All Aboard the Doon Valley Railway

Full Steam Ahead!

Linda Brown

“Steam locomotives have always been a great attraction,” says Archie Thom, chairperson of Doon Valley Railway, during our chat about the popular heritage railway.

Located at the former ironworks at Dunaskin, Waterside near Patna – just ten miles from Ayr – Doon Valley Railway, previously the Scottish Industrial Railway Centre, has been welcoming visitors every Sunday throughout late spring and summer months for around twenty years. Visitors can explore the museum, enjoy refreshments at The Signal Box Café, browse the souvenir gift shop and, of course, take a ride on a train for over a mile of line. Train tickets are currently priced at £8 per adult and £4 per child.

“We finished our regular weekend running on 29th September with a Gala Event,” Archie continues. “We had 3,500 visitors on the site. There were classic cars, classic buses, vintage motorbikes, craft stalls and a brass band. All our trains ran full.”

Another exciting and special family event is Doon Valley Railway’s Santa Train. This year the Santa Train is running over three weekends – 23rd/24th November, 30th November/1st December, and 7th/8th December. Bookings must be made on-line, and tickets are selling fast!

Passengers will travel in a saloon carriage hauled by a heritage diesel locomotive with Santa magically landing on the train roof before visiting the children on board to give them their present – a beautifully wrapped, personalised gift.

“We don’t stint on the presents,” Archie points out. “Last year the children received a box of Lego.”

What an unforgettable experience for ‘weans’ of all ages. The trip is followed by a tasty afternoon tea of sausage rolls, mince pies and cakes galore served with mulled wine, tea, coffee and soft drinks at The Signal Box Café.

The Santa Train sounds a fantastic, festive family day out, and the good news is… there are still plenty more fantastic days to come at Dunaskin.

Contrary to recent concerns that Doon Valley Railway might have reached the end of the line, there has been light at the end of the tunnel, and now its future is looking secure and bright.

“We’ve been leasing some of our buildings,” Archie explains. “When our landlord started to sell up over a year ago, we were facing the possibility of losing all the leased buildings, because we couldn’t raise enough funds to buy them. But recently, a couple of benefactors have dipped into their pockets and bought two of the buildings. A consortium of others have put together to buy a third building, so we have managed to save part of what we were in danger of losing.”

What amazing generosity from people obviously committed to safeguarding the history and heritage of Patna and Dalmellington’s iron and coalmining industries, and the railway.

The history of Dunaskin dates to 1846 with the founding of the Dalmellington Iron Company’s ironworks. The company constructed the first railways around Dalmellington, commissioning the first steam locomotives around 1851/2, to transport iron ore and coal to the blast furnaces. Deep coal mining in the area ceased in 1978, but opencast mining continued, with the railway system remaining operational until about twelve years ago. Over the past 170 years, ownership of the stretch of line at Dunaskin used by Doon Valley Railway has always been in private hands, most recently with Hargreaves Land Management, from whom the track is leased.

The Ayrshire Railway Preservation Group (ARPG) was formed in 1974 and celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

“The aim of the group was to preserve industrial railway heritage, the kind of locomotives and rolling stock that were in private user hands at coal mines and factories and places like that,” Archie explains.

Originally based at the Scottish Industrial Railway Centre (SIRC) at Minnivey Colliery, the ARPG moved their entire operation to Dunaskin between 2002-2005. They later purchased the locomotive shed, a couple of buildings and a small plot of land. The decision was taken to relaunch SIRC in the spring of 2020 as Doon Valley Railway and focus on being one of Scotland’s few heritage railways. However, the Covid pandemic scuppered those plans and the relaunch finally took place in 2022.

Today, the group’s aims are to create a viable visitor centre and tourist attraction, expand the Railway’s profile, and bring much needed tourism to the Doon Valley.

I’m curious if the group repairs and maintains the locomotives and rolling stock themselves.

“We get a lot of good sponsorship from Gibson Engineering Ltd – Managing Director, Fraser Gibson is our principal sponsor and he has generously done some repair work for us either free or at cost,” Archie says. “But, by and large, we do the maintenance ourselves.”

Doon Valley Railway currently has approximately 200 members with roughly 30 people being regular hands-on volunteers running the station, driving the trains and working behind the scenes– including Archie, Andrew Smith (vice chairperson/engineering director), Alex Wallace (fundraising director), and Julie Smith (fundraiser/café assistant).

The group’s members hail from all over the country, including people from the local Patna and Dalmellington communities, and are of all ages with several younger volunteers, some being in their teens. Model train enthusiast, Andrew, aged 14, is involved with setting up and operating a model railway exhibit.

“Getting younger people interested has been great. We’ve several learning to do skilful jobs. They’re learning engineering skills or to be guards and station staff.”

New members and volunteers are always happily welcomed – if you are interested, please make contact via Doon Valley Railway’s website.

So what’s happening further down Doon Valley’s rails? Well, it has an impressive five-year plan. Presently, the group is refurbishing one of their buildings, transforming it into a new museum to home their collection of railway and coalmining artifacts. A grant received from Dalmellington Parish Development Trust is being match funded with monies raised by the Railway to lay down rails and build a new storage shed to house rolling stock safely undercover and out of the elements. The group also aims, after the return of passenger carriages on loan, to run longer trains.

“We intend eventually to be running as far as our old site at Minnivey which would give us a two-mile run with a station at each end,” Archie tells me. “That’s very much on the cards over the next year or two.”

Within the next five years, Gibson Engineering Ltd hopes to acquire the railway line from Dalrymple Junction to Patna, and if successful this would give Doon Valley Railway a five-mile line to run trains from Dalmellington to Patna.

“If the branch line is reopened, that would allow rail tours to visit our site from the main line, possibly hauled by famous and iconic locomotives,” Archie concludes.

Now that would be an amazing achievement.

Doon Valley Railway is certainly on the right track and powering full steam ahead into a positive and prosperous future.

Website – www.doonvalleyrailway.co.uk
Facebook – Doon Valley Railway
Instagram – doonvalleyrailway