There is excitement in Cahirciveen, Co Kerry lately about a special homecoming. An old locomotive has been brought back.
A once-disused permanent way is to be graced again by the C227 - the last loco to run on the Farranfore/Valentia branch line - which closed in 1960, having been in operation since 1893.
Mr Jack Farrell is the manager of the Old Barracks Heritage Centre in Cahirciveen, which hosted a railway exhibition in 1983.
An organiser, Mr Michael O'Connor, thought it would be a good idea if the loco that marked the end of an era could be brought back to the town as a lasting exhibit.
Thus, the project started. The next task was to track down the loco.
When the line closed in 1960, the loco that used to run via Farranfore, Killorglin, Kells, Cahirciveen and Valentia was pressed into service by CIE in Dublin, before passing into the ownership of Northern Ireland Railways (NIR).
At the time, NIR was still using it but the local community development company in Cahirciveen made contact, and was assured that if the old engine became available, there would be further contact.
The matter rested until May of this year when the Cahirciveen group was approached by NIR to say that the faithful loco was about to be scrapped. Cahirciveen could have it back for its scrap value - £600.
That was all very fine, but how was the C227 to be returned to the Kerry town when the railway tracks on which it left in the first place had long since been torn up?
It would cost £4,000 to get it back, using a specialist company in Britain.
That, though, was not going to put off the Kerry folk. A fundraising effort was initiated, permission was sought from and granted by the local authorities on the route to Kerry, and the loco is now back in familiar territory.
Initially, the plan is that C227 will be restored - minus its engine - and will stand as an exhibit on the site of the former Cahirciveen level crossing.
Down the line, so to speak, Mr Farrell and his colleagues hope to find an engine for the loco as well as a carriage to go with it - and when that has been achieved they will also set about the task of laying down new tracks so that C227 may run again.
It could well be the turn of the century before the whole project coheres, but time is not a problem. The people behind the dream say that next year, the restored loco, together with a mock-up of the former Cahirciveen station, will be on view to the public. After that, it will be on to the second phase.
It shows what community initiative can achieve.