The Downpatrick & County Down Railway have reached a new milestone with the preservation of ex-Iarnród Éireann 121 class GM diesel loco No.124.

Irish Traction Group volunteers successfully started the locomotive, which hadn’t been started since its withdrawal in March 2008.

Most of these locomotives were taken out of service in the early 2000s; however, 124 and 134 held on until later.

The successful start-up followed a day of shunting and fixing faults, which included fabricating a new battery box, fixing a defective water pump and refurbishing a set of batteries.

Further information on the preservation work can be found online.