Donegal drone takes to the air to capture records of lost and closed lines
A DRONE is taking flight over the closed railways of Donegal to record them for posterity through Donegal Railway Heritage Museum, which has purchased a professional piece of kit thanks to Failte Ireland Digital.
Following training provided by Big Wheel, museum staff will go into action to create a unique archive of the course of the County Donegal, Londonderry & Lough Swilly and Great Northern Railway of Ireland lines as they presently exist. “We believe that we are one of the first railway museums or heritage railways to take this approach to creating an aerial archive,” said museum manager Niall McCaughan.
“Being able to shoot drone footage of the closed railways in their environment and surrounding landscape will create a unique resource that we will be using on our revamped website, which we’ll launch in the summer, and on our social media outlets. And, crucially, the drone will be an invaluable tool for helping us identify stretches of the railways which may be capable of having track restored, to allow us to achieve our ultimate aim of running CDR stock again in Donegal.”
Meanwhile, the museum raised a few eyebrows by turning preserved CDR 2-6-4T No. 5 Drumboe green for St Patrick’s Day.
It was not a repaint into the original Donegal Railway Company green livery, nor was it respray into the green livery of the Lough Swilly Railway, the CDR’s great rival, however – Drumboe went temporarily green thanks to floodlighting installed at the covered platform where it sits outside the museum.
“We had the lighting installed when the platform and canopy were built,” said Niall.
“It means that we can light up the loco in different colours to mark various events and anniversaries. This really helps us promote the museum, as no one can miss a red CDR loco that keeps changing colour!”