CIÉ Cement Wagon 25199
No.25199 is the last of 150 bulk cement bubble wagons constructed at CIÉ’s Inchicore Works, Dublin, between 1964 and 1972, incorporating a ‘bubble’ shaped tank body imported from Sweden. These carried cement from the Irish Cement factories in Platin, near Drogheda, and Castlemungret, in Limerick. Cement traffic travelled all over the CIÉ network and indeed […]
CIÉ A3R
A3R is one of two CIÉ A Class diesel locomotives based at Downpatrick, both are owned by the Irish Traction Group, the other being A39R. Built by Metropolitan Vickers, Manchester, in 1955 and originally simply numbered ‘A3’, it was actually the first A Class locomotives to enter traffic, doing so on 27th September 1955. Interestingly, […]
CIÉ 152
152 is one of 37 141 class locos, built by General Motors for CIÉ in 1962; this class also included 146. She was originally numbered B152, the locomotives were used all over the CIÉ and later Iarnród Éireann/Irish Rail network, both on their own and in multiple (both within class and with the 121 and […]
CIÉ 190
190 is one of several Downpatrick-based diesel locomotives owned by the Irish Traction Group (ITG). It was originally built for CIÉ in 1966 by General Motors at their plant in La Grange, Illinois, USA. Part of a batch of 12 locomotives, known as the (B)181 class, these were a follow on from the 1962 141 […]
CSET No. 1
A much loved performer on our steam trains, steam loco No. 1 was originally one of nine shunting locomotives built for 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 locomotives built by […]
NIR Tamper 7
Tamper 7 (officially 7007) was built in 1978 by Plasser & Theurer for Northern Ireland Railways. Its job is to pack ballast underneath sleepers (tamping) and to correct the alignment of the rails to ensure they are as parallel and flat as possible – this is called ‘lining’. Previously, before the advent of tampers, tamping […]
NIR Flat Wagons 713 and C505
DCDR has two of these flat wagons – 713 and C505. They are used by our Permanent Way Department to transport the loads that are just too big for the Dumper and its trailer. Both flat wagons started out life as carriages under the Ulster Transport Authority, though NIR would remove the body from one […]
BCDR Bridge Wagons
This trio of trucks are known as ‘bridge wagons’, so-called because they were used to transport bridge girders from a loading point to the required site. Though in some cases a girder would be short enough to fit on a conventional bogied flat-bed wagon, longer girders had to travel on bridge wagons. These have a […]
GSWR Ballast Hoppers
DCDR has two of these ballast hoppers, 8314 and 8411. They were built at Inchicore in 1902 by the Great Southern & Western Railway, and throughout their working lives were to be found all across the Irish railway network. Unlike modern ballast hoppers, they simply deposit stone into the middle of the track, whilst a […]
GSWR Plough Van 8452
8452 is one of several ballast plough vans built by the Great Southern & Western Railway in 1906. Plough vans were essentially normal brake vans, but with a large plough beneath the underframe. They were an essential part of ballast trains, where they would travel at the rear behind the hoppers and evenly spread the […]