The Ballycastle Railway Remembered Jim McBride

■ The Donegal Railway Heritage Museum has broken new ground, going east to County Antrim to take in the Ballycastle Railway, a 16-mile-long 3ft gauge delight which ran from Ballymoney to the seaside town of Ballycastle, between 1880 and 1950.

Author Jim McBride has discovered hitherto unknown pictures unearthed from local sources around the area the line served, as well as including shots from well-known photographers. The locomotives and rolling stock of the original Ballycastle Railway Company share room on the pages with those of the London Midland & Scottish Railway Northern Counties Committee, which rescued and re-opened the line in 1924, following the original company’s bankruptcy.

All black-and-white, apart from a colour shot on the back cover of a last-day working, the pictures well illustrate a line that, had it survived the Ulster Transport Authority axe in 1950, along with its iconic 2-4-2 compound tank engines, would have been a real asset to Ballycastle’s tourist trade today. A flavour of the railway in its last week comes from a reprint of an article from the Meccano Magazine of July 1951, written by well-known Irish narrow gauge historian, the late Edward M Patterson.

Full of detail for railway modellers, this book is packed with atmospheric shots of the little trains and the people who ran them and travelled on them. And it has a direct connection with the Donegal Railway Heritage Museum, for former Ballycastle Railway coach 318, the last surviving piece of the line’s rolling stock is on display in its later guise as County Donegal Railway coach 58. HD Published by County Donegal Railway Heritage Museum ISBN 978-1-874518-11-2 Tel: 00353 74 9722655 Web: www.donegalrailway.com Price: £13.00