Coming to our carriage gallery 11th April www.downrail.co.uk/event/seen-a...

Are you hopping aboard the Easter Eggspress? Just a week to go, and this year promises to be EGGStra special, for we'll be using our classic Edwardian carriages. As you can see, the Easter Bunny has been stockpiling all sorts of treats for the children travelling. www.downrail.co.uk/event/easter/

We love working with other Irish railway heritage groups. It was a pleasure recently to welcome a team from Cumann Traenach na Gaeltachta Láir, the Fintown Railway, recently. The team are installing new points, and came to receive advice on such work from our own Chief Civil Engineer, David Crone.

St Patrick’s Day was not just a busy one for our many passengers, it was a long, hard day’s work for our train crew, especially for Morgan Young who was being put through his GM loco driver’s exam. So now you know what the L plate on the loco was for. To cut a long story short – he passed!

We had a fantastic St Patrick’s Day yesterday. We were joined by musicians Patrick Davey and Nuala McBride who entertained passengers with some top class traditional Irish music. Here’s a small taster of a journey from Inch Abbey to Downpatrick with them.

Only a few weeks until the Easter Bunny visits the Downpatrick & County Down Railway on Easter Sunday and Monday, 5th and 6th April. This year, he has a new loco hauling a special train of vintage carriages, 1960s classic diesel 124. www.downrail.co.uk/event/easter/

With a myriad of other tasks to be dealt with post-flood, it is only now that our carriage team has managed to turn its attention to the ‘green set’, i.e. UTA 'Festival coach' 728 and CIÉ Park Royal carriage 1944. Some of you may recall that this pair were the subject of a vandal attack.

A vice-chairman’s work is never done… You may think that such high office in a railway organisation means it’s all meetings and traybakes and awards ceremonies, but that’s definitely not the case for our vice-chairman Mike.

A look at some of our activities last Saturday... www.downrail.co.uk/2026/03/spri...

Just over a week to go until GM 124 hauls our first passenger trains of 2026, “The Shamrock Express”. These trains are proving to be as popular as ever so if you’d like to snap up some of the remaining tickets we recommend doing so sooner rather than later. www.downrail.co.uk/event/stpatr...

Congratulations to our very own Chris McCausland,winner of the Award for Rising Stars at tonight's Heritage Railway Association Awards. #hrawards

We're all set for the Heritage Railway Association Awards 2026 in Llandudno this evening. This year, we're up for not one, not two, but three categories.

Always great to be able to help a fellow heritage railway. www.downrail.co.uk/2026/03/a-ri...

Saint Patrick's Day trains now on sale, featuring 124 and our vintage carriages. www.downrail.co.uk/event/stpatr...

That classic Deutz idling sound...

The loco combo you never knew you needed.

What's coming out of the shed?

Who said you ever grow out of Tonka toys? Because sometimes the toys just get bigger… and come with rail wheels. A huge thank you to the team at Railway Plant Services Ltd, especially Chris and John, who have come to our rescue with a brand new (to us) digger.

Courtesy of George Walker, a #throwback to 10 years ago, showing one of our beloved 'Sugar Puff' locos, No.1, ready to haul the first trains of the 2016 season. Originally used to shunt wagons at the sugar factory in Thurles, No.1 was the mainstay of our services throughout most of the 2010s.

We’ve had an impressive influx of new volunteers over the past few months – and what better way to get them started than having them work on our 150-year-old steam loco No. 90?

On Saturday, we had no fewer than 27 volunteers working away across several different projects simultaneously. This is the most people - in a single place at the one time - we've had on a non-running day in decades.

Time to get the hedge cutters out! Over the last three days we’ve had SG Elite on our line tackling long-overdue lineside overgrowth, and they’ve made a huge difference, completely knocking the socks off our volunteer team.

Last Saturday our volunteers took our wandering wagons up to Inch Abbey for storage, and took a moment to admire our recently refurbished farm crossing near the station.

Some shunting fun to start our Saturday.

For this week's #Throwback we have a rare colour photo of our own O&K No. 3 at Mallow sugar factory, sent in by our follower Billy Maher.

Starry starry night...

It was back to school for our Permanent Way team yesterday. Several of our volunteers attended the RailSTAR-IOSH Safe Working on the Railway course which was held in Ballymena.

With the weather warming up (a little), Robert has taken the opportunity to recommence work on our 80 class power car 69. The lower temperatures over the Christmas break had precluded the use of paints and fillers.

Last Saturday saw our hardy volunteers continue preparing carriage 1918 for its restoration. Having dealt with the old bar area the previous week, this time our novice gang turned their attention to removing panelling from the guard’s compartment.

Our AGM took place last Saturday. www.downrail.co.uk/2026/01/agm-...

Our next restoration project is 1950s-vintage CIÉ carriage 1918, built in Inchicore Works, #Dublin, and one of the first carriages to be preserved by our railway. www.downrail.co.uk/2026/01/new-...

It's #TrackTuesday time and boy have we got an update for you... We've been quietly working away in the background with our "Big Proper Rail Industry" supporters to help improve some of the infrastructure on our site.

So today is #BlueMonday. Well, there's nothing like a bit of steam to beat the blues so here's an archive picture of 3BG "Guinness" in action at our railway in the early 1990s. Photo from the late Mike Collins Collection.

Our volunteers continue to dismantle No. 90 in preparation for its boiler being removed. This week we’ve been trying to take apart its ashpan, but years of rust and awkward nut diameters have made this a very difficult process.

For this #ThrowbackThursday we’re heading to March, 1967 for a photo of B124 hauling an unfitted freight train at Dungarvan. Many thanks to Ernie’s Railway Archive for allowing us to use this photo.

For this #ThrowbackThursday we’re looking back fifteen years ago today, when our second “Big Diesel”, 146, took its first trundle under its own power at Downpatrick. We genuinely couldn’t imagine the place without the Irish Traction Group's 146.