Northern Ireland’s Downpatrick and County Down Railway (DCDR) has revealed that a visitor has donated an historic whistle to its museum.

Blundell Harris had a rare “Zwiebelpfeife” whistle in his attic for more than half a century. had a piece of one of our steam engines in his attic for over 50 years! The whistle had belonged to one of the Railway’s locomotives, so Blundell decided to return it to its former home.

The story of Blundell Harris and his whistle dates back to the 1960s. At the time, Mr Harris lived close to the storage location of two locomotives.

These were two ex Cómhlucht Siúicre Eireann, Teoranta (Irish Sugar Company, Ltd.) Orenstein & Koppel tank engines, Nos. 1 and 3. They were kept at this location until they entered preservation at Downpatrick.

The locomotives were not in use at the time, so Mr Harris “borrowed” one of their whistles to add to his collection of railwayana.

The whistles were made to the “Zwiebelpfeife” (“onion pipe”) design, which was quite rare, and was unique to Orenstein & Koppel steam engines.

When the Downpatrick and County Down Railway acquired the locomotives, it found that it was unable to source a replacement for the missing whistle. It fitted the engines with standard, off-the-shelf cylindrical whistles when it put the locomotives into service.

Blundell attended the railway’s model show last year, and met a DCDR volunteer at one of the stands.

As a result of this meeting, he decided to travel to Downpatrick a few weeks ago, in order to visit the locomotives that he had climbed on when he was young – and to donate the whistle to the railway’s museum.

Neither of the O&K locomotives is in service at present, but the railway plans to return them to steam over the next few years, and will fit the whistle to one of them.

The Railway – which celebrated its foretieth anniversay last year – is located in County Down in Northern Ireland, and runs on a 5 foot 3 inch gauge heritage railway. It is run by volunteers.

The Railway runs passenger trains hauled by steam and diesel locomotives, diesel railcars, and uses vintage carriages. It’s most recent special event was a dinosaur-themed ‘Jurassic Express’.