Ulster & Connaught Heritage Railways
Downpatrick & Co. Down Railway
The Downpatrick & Co. Down Railway is Northern Ireland's only standard gauge (i.e. full size) heritage railway and is based in the county town of Down.
The railway was founded in 1985 with the intention of rebuilding the entire former Belfast and County Down Railway branch line to Ardglass.
However, it soon became apparent that this was an unrealistic goal. The railway currently operates over approximately two miles of a restored section of the former Belfast and County Down Railway main line to Belfast out of Downpatrick to Inch Abbey, a ruined 12th Century Cistercian Abbey, with a further one mile built along the old Newcastle route to a Viking King's Grave, completing a triangle of track, which is hoped will be extended to the hamlet of Ballydugan three miles south of Downpatrick
The Downpatrick & Co. Down Railway is a not-for-profit society as well as a registered charity and museum. We currently have a membership of just under 200 people from all over the world. We earn our revenue from the fares we charge per trip, donations and membership subscriptions. Major restoration jobs usually required large expenditure and we try to source grant aid for these.
We are staffed entirely by volunteers, the railway has been painstakingly rebuilt from nothing by people giving up their Wednesdays, Saturdays, Sundays or even Thursday evenings!
