Help to get O&K No. 3 back in steam

Our steam engine has run out of ‘puff’ and needs major work to get it running again, and we need to spend £25,000 to overhaul her boiler. We need YOUR support to help raise the funds to do this.

We need YOUR support to help raise the funds to do this.

In the 1980s when we took delivery of our two steam locos (nicknamed the “Sugarpuffs” because they used to work for the Irish Sugar Board, Cómhlucht Siúicre Éireann), they were little more than scrap. And we mean you could literally put your finger through them. They’d lain out in the open for the guts of 20 years and the weather had taken its toll.

No. 3 in steam at our station in 2009. Photo by Gordon Hawkins.

No. 3 returned to steam for the first time in four decades in 2000, thanks to a Heritage Lottery Fund grant. Further cross-border grant-aid completed her sister No. 1 in 2012.

No. 3 served us faithfully for a decade from 2000, but came to the end of her boiler “ticket” and had to be withdrawn from service. It’s a legal requirement that all steam engines have to go through a thorough boiler refurbishment, being essentially giant pressurised “kettles”, safety is a top priority.

This means the loco must be stripped down and the boiler lifted out for a full inspection and repair before we can get it back into service. This doesn’t come cheaply – and we have to come up with the money ourselves.

It would be fantastic to have both Sugarpuff locomotives in service for the 30th Anniversary of our first public passenger trains, that ran in December 1987.

YOU can help make this happen.