Patrick Davey

I'm feeling totally spoilt these days - I have also just received this very nicely finished open wagon in 5.5mm scale from @Galteemore of this parish, a very much appreciated contribution to the steadily growing Ballycastle Railway rolling stock roster!! Many thanks David and my apologies to you in anticipation of having to repaint it into Ballycastle bauxite sometime soon, and covering up all your excellent weathering..... A special shout out to @leslie10646 who brought the wagon across the Irish Sea for me!

Alan @Tullygrainey here are your next two projects!

Just received this very tidy brake carriage body from a member of the 5.5mm Society - more to come too! Looking forward to getting it decorated into Ballycastle Railway livery and sorting a 4-wheel chassis, this vehicle is actually very similar to BR stock.

Magnificent!

The wooden shelter looks phenomenal - this is a cracking project

Indeed Kevin - lovely video!

Presumably these vehicles would have worn a plane livery.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the cessation of rail services at Clogherhead. Here's some footage of the final train movements from that day. https://youtu.be/9uHlgIWTSiE

Magnificent!

Loving the progress Darius! Fair play!

Delighted to add another ‘Brennan Brake’ to my collection - a magnificent scratchbuild by Gareth Brennan, the undisputed master of plasticard! It looks very much at home on Clogherhead and Gareth has given me permission to weather it

Superb!!! Oozes atmosphere!!!

The Ghost Train of Knockloughrim Johnny McWhirter struggled to cycle through the snow which covered the Derganagh Road near Knockloughrim. There had been a heavy fall overnight and the wheels of his bicycle crunched through the pure white snow until eventually he had to dismount and walk the final stretch of his journey to the railway station. He wheeled the bicycle in through the imposing main entrance, with its stone pillars standing guard, then he opened the small wooden gate which gave access onto the platform. It was Monday, December 8th 1958, and Knockloughrim station was now only visited by the infrequent goods trains which ran between Magherafelt and Kilrea, once a daily working but now generally only running twice per week. The Ulster Transport Authority had ended passenger services along the Derry Central line in 1950 but was maintaining a basic goods service along part of the route for the time being. Knockloughrim station during the time of the Kilrea goods Johnny was close to retirement and it was his relatively undemanding job to be present the station each time a train was due to pass, whether it was booked to stop or not. Generally they didn’t stop, but occasionally there was a parcel for someone in the village and it was Johnny’s responsibility to process this and deliver it. After opening the small station office and lighting the fire, Johnny went back out onto the platform and looked up and down the single line of railway track, the rails completely hidden under several inches of crisp, white snow. To his right, beyond the end of the platform, stood the sturdy stone bridge which carried Derganagh Road across the railway, optimistically built to accommodate double track but only ever sheltering a single line. To his left, the line curved off to the right towards Magherafelt, no longer the the busy mid-Ulster railway hub that it had once been. The long disused goods shed stood at the Magherafelt end of the short platform, beyond the red brick station building, and after surveying the frozen scene, Johnny turned and started back towards the beckoning comfort of the station office. Before he could open the door and escape the cold, he heard a voice calling him from the direction of the bridge. “Hey there Johnny!” came the voice - it was Davy Carmichael, the farmer whose land lay to the south of the railway line. Davy was a friend of the railwaymen and was one of the few locals who still made use of the remaining train service to send his produce up to Belfast. Davy was standing on the bridge and Johnny walked along to the end of the platform to speak to him. “Mornin’ Davy, what has you out at this early hour in this cold? Yer a brave one!” said Johnny. “Not as brave as yer colleagues who brought a train through here at 3:00am Davy, was there some special working or sumthin’? There’s been been nuthin’ like that since the war years…..it stayed at the station for a few minutes then the flamin’ thing whistled like a banshee as it left, scaring the livin’ daylights outta the Mrs. and the bloody chickens!” “No idea Davy” replied Johnny, “Must find out though!” After chatting to Davy for a few minutes, Johnny remembered that he could no longer feel his fingers, so he quickly made his way back into the station office, which was now pleasantly warm, with the gentle crackle of the fire and the rhythm of the ancient clock giving the impression that nothing had changed from the heyday of the Derry Central railway. He took off his heavy coat and his railway cap, which still proudly bore the initials LMS-NCC, and set them both on a chair beside the fire. It was 8:05am and there was a train due to pass from Magherafelt at 8:34am, so Johnny opened the large dust-covered ledger into which all train movements had to be entered, and he was startled to see the following as the most recent entry: The entry was written in immaculate copperplate hand and Johnny was now getting very curious - phone calls to both Magherafelt and York Road only heightened the mystery because nobody he spoke to had heard of this working. Neither had any entries been made in the other book where railway staff were obliged to sign in and out of their shifts. As Johnny chewed the end of his pencil and pondered the mystery, he was startled by a high pitched whistle which sounded far off in the Magherafelt direction, telling him that the Kilrea goods was approaching. Johnny put his coat and cap back on and went back out onto the platform to see the train ease around the curve. At the head of the train was U2 class 4-4-0 No. 84, Lissanoure Castle, pulling a long train of open wagons and covered vans - there was healthy traffic to and from Kilrea this day. Throwing up a lot of snow and sending white plumes of smoke and steam into the cold sky, the locomotive brought her train through Knockloughrim station with another loud and very long whistle, as her crew acknowledged Johnny tipping his hat to them from the platform. Soon the bright red light on the rear of the brake van was disappearing into the gloom of the cutting beyond the bridge and as the flying snow began to settle, Johnny wasted no time in returning to the office to make the appropriate entry in the train ledger, right underneath the mysterious one from early that morning. The return working from Kilrea was booked to stop at Knockloughrim at 10:24am so Johnny would have to remain at the station until after the train had left for Magherafelt. The train arrived promptly at the expected time and as the elegant locomotive screeched to a halt at the platform, Johnny took the opportunity to have a chat with the crew, two Belfast men whom he had not met before, to see if they had heard anything about the strange early morning working. “Not a word” said the driver, “and it’s possibly someone takin’ the hand outta ye lad cos Dunseverick is sitting in a siding at York Road out of use, looking like she’ll nivir run again!” Johnny pondered this as he signed the guard’s docket and accepted a small consignment of parcels for the village, and soon the whistle sounded again and the train slowly made her way off towards Magherafelt, the long train of wagons and vans rattling behind the locomotive. Johnny waited until the red brake van light could be seen no more, then he once again returned to the warmth of the office to complete the entry in the ledger. Johnny forgot about the strange ledger entry until the following Monday, when it was his turn once again to be on duty at Knockloughrim to oversee the up and down Kilrea goods workings that day. As usual, he arrived at the station just before 8:00am, lit the fire and placed his coat and hat on the chair nearby. He sat at the table and opened the train ledger, and was immediately shocked to see that the mysterious entry from the early hours of December 8th had vanished, leaving a clear gap above his own entries for later that day. It was all very strange and colleagues started to question Johnny’s perception of events, until one month later on January 10th 1959 when a different UTA employee was arriving for duty at Knockloughrim, and was also spoken to by Davy Carmichael from the bridge, who was as before asking about the early morning train that disturbed his family and his animals. And, once again, there was the very same copperplate entry in the Knockloughrim train ledger: Further phone calls to Magherafelt and York Road failed to shed any light on the working and even more mysteriously, this latest ledger entry had also vanished by the following week. By now the tale of the mysterious ‘ghost train’ of Knockloughrim had become a local curiosity, and indeed these strange events repeated themselves each month until the line fully closed in October 1959. Everyone believed that would be the end of the mystery but this was not to be the case: not only did reports of the ghost train continue after the line closed, but they even continued into 1960 after the rails had been taken up and the sleepers lifted. By that stage, nobody dared venture into the now much dilapidated office at Knockloughrim station to open the ledger. It wasn’t until January 1962 that there were no local reports of the ghost train of Knockloughrim, and it may or may not be coincidental that U2 class 4-4-0 locomotive ‘Dunseverick Castle’ had succumbed to the scrapman’s torch the previous month. Knockloughrim station after closure U2 class 4-4-0 No. 80 'Dunseverick Castle' - did she or didn't she.......?

Alan it wouldn't be happening without the generosity of @J-Mo Arts and yourself - thank you both sincerely!

Treat yourself, you deserve it!