Railway Preservation Society of Ireland

Whitehead, near Belfast, has a long history as an excursion station, and the RPSI developed a working steam and engineering depot there. This was added to by the development of a museum.[2]

The Whitehead Railway Museum opened without ceremony in early 2017,[2] after a 5-year project to expand the site from a depot to include a rebuilt Whitehouse Excursion station and the museum. The total cost was £3.1m from various funding sources.[2] The museum received 10,000 visitors in 2017, its first year, and 15,000 in 2018.[3] The museum hosts five galleries and it is possible for visitors to see various heritage steam and diesel locomotives and observe work on railway carriage restoration. Guides from the society are present.[3]

The RPSI has arrangements for storage of stock at Inchicore Works with maintenance also being carried out there.[2]

In 2015 the RPSI gained an arrangement with Iarnród Éireann to lease the locomotive shed just to the north of Connolly for the maintenance and storage of mainline diesel locomotives.[2]

The RPSI moved into the loco shed at Mullingar in 1974[4] and based steam locos 184 and 186 there. Carriages were also restored there. The base has since become derelict, with funding instead being channeled to Whitehead, including a board decision not to spend money on the green carriages based at Mullingar.[5] Generating Van 3173 was the last vehicle to be overhauled.[6]

Prior to Mullingar, Sallins Goods Shed was used as a base.[7]

The Society used to operate mainline steam trains from Whitehead and Belfast. Since 2023, these have ceased, as Northern Irish Railways are no longer training staff as steam drivers. This leaves Whitehead focused on short steam train rides up and down the platform there.

GSWR steam locomotive No.186 on former GNR tracks, near Newry.

The Society possesses 9 steam locomotives (plus one more operated by them but owned by the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum), typically only a small number will be operational at any time:[8][lower-alpha 1]

The RPSI has three Great Northern Railway of Ireland 4-4-0's within its fleet.[8] No. 131, a Q class, was built in 1901.[12] The others are S class no. 171 Slieve Gullion and V class No. 85 Merlin,[8] although the latter is owned by the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum and is on loan. These locomotives are suitable for longer distance main line work, but are speed restricted if they need to run tender-first in the event they cannot be turned.[13]

The RPSI's Northern Counties Committee (NCC) 2-6-4T, WT class No. 4 holds significant records. It worked the last steam passenger train on Northern Ireland Railways, and with No. 53 operated the last stone goods train on 22 October 1970. Acquired by the RPSI in June 1971 it then went on to work over most of the remaining Irish railway network.[14][lower-alpha 1] They also own a SLNCR Lough class.

The Society possesses three goods tender locomotives all of which are suitable for slower speed passenger workings. Two of these are from the 101 (J15) class, of which over 100 were built between 1866 and 1903 and which lasted until the end of the steam era on CIÉ in 1963.[15] The RPSI possesses two examples of these simple, reliable and robust engines, No. 184 with a saturated boiler and round-shaped firebox, and No. 186 with a superheated boiler and squarer Belpaire firebox.[15] No. 461, a 2-6-0 DSER 15 and 16 Class heavy goods locomotive, is the only Dublin and South Eastern Railway example that has been preserved.[16]

Shunting locomotives are useful and economical for shunting and short passenger work within Whitehead yard. These include the 0-6-0ST .3 'R.H. Smyth', affectionally known as Harvey, which has also been used to pull ballast hoppers for NIR.[17] There is also No3BG "Guinness", a Hudswell Clarke engine presented by Guinness to the Society in 1965.[18]

134 at Inchicore Works

The RPSI has indicated it has a strategy to create a mainline heritage diesel fleet.[19] It has acquired four c. 65t 1,000 horsepower (750 kW) General Motors Bo-Bos; CIE 121 Class number 134 and CIE 141 Class numbers 141, 142 and 175.[8][20]

The RPSI used to own two NIR 101 Class Hunslet diesels Numbered 101 and 102.[21] They scrapped 101 and 102 was transferred to the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum.

The RPSI also has some small diesel shunters, including a Ruston from Carlow sugar factory, a planet diesel from Irish Shell and a unilok diesel from the UTA.[22]

In the 2000s, with more rail stringent regulations, the RPSI was forced to acquire rakes of metal bodied carriages for mainline railtours.[23]

Whitehead has a collection of historic wagons, including a GNR brakevan named Ivan, restored by their award-winning Youth team, a Guinness van and NCC handcrane and a GSWR ballast hopper and an oil tanker from Irish Shell.

The main work of the society is in securing and maintaining steam rolling stock, with a view to running rail tours and Mulligan, in "One Hundred and Fifty Years of Irish Railways" noted that the RPSI did "sterling work" in the area of organising of such rail tours around the island, following the end of steam as a regular means of service provision on UTA and CIÉ lines.[24]

The RPSI has been able to assist in the provision of suitable rolling stock for train-related scenes in films made on the island of Ireland.[24] The shooting of The First Great Train Robbery in 1978 was an early significant involvement in film making by the RPSI.[25]

Five Foot Three is the RPSI's membership magazine. It is published annually[26]