County Donegal Steam

As of 16.00 today, Whitehead RPSI is host to two ex County Donegal Class 5 2-6-4 t engines. No 4 Meenglass, which has been slowly rusting away on so called public display at the Foyle Valley Museum in Derry/Londonderry for years, arrived today for cosmetic restoration. No 5 Drumboe is currently in pieces, work having come to an end until the owners raise further finance.

Ian

 

great to see meenglass on the move, in the other post on the subject , there's a link to photos of the move.

 

Can you tell us who owns Drumboe, and how they go about raising support?

 

Drumboe is the loco that was displayed at the museum in Donegal Town. South Donegal Railway Restoration Soc iirc. It's stored on a flat wagon at Whitehead made out of the underframe of a broad gauge coach, suitably shortened. I don't what is being done about raised more funds, I think quite a lot has been done to the loco, so probably mainly boiler work I gues.


for completeness, 6 Colombkille is inside the museum at Derry and no2 Kathleen is in the unmissable mueum at Cultra.

 

I believe Drumboe is owned by the North West of Ireland Railway Society, who were the support group/operators of the Foyle Valley Railway, before the council closed the FVR down. They also own railcar 18 at Fintown and claim ownership of Meenglass and some of the rolling stock still inside the FVR building.

As RG says, Drumboe has been substantially restored at Whitehead, including forging of new motion parts and construction of new tanks. I understand that the grants received by the County Donegal Railway Restoration Company have covered the work to date, but have now run out before the boiler work was started.

Keith

 

no I think it's the two in Derry owned by the mysterious NWIRPS, Meenglas and Colombkille.. Drumboe was in Donegal Town and as far as I know owned by SDRRS

 

I think that the loco belongs to County Donegal Railway Restoration Ltd , based at the old Station in Donegal Town. This is, i believe, the successor of the old South Donegal group. There was a joint funding venture that raised a fair amount from various public sources and allowed the loco to be moved to Whitehead, but the demise of the Celtic Tiger cut that off at source. I'm not sure what the position is now, but there is a website that you can find if you Google railway preservation in Donegal. I don't believe that the Northwest people were involved with Drumboe.

ian