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RPSI 40th Anniversary
Pioneering spirit and true determination
The Railway Preservation Society of Ireland was formed in Belfast on September 30th, 1964.  This is our 40th year of organising mainline railtours hauled by Irish steam locomotives.  40 years of triumph and tribulation.  The RPSI has brought steam back to places as far apart as Limerick and Lisburn, Cork and Coleraine and Bangor and Ballina.

 

Newsletter article from July 3rd 2004.

Belfast Telegraph article from July 13th 2004.

Special activities in our 40th year - follow the links for more information and photographs:

• 18th January 2004 - No.186 is steamed at Whitehead for the first time since 1980, celebrating our 40th Anniversary and her 125th birthday.

 
• 30th June 2004 - the official press launch of our 40th Anniversary Book, "Forty Shades of Steam", the definitive history of the RPSI.

 
• 23rd July 2004 - the official press launch of restored locomotive No.186.

 
• 2nd October 2004 - the 40th Anniversary Gala Dinner at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.  The climax of the celebrations with keynote speeches by Lord O'Neil (President), Dr Garret Fitzgerald (Vice president), Sir Kenneth Bloomfield (Vice president), David Morgan (HRA President), Philip Lockett and Gerry Mooney (RPSI Council).
• 10th November 2004 - the RPSI is awarded the "John Coiley Award for Locomotive Preservation for 2004".

 

Despite many difficulties, the determination of a group of railway enthusiasts who vowed that mainline steam in Ireland should not be consigned to the history books has paid off.

The RPSI has made mainline steam it's mission and setup  it's engineering base at Whitehead, County Antrim.

When the RPSI arrived, it  found a wilderness needing to be cleared.  The site has now changed beyond all recognition and it's hard to believe what has been achieved in just 40 years.

Rolling stock acquisition and more frequent operations have led to much more complex trackwork and expansions of the locomotive and carriage workshops.

The provision of engineering facilties have allowed so many achievements to take place.  Like the rebuild of No.3 "RH Smyth" from this condition...

...to this - the only steam locomotive in Ireland and the UK to have been seconded for paid railway company service this century.