A platform for rail heritage

IF IRELAND has an efficient—and hopefully—expanding modern railway system, it equally benefits from being home to a surprising number of high quality heritage railways and museums. Irish heritage railways are popular tourist attractions, with an impressive 93,000 passengers taking trips on them annually, getting in touch with the trains of yesteryear, which enthusiasts have lovingly kept alive for posterity.

And, where better to start than in the impressive railway gallery of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in Cultra, just outside Belfast. There, you can get up close with the giants of the steam, with the former pride of the Great Southern Railways, 4-6-0 loco, Maeve, which once sped crack expresses from Dublin to Cork, towering over all the other exhibits.

You’ll be able to see the name board from Strabane Station, with its many destinations, once served by narrow gauge train in Donegal, while steam locomotives, carriages and railcars from lines such as the County Donegal Railways, the Great Northern and the Cavan and Leitrim, recall days gone down on the track. You’ll also find the world-famous, Fintona Horse Tram, which, as late as 1957, trundled its way—with horse, Dick, at the front—between Fintona town and Fintona Junction on the Omagh-Enniskillen line, to provide a vital link to the Tyrone village.

All the exhibits at Cultra, are, of course, static, but, if you want to sample Ireland’s vintage trains in action, make your way on summer weekends to the Downpatrick & County Down Railway, which runs from Downpatrick to Inch Abbey over the former trackbed of the old Belfast & County Down Railway. Volunteers have worked wonders, restoring the tracks, historic carriages, some of which are also on display in a carriage museum, and locomotives, both steam and diesel.

The line is also home to a former Northern Ireland Railways diesel train, whose claim to fame is that it was used for the filming of the Derry Girls episode in which the gang went to the seaside for the day, with predictable results. A firm favourite with visitors, the train even has authentic, vintage Kit-Kats on sale in the buffet, just as used in the filming for the popular TV series, which was set in the 1990s!

Pride and preservation

Up the coast, North of Belfast, at Whitehead, is the home of the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland, the body which runs mainline tours on the present-day rail network, pulled by vintage steam and diesel locomotives lovingly restored and maintained by the staff and volunteers at the society’s workshops.

Summer weekends offer steam train rides at Whitehead, which the base is also home to the Whitehead Railway Museum which tells the story of railways in Northern Ireland, with locomotives and carriages on show. One carriage is the famous Honeymoon coach, which had a sliding door on a compartment reserved for honeymooners heading for the Stranraer steamer at Larne.

“Staff would put them in the compartment and close the door, which hadn’t a window in it, to give the newly-wed couples privacy,” museum guide, Charles Friel, told me during my visit. “The joke among the railwaymen was that the young couple were going to Larne, learn, after all!”

Another exhibit is a dining car used on a Royal Train when the newly-crowned Queen Elizabeth II, came to the North of Ireland.

“We had a visitor who turned out to have been a steward on the train and who had served the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh when they train was stopped between Coleraine and Derry to allow them to enjoy the scenery while they had their lunch,” Charles added. “Looking over across Lough Foyle, the Queen asked the Duke if he knew what they were looking at across Lough Foyle. ‘That’s Innishowen Head in Donegal,’ replied the Duke. ‘I was there during World War II when I was in the navy on Atlantic patrols and when we docked at Derry. We went over the border in civvies to enjoy a rest in Donegal where there was no rationing and to have a good time!’ The steward didn’t say what the Queen’s reaction was!”

Also worth a look in the North of Ireland, is Headhunters Barbershop and Railway Museum in Enniskillen, where visitors can get a haircut while viewing an astonishing collection of station name boards, timetable, staff uniforms, tickets, locomotive nameplates and much more. They are all connected with the former Great Northern Railway of Ireland and Sligo Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway, which served Enniskillen and Fermanagh for more than a century, until they were cruelly closed by the Stormont Government in 1957, leaving the area cut off from rail access.

On your way up to Derry, divert via the world-famous Giant’s Causeway, which, besides wowing visitors with the basalt rocks—which we all know, giant Finn McCool built to reach his giantess lady love over in Scotland—is the terminus of the Giant’s Causeway Railway. This narrow gauge line, which runs on the restored tracked of the Giant’s Causeway and Bushmills Tramway, the world’s first hydro-electric tramway, offers a ride through the sand dunes and across the River Bush, with superb views out to the north Atlantic. Best of all, your journey will be in a modern replica of one of the original trams of 1883, so some real, rail-bound nostalgia is on the timetable.

Up in Derry, you’ll find the Foyle Valley Railway Museum, run by the charity, Destined, which provides activities, training and work for adults with disabilities. On show are carriages, railcars and a locomotive from the County Donegal Railways and the only surviving carriage from the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway, which ran to Letterkenny, Carndonagh and Burtonport, and which carried thousands of Donegal exiles to the Scotch Boat at Derry. Neither have the Great Northern Line to Belfast, via Omagh, nor the city’s only surviving railway, which reaches Belfast via Coleraine, been forgotten. This is a museum very much worth a visit, although visits are by pre-booking only.

Historical gems

Over the border, in Donegal, there are two gems in the shape of the Fintown Railway and the Donegal Railway Heritage Museum at Donegal Town, both of which recall the life and times of the narrow gauge railways of Donegal, which, in their heyday, covered the county.

During the summer, the only surviving, operational County Donegal Railways railcar—one of the first diesels to operate in Europe, when it took to the tracks in 1940—gives trips from Fintown Station, over three miles of re-laid, narrow gauge track on the former Stranorlar-Glenties line. Running alongside stunningly beautiful Lough Finn, a trip on the railcar is a journey back in time, recalling the days when the railways of Donegal were a vital lifeline to the remote towns and villages served by the little trains.

Down at Donegal Town, you’ll come face-to-face with Drumboe, the steam locomotive that hauled the last passenger train on the County Donegal Railways on December 31, 1959 and was brought back to Donegal with due ceremony in 2022, after restoration at the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland’s workshops at Whitehead. The ultimate plan is to return the engine to steam on a re-opened section of the CDR, but, in the meantime, visitors of all ages can try their hand at driving a steam loco from Donegal, through the Barnesmore Gap to Stranorlar, on Ireland’s only steam locomotive simulator, while displays, including working models, tell the story of the railways of Donegal. Kids will also enjoy the ride on the miniature railway, which runs along the platform. This is a museum not be missed and which has established itself as ‘must-see’ for visitors to Donegal Town.

Labour of love

Further south, if you call in at Dromod in County Leitrim, you’ll find the Cavan and Leitrim Railway, where enthusiast Michael Kennedy and band of loyal volunteers, have re-laid track on the former Cavan and Leitrim narrow gauge railway, which once served Dromod, Ballinamore, Drumshambo and Arigna, once home to Ireland’s only coal mine.

A lovingly-restored steam engine called Nancy pulls its carriages full of passengers over a mile of track from Dromod, to show what narrow gauge travel was like, while the site also boats other restored rolling stock, buses and other railway artefacts, rescued from the scrapheap and restored to tip-top condition. Oozing with narrow gauge atmosphere, this railway is worth a visit and is an ideal ticket to the past.

At Belturbet, at the other end of the Cavan and Leitrim’s original line from Dromod, you’ll find a real gem in the shape of Belturbet Station. That’s where the Great Northern Railway of Ireland met the Cavan and Leitrim until 1957, when the GNR line closed, and, after the narrow gauge was also closed in 1959, the station, a magnificent building in cut stone, lay derelict for more than 40 years.

Today, after being lovingly restored as a railway museum and community hub by local people, Belturbet Railway Station attracts tourists from all over the world, and, with some items of rolling stock on display on re-laid track, is looking forward to further expand its appeal by running a train, too.

A window to the past

Back on the narrow gauge, a visit to the Connemara Railway at Maam Cross, half-way between Galway and Clifden, and well-known for its association with The Quiet Man film of John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara fame, opens the door to the days when trains steamed through the vastness of Connemara.

Although the station closed in 1934, project leader, Jim Deegan, and his team, have rebuilt a replica of the signal box, restored the platforms and laid narrow gauge track, with operating trains as a curtain-raiser to the full, restoration of the original broad gauge tracks through the station, to recreate the scene as it would have been in the heyday of this line.

Famous for transporting Atlantic flight pioneers, Alcock and Brown back on their way to London, after they touched down outside Clifden after their epic flight, 16-hour, non-stop, from the USA in 1919, the line helped develop the tourist trade in Connemara. Jim Deegan sees the renewed railway as doing just that, and it’s no surprise as Jim is the founder and chairman of Railtours Ireland, a company which uses timetables trains on today’s railway network to take you to destinations across Ireland, starting from Dublin, with a courier ensuring a smooth journey.

Everything from day trips to week-long rail travel, with hotels stays and even coaches to reach into parts of Ireland, such as Donegal, which have no railways at present—and to reach them from railheads such as Derry—is on offer from the company which celebrated its silver jubilee in 2023. Offering a relaxed, car-free way of seeing Ireland from a train window, Railtours Ireland also includes heritage railway attractions in its programme for anyone looking for a ticket to the past as well.

Cherished connections

Back in Dublin itself, you’ll come across the mainline, steam tours, operated from the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland’s Republic of Ireland base, with trains running in the summer to destinations such as Rosslare, Mullingar and, north to Dundalk, while Christmas sees Santa steam specials taking the tracks. Best of all, one of the RPSI’s best steam locomotives is number 131, a 4-4-0 built in Glasgow for the Great Northern Railway of Ireland by Neilson Road, at their world-famous Springburn Works, in 1901. Fully restored, number 131, deals with heavy trains with ease and is a firm favourite with passengers and crew alike, despite her 124 years. I might add that my grandfather, also Hugh Dougherty—probably the only Irish Catholic employed in those days at Springburn—was a draughtsman who worked on the design, so there’s a family connection there!

At Stradbally Hall in County Laois, the Irish Steam Preservation Society operates the Stradbally Woodland Railway, a narrow gauge line which runs some early steam locos, including some that ran for Bord na Mona—the Irish Turf Board—on its once-extensive bog railways, all of which have now gone following the closure of Ireland’s last turf-fired, electricity generating stations.

And, further south, on the east coast, and our last stop on this whistle-stop tour of Irish railway heritage lines and museums, is the Waterford and Suir Valley Railway. Ten kilometres long, the line skirts the picturesque River Suir as its little trains run along what was the original trackbed of a now-closed, mainline railway between Kilmeaden and Bilberry, just outside Waterford. Plans are afoot to extend the railway into Waterford itself, while the all diesel-operated line has acquired a steam locomotive from England, with work in hand to bring steam back to the banks of the Suir.

Although not a heritage line in the strictest meaning of the word, Velorail, operating out of Kiltimagh Station on the mothballed Midland Great Western Railway, for six-and-a-half miles either side of the station, deserves a mention. Visitors hire a railway trike, and pedal their way through the countryside, with trikes for family groups available. This novel approach to putting a closed railway to a new use, attracted 6000 passengers last year to a part of Mayo that has to work to bring in tourists.

Enthusiasts and visionaries

All of these lines and museums have a story to tell of a railway age that is now gone in Ireland. They’re the result of the vision and hard work of many enthusiasts and heritage fans, who, seeing the old ways disappearing from the 1960s onwards, with steam giving way to diesel, and many lines closing, decided to act.

Without them, much of value that is there to be seen and enjoyed today would have been lost forever. So, if you find yourself in Ireland and are looking for something new to do, seek out the nearest railway museum or heritage line, and buy a ticket to the past.

You won’t be disappointed, and if you, like me, have Donegal roots, and are even old enough, as I am, to have travelled on the county’s narrow gauge lines, then, if I was asked I’d have to direct you first and foremost to Donegal Railway Heritage Museum and the Fintown Railway. Both are proof positive that railways once did exist in the county, while a trip along the shores of Lough Finn on that CDR railcar brings me right back to being that wee boy who travelled on the CDR from Ballyshannon to Rossnowlagh. It’s the noise of the engine, the clank of the coupling rods and the swaying of the railcar, all buried deep in my memory bank, that do it.

So, book your ticket to the railway past of Ireland. You won’t be disappointed wherever you choose to stop and climb aboard. I might even say that it would be just the ticket for a holiday with a difference.