.. A39R is a CIÉ A Class locomotive and one of the seven diesel locomotives at Downpatrick owned by our friends the Irish Traction Group. It is one of just four survivors of the 60-strong A Class built for CIÉ in the 1950s by Metropolitan Vickers. The A Class locomotives, along with the 34 members of the similar-but-smaller C Class that were built as part of the same order, were revolutionary for Irish railways. They were the first large-scale fleet of mainline diesel locomotives in Ireland, where only prototypes and small shunting locomotives had gone before. Part of the first wave of dieselisation, they were instrumental in modernising an archaic network.
Like the rest of the class, A39 originally carried a 1200hp Crossley engine. These proved to be unreliable, so it and its classmates received 1325hp General Motors engines in 1969. The locomotive became A39R at this point, having been simply A39 up until then. Later on in its working life CIÉ dropped the letters altogether and the loco became 039. As the most powerful locomotives on the network at the time, the A Class hauled top-link expresses and heavy goods trains, which took them all across the country.
The A Class lost their ‘top spot’ in the locomotive rosters in the mid-1970s following the arrival of the GM 071 Class. However they carried on with their passenger and freight duties for another two decades until the 1990s. In 1994, another batch of GM locomotives, the 201 Class, arrived. Now 40 years old, Irish Rail withdraw the locomotives. A39/039 came out of service in 1995 due to a bogie defect. It was at this point that our friends in the Irish Traction Group acquired the loco for preservation. Prior to this, Irish Rail painted it into its original silver livery for use on the A Class Farewell railtour to Rosslare and Waterford.
A39 worked a few mainline railtours in 1999. These proved to be unsustainable. The locomotive then went into storage at Inchicore until 2009. An agreement was reached with DCDR to take it on long-term loan. This was similar to that for the Group’s two G Class locomotives we had taken on in the mid-90s. This agreement is incredibly beneficial to both parties. The ITG gets a railway to run their locomotives on, whilst DCDR gets an incredibly useful diesel for nothing more than the cost of fuel. A39 made such a good impression following its arrival in November 2009 that several more ‘big locos’ would follow it. B141 Class 146 arrived in 2010, C Class 231 in 2014 and 124, 152 and 190 in 2025. Today the partnership between DCDR and ITG is stronger than ever. We are very glad to host them at our railway.
In 2015, a volunteer repainted A39 into its old livery of black with tan bands. It became A39R once again in the process. In May 2019, we started the loco for the first time in three years following some engine maintenence. It has since returned to normal traffic as part of our diesel fleet.
