Downpatrick and County Down Railway

The Downpatrick and County Down Railway (DCDR) is a 5 foot, 3 inch (1,600 mm) gauge heritage railway in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is operated by volunteers and runs passenger trains using steam and diesel locomotives, diesel railcars, and vintage carriages. The railway has approximately three miles (4.8 km) of track in a triangular-shaped layout, which connects the town of Downpatrick with the historical sites of Inch Abbey to the north and King Magnus’ Grave to the south. It also houses a museum of railway artefacts and rolling stock originating from both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, dating from the 1860s to the 1980s.
The DCDR's development was spearheaded by a group of local railway enthusiasts in the early 1980s, and work started on building the railway in 1985. Most of its track is on part of the now-closed Belfast and County Down Railway (BCDR) mainline which ran between Belfast, Downpatrick, and Newcastle. The heritage railway first opened to the public in December 1987, and originally consisted of little more than a short stretch of track with an E-class diesel locomotive and a brake van. It has expanded incrementally since then, and reached its current length with the completion of the Inch Abbey line in 2005.
The DCDR is the only five-foot, three-inch gauge heritage railway in Ireland, which has been the standard gauge on the island since the 1840s. With its Downpatrick terminus located at the foot of Down Cathedral and next to the Saint Patrick Centre, the railway has become a major tourist attraction for the town and has accumulated several hundred members. It currently has three steam and eight diesel locomotives, five of which are on loan from the Irish Traction Group, as well as the largest collection of Victorian railway carriages in Ireland. Some of these have been overhauled by the railway's volunteers from a dilapidated state, and have received awards for their restoration.
The first railway in Downpatrick was opened to the public in March 1859, with the completion of the Belfast and County Down Railway mainline from Belfast Queen's Quay. Downpatrick's railway facilities included a substantial station building on Market Street, a two-road train shed, a goods store, an engine shed, and a turntable. The line was constructed under the management of the BCDR's chief engineer Sir John Macneill, and included a bridge over the marshy estuary of the River Quoile, just outside Downpatrick. The original bridge consisted of lattice trusses supported by timber piles driven into the riverbed, and was replaced with a steel girder bridge in 1929. As it was built on the floodplain of the River Quoile, the line towards Downpatrick often suffered from flooding, particularly during the winter months.
The railway originally terminated at Downpatrick, but in 1869 a separate company, the Downpatrick, Dundrum and Newcastle Railway, built an extension from Downpatrick to the seaside town of Newcastle. The Newcastle line was operated by the BCDR and purchased by them in 1881. The extension created an inconvenience wherein a train running between Belfast and Newcastle had to stop in Downpatrick and uncouple its locomotive, which moved via a run-round loop to the other end of the train in order to continue its journey. This significantly increased journey times and caused excessive congestion at the Downpatrick terminus.
The opportunity arose in 1892 to end this cumbersome practice with the opening of the Downpatrick, Killough and Ardglass Railway and, with it, Downpatrick Loop Platform. The Ardglass line was built and operated by the BCDR, and branched off from their mainline about a kilometre south of Downpatrick station. In conjunction with this, a loop line was constructed to directly link the Newcastle and Belfast lines, with the Loop Platform located at the South Junction. This enabled Newcastle-bound trains from Belfast (and vice versa) to bypass the main Downpatrick station, and instead call at the Loop Platform where passengers intending for Downpatrick or Ardglass could board a local train. Meanwhile, the mainline train could carry on without having to run around. This resulted in an unusual triangular-shaped layout, the trackbed of which forms the basis of most of the DCDR's operational railway line.
Following the 1945 Ballymacarrett rail crash and the resultant £80,000 (the equivalent of over £3,530,000 in 2020) it had to pay in compensation, the BCDR was financially ruined. This was a deciding factor in the nationalisation of the company, which became part of the Ulster Transport Authority (UTA) in 1948. The UTA's railways were in need of significant investment following years of underfunding during World War II; as a result, Northern Ireland's devolved government established a tribunal to determine the future of its public transport system. In December 1949 the tribunal authorised the closure of all ex-BCDR lines except the Bangor branch, as part of an effort to avoid excess expenditure on railway maintenance and to divert assets towards improving the UTA's road services.
The entire Belfast – Newcastle line south of Comber, including Downpatrick, was closed on Sunday 15 January 1950. The track and almost all of the railway infrastructure was removed in 1953, and the station was used by the UTA's bus division, which became Ulsterbus in 1968. Most of the trackbed along the line was sold by the UTA to private individuals who owned adjoining land: the trackbed in the Downpatrick area was sold to Charles Mulholland, 3rd Baron Dunleath, and was left largely undisturbed until the arrival of the DCDR. Although the 1929-built Quoile Bridge was dismantled for scrap, the Loop Platform and several smaller nearby bridges were left intact. The station building was demolished shortly after Ulsterbus moved to a new depot in the town in 1975, and part of the former station yard was used as a storage depot by the Department of the Environment's Road Service.
Local architect Gerry Cochrane M.B.E. was inspired to start the scheme after taking a walk along the route of the line, and by 1982 had gained support to rebuild part of the line as a heritage steam railway from the local council. Lord Dunleath, whose father had purchased the railway trackbed adjacent to his estate after the closure of the BCDR in Downpatrick, gave the newly formed society a package of land on which to build the line and station for a peppercorn rent. This was on the approaches to the old Downpatrick station, which had been demolished in the 1970s. Work started on rebuilding the railway in 1985, with public trains finally running in the town again in Friday 4 December 1987, making it the first Irish gauge heritage railway in Ireland to carry passengers over its own track. Track has been relaid on nearly 6 km (4 mi) of Belfast and County Down Railway trackbed, and a 1.6 km (1 mi) extension south to the hamlet of Ballydugan is planned.
The railway began life as the Downpatrick & Ardglass Railway, as the original intention was to extend the railway to this fishing port on the south coast of County Down. This name was dropped in 1996 following the abandonment of this proposal and the railway was renamed the Downpatrick Railway Museum until 2005 when the new name, Downpatrick & County Down Railway was adopted following the opening of the Inch Abbey extension.
Between March 2020 and July 2022 (apart from a temporary resumption of service during Christmas 2021) the railway was closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Volunteers continued work throughout the closure period, and normal service resumed on 16 July 2022
The railway was once again closed to the public in November 2023, after excessive rainfall during Storm Ciarán submerged the entire site under 3 - 6ft of floodwater for nearly a week. The railway was closed for almost a full year whilst volunteers assessed and repaired the damage caused by the flood to rolling stock and infrastructure, finally reopening on October 26 2024.
Approximately three miles (4.8 km) of 1,600 mm (5 ft 3 in) Irish standard gauge track are open as of 2019, along which a steam locomotive, currently either O&K No. 1 or 3, and 1950s-60s era diesel locomotives are run, drawing preserved rolling stock. Passenger trains are usually operated with brake/generator standard class coach 3223, which was built in 1954 by Córas Iompair Éierann, brake/standard class coach 728, which was built in 1951 by the Ulster Transport Authority, and Park Royal brake/standard class coach 1944, also built in 1954 by Córas Iompair Éierann. Stock is added to or withdrawn from the 'running set' as maintenance allows. Older carriages built by the Great Southern and Western Railway and Belfast and County Down Railway were operated on the line, but as 1950s/1960s stock became available the DCDR moved these vintage carriages inside for overhaul and display. These vintage coaches are now used on a select few special running days, such as European Heritage Open Days and for private contracts, as they are too historically important for everyday wear and tear.
The railway also aims to have an at least partially operational mechanical signalling system, using the preserved King's Bog and Bundoran Junction signal cabins along with multiple semaphores that are on the site. Related to this is the Double Track Project, which will allow simultaneous operation on the North and South lines.
Every year, the DCDR operates the following trains:
Bank Holidays, shunts, private charters and film contracts make for extra trains throughout the year too.
On operating days, visitors have access to the BCDR Museum which is housed upstairs in Downpatrick railway station, the Downpatrick East signal cabin, a model railway room, the workshop viewing area (Where carriages can be seen undergoing restoration) and the Carriage Gallery.
A gift shop and buffet carriage, the latter of which will be parked at Inch Abbey or Downpatrick Loop Platform railway station, are open on operating days.
Several of the railway's buildings, including its engine shed and two signal cabins, are original railway structures that were first erected in different parts Northern Ireland and later rebuilt brick-by-brick at Downpatrick.
Completed in 2012, the Carriage Gallery is the DCDR's museum with rolling stock that is not being used to run public trains during their visit. Like the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, the Carriage Gallery houses vehicles in an indoors environment where the public can get up close and learn about both the vehicles in question, and Irish railways in general. Despite its name, the Carriage Gallery also contains locomotives, both steam and diesel, and even a road-going tar boiler. Designed in homage to the Victorian railway termini with their grand overall roofs, the Gallery collection is arranged across 3 roads with 4 platform faces, allowing visitors the chance to enter the vehicles. The condition of the exhibits ranges from fully restored to as-discovered so that visitors can appreciate the huge work required, with some carriages still in the hen-house state they were found in on farms across the country.
The Carriage Gallery was officially opened by the Earl Of Wessex in 2014.
The railway hosts three steam locomotives, eight diesel locomotives, seven diesel railcar sets, twenty-four carriages, thirty-eight wagons and four permanent way vehicles, making for a total of eighty-three railway vehicles. If the railcar constituent coaches are considered as individual carriages, the total is ninety vehicles.
At present O&K Nos. 1 and 3 are the operational steam locomotives. 1875-built 0-6-0 tank engine, GSWR No.90, delivered to Downpatrick on Sunday 30 September 2007, is Ireland's oldest steam engine capable of operation. Two E Class diesels, Nos. E421 and E432, were acquired in 1986, with E421 working the Society's first passenger trains. However, the E Class could not start from cold and thus three G Class diesels arrived at the railway to facilitate shunting and works trains - one was purchased privately by a volunteer from Westrail, and two are on long-term loan from the Irish Traction Group (ITG). The ITG also loans three mainline diesels to the railway - CIÉ A class No.A39R (arrived 22 November 2009), 141 class No. 146 (arrived 27 November 2010) and 201 Class No. C231. (arrived 7 June 2014).
Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway Railcar B, built in 1947, was donated to the railway by Iarnród Éireann in 2006. This railcar arrived in poor condition and it will be some time before the DCDR can return it to operational condition. Prototype BR-Leyland railbus, RB3, which was modified in the early 1980s to run on Irish metals and was used for a period by Northern Ireland Railways, was acquired by DCDR in 2001, with the hope of using it to run midweek trains as it did not require as large a crew as locomotive-hauled trains. However, due to several faults inherent with the prototype Railbus' design, this did not come to fruition. Three more ex-NIR railcars are owned by DCDR, comprising the last 450 Class, 458 Antrim Castle, which arrived in 2014 and has been converted to a buffet train, and two 80 class railcars which arrived in 2018.
There are four main 'carriage rakes'. These are:
The everyday running set currently consists of CIÉ 1944 and UTA 728, with generator van CIÉ 3223 being added for Autumn/Winter operations to provide heat and light. On special days, the Vintage Set is used, consisting of BCDR Nos. 72 and 148, and GSWR 836. 836 is also sometimes added to the everyday running set on very busy days, creating a high-capacity rake along with 1944 and 728 capable of seating over 200 people. The buffet set is publicly accessible on running days when it is parked in a platform (the New Buffet at Inch Abbey during Spring and Summer, and the Old Buffet at the Loop Platform in Autumn and Winter).
The remainder of the carriage fleet is considerably varied, with a mix of six- and four-wheeled and bogie carriages, and representatives from virtually every time period and Irish gauge railway company - including the BCDR (The DCDR owns 5 of the 6 extant BCDR carriages), GNR, GSWR, GSR, UTA, NIR, CIÉ, and most significantly, the Ulster Railway, which is represented by No. 33, the sole surviving UR vehicle and Ulster's oldest carriage. Other notable carriages are BCDR Railmotor No. 72 and Royal Saloon No. 153, both of Ireland's extant Travelling Post Offices and the last AEC railcar. Two carriages, GSWR No.'s 1097 and 1287, arrived at the railway in the mid-2000s on loan from RPSI, though ownership was later transferred to DCDR.
The DCDR also has a large selection of wagons, goods vans and underframes. Ex-NCC brake van No. 33 was the railway's first passenger-carrying vehicle. Included in the railway's wagon fleet is the most powerful steam crane in Ireland, NCC No. 3084. As the wagons do not contribute to bringing in revenue like engines and carriages, most are in storage except for a small few in use by the railway's Permanent Way or Locomotive Departments. In time, DCDR hopes to construct a dedicated goods shed in order to finally give its wagons a permanent home. In August 2022, a complete ballast train composed of three hoppers and a plough van were delivered to the railway from North Wall, Dublin across two days, supported by Iarnród Éireann.
A small fleet of permanent way vehicles, all acquired from NIR, and some road/rail on-track plant are used by the railway's Permanent Way department.
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