The County Donegal Remembered

By Jim McBride (softback, Donegal Railway Heritage Centre, www. donegalrailway.com/00353 74 9722655, 136pp, 20 Euro plus 4 Euro postage, ISBN 978-1-874518-10-5). THIS latest book from the pen of Jim McBride and the imprint of Donegal Railway Heritage Centre is a first-class trip over County Donegal Railways narrow gauge tracks, long gone, but fondly remembered.

Two hundred black-and-white and 50 colour pictures take time travellers over all 124 miles of the system, the last sections of which closed in December 1959. The majority of the pictures had not been published, and there are gems from the distant past showing stock and locomotives in a drab black livery before the CDR adopted its eye-catching red and cream for coaches and railcars, with steam locomotives in red, cutting a dash against Donegal scenery.

Pictures taken within weeks of closure show just how busy the line was in its dying days, and poignant shots of track lifting in the summer of 1960, illustrate just how much was destroyed in that era of gung-ho railway scrapping.

Loaded with detail, the CDR’s own rail replacement buses even manage to make an appearance.

The book comes with a reprint of an article by renowned CDR enthusiast and pioneering modeller, the late Sam Carse, first published in The Railway Magazine in 1951, describing the railway in action then.

In the volume, modellers will also find much to inspire them. All proceeds go towards developing Donegal Railway Heritage Centre and reopening a section of this marvellous railway, which comes to life between the books’ covers thanks to author Jim McBride and sponsor Peter Leach, who met the production and printing costs.

A MUST FOR DONEGAL, NARROW GAUGE, AND IRISH RAILWAY FANS