No Harry Potter but it was ‘full steam ahead’ for Bundoran Express at the weekend

The young ones may have have half expected Harry Potter to emerge from its carriages, but for railway enthusiasts, a great number of whom reside in Donegal, it was even better than that, over the weekend.

For a piece of Donegal railway history, uniquely linked to the seaside report of Bundoran and appropriately named the ‘Bundoran Express’ was the big attraction of what turned out to be a day of joy for rail enthusiasts, ironically on April Fools day.

Anthony Gray is a long standing member of the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland (RPSI), amongst others and he has kindly shared a great photo that he took of the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland's Phoenix railtour from Dundalk shortly after arriving in Dublin last Saturday.

No. 131 had chugged its way on its first cross border adventure from a restoration depot in Antrim, earlier in the day.

The headboard carried was from the famous Bundoran Express which last ran in 1957 as part of the Great Northern Railway services.

That year, the Northern Government made the GNR close all its lines across the border with the one exception of the main Dublin to Belfast main line and a branch line to Newry.

The locomotive itself last steamed into Dublin in 1963 and spent many of the intervening years on a plinth at Dundalk, on display.

Its journey initially in the eighties was a restoration project and it was brought to Kerry by some enthusiastic Munster rail fans.

There it was to be operated from Tralee to Fenit, but that never got off the ground or restored and it looked unlikely that the project would ever build up another head of steam.

Thankfully, it was then transported, by lorry to Antrim, where it was restored at the RPSI base in Whitehead, Co Antrim in 2014/15. It became operational around 2018, but has never travelled back south of the border until now.

The attached image was taken on the 3rd of June 2022. No 131 has just departed from Whitehead on a "Steam and Jazz" to Belfast and Lisburn. Conditions were somewhat better than last Saturday. Photo courtesy of Anthony Gray.

Anthony, who is from Drogheda, through which the original Bundoran Express would have travelled in its operational days said it was a great experience that he would have loved more Donegal people to enjoy.

He said: “I am not old enough to have travelled on it then, but I was delighted to get this great opportunity after all those years. The only link with the station now in the town would be the Great Northern Hotel.

“That engine would have been withdrawn from traffic in 1963 when the steam finished on CIE. The GNR ceased in 1958. The engine was mounted on a plinth in Dundalk station, certainly for a good 20 years as a static exhibit. That same engine would have worked the route over to Bundoran.

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“It would have started in Dublin, Drogheda and Dundalk and a few places heading towards Clones,but it then ran non stop from Clones to Pettigo to avoid any interactions with Customs. There were two big traffics on it, the pilgrimage traffic to Lough Derg and those heading towards Bundoran.”

There are plans to bring the engine to the south again this summer and the nearest it will get to Bundoran is Galway train station, but the fact that it is still here at all is thanks to the ranks of rail enthusiasts like Anthony and the various railway societies and engineering societies that he supports.