UTA Festival Coach 728
728 was built at the UTA’s Duncrue Street Works in 1951 as a brake second, originally numbered 306. It was part of the ‘Festival Set’, built specially for the Festival of Britain to work fast trains between Derry and Belfast. It was constructed on the underframe of an older NCC vehicle dating from 1933 (and […]
CIÉ Park Royal 1944
1944 was assembled in Inchicore by Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ) after being delivered in kit form by English manufacturer Park Royal. Entering service in the summer of 1955 as a high-density seating Suburban open, it originally carried the number 1381. 50 of these ‘Park Royal’ carriages (as they came to be known) were built to […]
NIR 458 ‘Antrim Castle’
458 is the sole survivor of NIR’s nine-strong 450 Class, built by BREL between 1985 and 1987. The bodies were constructed at York and the rest of the fitting was carried out at Derby. As with many railway vehicles in Ireland, they were a quick and cheap fix to rolling stock shortages – they were […]
CIÉ G617
G617 is one of the five diesel locomotives at Downpatrick owned by our good friends, the Irish Traction Group. Built by Deutz of Cologne, West Germany in 1962 for CIÉ, the G Class to which G617 belongs was intended for light branch line work and shunting- with that in mind it isn’t hard to work […]
CIÉ A39R
A39R is one of the five diesel locomotives at Downpatrick owned by our friends the Irish Traction Group, and one of just four survivors of the 60-strong ‘A Class’ built for CIÉ in the 1950s by Metropolitan Vickers. The A Class, along with the 34 members of the similar-but-smaller C Class that were built as […]
CIÉ 146
146 is one of the five diesels at Downpatrick which belong to our friends at the Irish Traction Group. It was built in 1962 by General Motors of Chicago as part of an order of 37 locomotives for CIÉ designated the B141 Class, and entered into service on the 14th of December that year. The […]
CSET No. 3
CSET No. 3 was originally one of nine steam engines built for the Cómhlucht Siúicre Eireann, Teoranta (Irish Sugar Company, Ltd.) to work in their sugar beet factories. There were three factories, at Mallow, Thurles and Tuam (a fourth existed at Carlow, which utilised Belgian-built locomotives) and each received three locomotives. Confusingly, each factory also […]