In Malahide, the Toots train rides again

Michael Place strode across the car park behind the Avoca store and cafe within the grounds of Malahide Castle on Friday afternoon.

At the edge of the lot, the sign advertising his business, Toots, the Malahide Road Train, stood in a raised bed of soil.

The digital countdown clock, which lets passers-by know when to expect the train, was switched off. It had been for some time.

The sign needs a scrub, said Place, giving it a quick once-over.

The board also had a picture of the three-carriage road-train, with two excited kids and the train driver poking their heads out the windows.

Their faces are cut-out, so people can poke their own through. “Everything on that board screams family,” Place said.

But Place hasn’t been able to take the train out around Malahide for a good while, he said, as he walked through the grounds of the castle and passed under a murder of crows cawing in a gargantuan oak tree.

“Tomorrow will be six months since I surrendered that vehicle to the [Commercial Vehicles Roadworthiness Test],” he said.

He had engine troubles, he said. “You’ve always got them. I’ve always got fixer-uppers.”

But at last, he said, Toots was going to be back on the road. “I’ve got my lovely wife and daughter coming along to help with the clean-up. We’ll have it nice and pristine for tomorrow.”

Waiting with the peacocks

The Toots train and its three carriages were parked in a driveway just off the straight road that led into the grounds via Hogan’s Gate, a vacant lodge at the Malahide Road entrance.

Its shiny red surface was covered in black splotches from the soot that piped out its chimney.

The front was still decorated in red and white canes, from when he had brought it over to Limerick for Christmas.

As he peeked into the carriage to determine what needed to be done, a pair of squirrels scuttled by, clambering up a cage filled with peacocks.

It was an anxious moment.

He was waiting for the National Transport Authority (NTA) to renew his license and it was taking far longer than he would have liked.

He was also concerned, he said, that Fingal County Council was going to tender for a new trackless train.

In August 2024, Place had learned that the council’s Economic, Enterprise, Tourism and Cultural Development Department was intending to advertise a procurement for “outdoor novelty experiences” across the county.

That included a trackless train, he said.

As he sees it, if another company took over the route, they might jack up the prices, he said.

At €18 a ride for a family of four, his prices are lower than the two other major road-train services, in Kilkenny and Galway, he says. “We’re just looking after families here for affordability.”

Then, a timely email landed in his inbox. The NTA had renewed his license, it read.

And on Tuesday evening, a spokesperson for Fingal County Council said that they had no plans to tender for a trackless/land train contract.

Sinn Féin TD Ann Graves said that a council official had confirmed that this wasn’t going to be happening. “They may be going to tender on other aspects of Malahide Castle, but his business is safe.”

First order of 2025

Magpies rattled loudly up in the trees around Malahide Dart station as Place turned the train into the car park on Sunday at lunchtime.

It whistled a chirpy peep peep as he steered an amused family of four up next to the entrance to the platform.

He made a quick phone call to a take-out in town. First order of 2025, he said, asking for two bags of chips and a box of chicken goujons. “I’ll be there in about 15 minutes.”

Place started Toots in June 2013 after time working on both the Viking Splash and Paddy Wagon tours, he said.

But the idea originated in his childhood, growing up in Ballymun, he says.

On summery Saturday mornings, kids would gather at the local school hall, Place said, talking as he drove the train into the town centre.

“It was for the summer projects, and your parents, if you were lucky’d give you 50p and you’d be able to sign up to three or four excursions via Dublin Bus,” he says.

They would visit places like Sandymount, the Botanical Gardens, and Dublin Zoo, he said. “And in them days, they wouldn’t care how many people they’d take on the school buses. 50p for four or five return trips on buses, and sandwiches. That was world class.”

Today though was chips.

Place parked outside Macari’s take-away. He ran across the road, and quickly back again, passing the bags of chips back to the passenger and bringing the box of goujons up to the front.

He started the train back up with a lively “peep peep” and resumed the route, looping back to the Avoca car park, which was in a strikingly different mood from that on Friday.

The carriages quickly filled. Parents asked how much.

“How are ya mama, you want to come on board?” he said, as a woman asked whether they were allowed to bring dogs.

“Of course you are,” he said.

Joggers. Jeep drivers. Excited kids. Folks going for a quick paddle down by the beach. Everybody, whether amused or confused, seemed to wave as the train passed – except for one stern young boy on a scooter.

That is what keeps him in the whole thing, he said, returning the waves as he went about his loop, up around the castle grounds and down along the Coast Road.

“The waving of those people,” he says. “If you’re ignoring that, you’re in the wrong place.”