We have a fleet of operational locos based at the Downpatrick & County Down Railway. These locos are used for occasional passenger trains, empty stock moves, special events, shunting and permanent way support.
A small collection of locomotives are officially classed as 'Under restoration' at any one time with the ITG. These can be quite long term projects, but given the age and condition of some of the locos, as well as the small number of volunteers, this is to be expected.
Restoration happens at our base at Carrick-on-Suir, and also at the Downpatrick & County Down Railway.
Some locomotives in our collection very long-term restoration projects. It's better to have something saved rather than send them for scrap, and we do our best to preserve them for possible future restoration. Nobody in their right mind would scrap a rare Sulzer, for example! We hope that one day a project group will form with some additional skilled volunteers to take on some of these projects.
Some of our stored locos are simply there for spares, and will likely never be restored. Why do we keep whole locomotives? Just imagine the effort required to strip and store all the spares off a single GM loco, for now it's easier to leave them in situ until such time as they're needed.
