The line had not yet opened to Portpatrick itself. The passenger trains conveyed three classes of passenger. In November the passenger service was augmented to three trains each way, possibly by converting the goods train to mixed operation. At this time the motive power fleet consisted of three 0-4-2 mixed traffic tender locomotives and an 0-6-0 locomotive loaned by the LNWR. In the Parliamentary Act authorising the PPR, a clause had been entered penalising the Company if the short branch to the north pier at Portpatrick was not completed by August 1862. The Company had accepted this obligation on the understanding that the Government would improve the little harbour to enable efficient working of mail and other shipping. This work was essential also to railway operation, as the available land for a terminal was very cramped. A change of Government policy began to suggest that the harbour improvement works might not be funded, and the PPR, with limited funds for building its line, was alarmed that their obligation might be to build an unusable branch line; accordingly they had not built any of the main line from Stranraer. However, in 1861 the Government did in fact put the work in hand, and the PPR now accelerated completion of their lines, and the line opened on 28 August 1862, after a Board of Trade inspection on 1 August 1862. The line ran to a town terminus at Portpatrick. To reach the harbour itself, a headshunt was provided beyond the station; a backshunt from there led to the harbour; due to the cramped site the headshunt was only sufficient for an engine and two coaches. The ordinary Portpatrick station was informally referred to as "the high station"; the line to the harbour descended very steeply, and was a plain single line without sidings. The harbour improvement works seemed to have been suspended and there was no sign of the transfer of the Post Office mail traffic—the original motivation for the entire PPR—to the route. There is no evidence of any passenger or goods terminal building on the harbour branch and it seems likely that the PPR was doing the minimum to comply with the legal obligation, having realised that the Government-funded harbour improvements were now in doubt. There were two daily trains in each direction between Stranraer and Portpatrick, one each way conveying goods also, but in October an express, not conveying Parliamentary (third class) passengers, was put on between Castle Douglas and Stranraer, making connection there with an Irish ferry.