County Donegal Stock at Strabane in the 1960s

Just been looking at this fantastic pictures of the collection of rolling stock acquired by Dr Cox in the 1960s which he proposed to ship to the USA before it all fell through.

http://rogerjoanes151.fotopic.net/p61096897.html

Everything looks in pristine condition. Does anyone know if Dr Cox had all the equipment painted/ restored when he bought it? There is a picture of a stored 'Erne' (before it was cut up) earlier in the collection which implies at least some of it was.

 

From what i remember reading some time ago, the stock is as it was when the railway closed, the Donegal system was well used right till the end of the services, if you look at some of the excellent colour books on the Donegal that have been published recently by colourpoint you will see that it was well looked after. The track was basically worn out and very sadly there was no money in the pot to replace it, it was the usual story of road improvements and replacement bus services.

What strikes you in those excellent photos is how sad it was that most of the stock there which was purchased by Dr Cox finished up as scrap, its interesting to speculate just what a wonderful railway it would have made if it had got across to America. Hopefully in the next 10 years or so we may well see steam back on the Donegal hopefully somewhere in hills raising the echos once again.

 

Look forward to that!

Steve
WSW

 

ah my favourite line. Erne certainly was stored for several years before being cut up I think it was basicly in "bandit" country and heavily vandalised as was much of the rest. In contrast at least one Railcar (no 18 I think) was stored under cover in Stranorlar and survived unscathed and is in use today in oriignal condition....(albeit hauled by a small diesel)