now on sale on Táilte Tours’ website! https://www.tailtetours.com/product-page/gswr-no-90-tank-engine-enamel-badge It’s worth emphasising that for every one of these badges sold, €10 will go towards 90’s restoration. That’s basically the same as donating €10 and getting a free badge!

As this is a modelling forum, it’s worth mentioning that I was very impressed by these skilfully-built models of 90 and Guinness that I saw at the weekend!

If you saw our stand at the Dublin Model Show at the weekend, you’ll know that Táilte Tours have kindly donated a limited run of enamel badges of No 90 to DCDR. These were designed by one of our volunteers and they represent the loco in the GSWR livery that it currently carries at Downpatrick. These will be available at Mark’s Models in Dublin and on Táilte Tours’ website for €10, with all money going towards 90’s restoration. I’ll post the link here when it’s online. A former Westrail volunteer has also donated these original Westrail button badges which were made to celebrate 90’s launch after its restoration in 1990. These will also be available on TT’s website in the coming days.

The Downpatrick & County Down Railway will have a stand in Room F, next to Táilte Tours and near Chris Dryer and Irish Railway Models. We'll be selling Irish railway books, DCDR memorabilia, memberships, and a few models (as well as a small surprise if it arrives in time!) All funds raised will go to DCDR for the restoration and maintenance of our rolling stock and track. Cash and card accepted!

If I had to guess I'd say the sugar loco is at Mallow. The Mallow locos had large painted numbers on the tanks like the one in the photo, but of course they swapped them around between factories.

No guesses as to what loco I want it to be

A few bits of news: DCDR will have a stand at the Dublin Model Show at Blackrock College this weekend and Monday selling books, memorabilia, memberships, a few models, etc – all going well we'll also hopefully have a little surprise on sale to raise funds for 90's restoration if it arrives in time (and no, it's not related to IRM's new model!) Dome cover finally came off (very old – could be from 1875), so we can start staking off the cladding We found the Westrail works plate. Someone in Westrail scrawled an image onto the back – can't be shown as I think it goes against the registration terms of this site!

Plenty of progress on the auld doll recently, especially now that O&K No 3 is ready for her annual dry boiler inspection. We had a contingent of volunteers all the way from Carrickgergus to Cork coming down to help out, which meant we made quite a bit of progress over the last weekend. I’m hoping to organise a working party of volunteers from Dublin (or further afield) over the next few weeks or so, so if any of you are interested in helping out please send me a private message. As you can see from the photos, most of us are relatively young – everyone learns as they go along, so no experience necessary, just a passion for steam locos! Off of the top of my head, work since the last updates has included: Removing both safety valves Removing both clack valves Removing both injector feed pipes Removing a few other injector-y bits Removing both injector overflow pipes Removing parts of the front of the cab, which has allowed the blower and vacuum ejector pipe to be removed completely Finding the Westrail works plate that used to be on the back of the cab! Next jobs will be getting the cab front and boiler cladding out, as well as working away on the bolts at the front of the smokebox, the steam pipes inside of the smokebox, and the cement at the bottom of the smokebox. Watch this space!

Gentle reminder that the Downpatrick & County Down Railway will have a stand as well!

90 ran with the new boiler with Westrail from 1992-1993, then at Downpatrick 2007-2010 – so hopefully there won’t be (too many) nasty surprises with the boiler as it’s only seen around five years of service since it was built.

A bit of hoking around in the smokebox tonight. After rigorous testing, the cement at the bottom was found to have very little in common with Aero chocolate in terms of either taste or texture.

I wish! Not that sort of surprise, unless IRM know something I don’t

Hard to tell, but I’d like it out by 2027 at the latest.

As some of you are probably aware, a few months ago the Downpatrick & County Down Railway started work on restoring GSWR 90 to operational condition. As the only rural branch line steam loco left in Ireland, and one of only four Irish-built steam locos remaining, 90 is a unique link to how industrialisation changed Ireland economically and culturally (eg move away from subsistence farming, depopulation of rural areas, and changes in use of the Irish language) in the 19th century. You can learn more about her history here. The loco was assessed in April-May and moved into the engine shed at the end of June. Put very simply, 90 is to be taken apart, then the boiler will be removed and sent to a contractor for overhaul while we work on other parts of the loco at Downpatrick, and then when that’s done it’ll all be put back together. Of course, this is going to take a lot of time, money, and manpower – we plan to launch a fundraiser over the next few weeks, which will hopefully include a surprise or two. We haven’t done a huge amount of work since it was brought into the shed – our loco dept consists of a pretty small team of people, and everyone has been busy with our summer steam trains. Work has included disconnecting fittings in the cab, vacuum ejector, injectors etc. Major job at the moment is chiselling out the concrete at the bottom of the smokebox, which is somehow even more unpleasant than it sounds. Excuse the lack of photos, I don’t want to bore you with pictures of random bolts and disconnected pipes just yet. Watch this space for more updates!