Railway Company Crest (1946 Version) |
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| Type | Nationalised Railway |
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| Traded as | Isle of Man Railway Company (1870–1967) The Isle of Man Railway (1967–69) Isle of Mann Victorian Steam Railway Co., Ltd. (1969–72) The Isle of Man Railway (1973–77) Isle of Man Railways (1978–84) The Isle of Man Steam Railway (1984–2001) Isle of Man Transport (2001–09) Isle of Man Heritage Railways (2009–present) |
| Founded | 1870 |
| Headquarters | Transport Headquarters, Banks Circus, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 5PT |
| Area served | Isle of Man |
| Key people | Nick Black (CEO) Ian Longworth (Director) |
| Services | Public transport |
| Owner(s) | Isle of Man Government |
| Parent | Isle of Man Government (Department Community, Culture & Leisure) |
| Website | www.iombusandrail.info |
The Isle of Man Railway (known as I.M.R.) (Manx: Raad Yiarn Vannin) is a narrow gauge steam-operated railway connecting Douglas with Castletown and Port Erin in the Isle of Man. The line is built to 3 ft (914 mm) gauge and is 15.3 miles (24.6 km) long. It is part of what was a much larger network that once served the westerly town of Peel, the northern town of Ramsey and the small mining village of Foxdale and at one time the lines covered in excess of 46 miles (74.0 km) which was a considerable amount on an island as small as the Isle of Man. Despite now being in government ownership, it still uses the original historic rolling stock and locomotives and there are few concessions to modernity.
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The 15.5 mile line from Douglas to Port Erin is the last remaining part of the former 46 miles (74.0 km) system owned by the Isle of Man Railway Company, formed in 1870. Its first line, from Douglas to Peel, was opened on 1 July 1873, and was followed by the Port Erin line on 1 August 1874. Initially the Port Erin line had been planned to terminate at Castletown however the construction of deep water docking facilities at Port Erin caused an extension to the line - a few years after completion, the dock was destroyed by heavy seas and the idea of deep water vessels abandoned there, the remains of the breakwater are still visible at low tide in the village.
A third line was built in 1878-1879 by a separate company, the Manx Northern Railway which ran from St John's to Ramsey. A further short line was constructed from St John's to Foxdale in 1885 to serve the lead mines there. Although it was built by the nominally independent Foxdale Railway, the line was leased to and operated by the Manx Northern. The loss of the mineral traffic from Foxdale and competition for the Douglas-Ramsey passenger traffic from the Manx Electric Railway placed the Manx Northern Railway in financial difficulties. It was taken over and operated as part of the Isle of Man Railway in 1904.
During the mid-1920s the Isle of Man Railway formed a bus subsidiary which operated most of the Island's bus services, and helped the railway to remain profitable into the 1960s. Following the closure of the County Donegal Railways in 1960, the Isle of Man Railway purchased the CDR's two most modern diesel railcars, which were then largely used on the Peel line. The whole system closed after the 1965 season but was briefly revived when the Marquess of Ailsa obtained a lease and reopened all three routes for a final time in 1967. Both the Peel and Ramsey lines shut following the 1968 season, but Ailsa continued to operate freight services between Peel and Milntown until mid-1969, and passenger service on the South Line for three more seasons quitting after the 1971 season.
Empty Coaching Stock workings continued on an occasional basis between Douglas and St. John's until 1975 for the retrieval of stored stock between seasons. The permanent way on the Peel and Ramsey routes as well as the Foxdale line was lifted in 1975. The old Railway Company operated services between Douglas and Port Erin after Lord Ailsa took his five-year option, beginning in 1972 through the centenaries of the Peel and Port Erin lines in 1973 and 1974 respectively. Then in 1975, Port Erin line operated only from its southwestern terminus to Castletown, extending to Ballasalla in 1976, and returning to Douglas in 1977 - the last year in which the railway was operated by the Railway Company. Following nationalisation the railway has been operated seasonally by various government departments and continues to run in summer season, for many years opening for the Easter Weekend until the end of September, though more recently it has been open between February and November,
Following the majority of its working life being simply titled as the I.M.R., the railway is now marketed under the title of the Steam Railway to differentiate it from the Manx Electric Railway which is operated by the same department. It had previously been marketed as simply "Isle of Man Railway" until closure in 1965. From 1969 to 1972, it operated as the grand Isle of Mann Victorian Steam Railway Company Limited; before reverting to the more workaday Isle of Man Railway. When nationalised in 1978 it fell under the banner of "Isle of Man Railways" (along with the Manx Electric Railway). Some re-branding to Isle of Man Passenger Transport took place from 1984 but the steam line was not effected, and this was reverted to Isle of Man Railways again from 1990 when a re-branding exercise also took place with the emphasis on the Victorian origins of the railway.
A change in management style in 1999 ensued, and the islands trains, trams and buses were presented under the banner title of Isle of Man Transport. The electric railway was greater affected by this change, with a series of non-historical and somewhat overly-modern liveries etc., but in 2007 this was changed and the railway is marketed once more as the Isle of Man Railway although in keeping with the historical aspect, the coaches and locomotives carry original names and transfers. The banner heading of all the island's government-owned railways was once again changed in 2009 and they are now collectively known as Isle Of Man Heritage Railways although the railway retains its original titling on much of the marketing material, sometimes featuring Steam in the title to differentiate between stations. The railway is now also branded under the overall heading of Isle Of Man Transport as evidenced in the platform staff uniforms and paperwork; this branding has been widespread and also cover the Bus Vannin drivers and staff.
It should be noted that today's railway is a fraction of its original size, having originally also served the western city of Peel, northern town of Ramsey and the small mining village of Foxdale. However, since 1969 the southern line has been the only operational one. Although it is only about half of its former size, Douglas station is still an impressive complex. After crossing the Douglas River, the line climbs the two and a half mile long Nunnery Bank (at a grade of 1 in 65) out of the island's capital through a wide rock cutting that brings it through a large estate, past an industrial estate to the White Hoe, where this island's largest brewery is passed from the left of the train before crossing over the first overbridge. The train continues to climb to Port Soderick, just prior to which passengers get their first view of the sea at Keristal before descending into the station itself. The train then passes through Crogga Woods, and under another bridge at Meary Veg (centre for the island's sewerage treatment works) and climbs, reaching its summit (588 feet (179.2 m) marked by a board visible from the train) close to the site of the former Ballacostain Halt. The train descends to Santon Station which is the only intermediate station in substantially original (1874) condition. From here on the train descends steeply (at 1 in 60) to Ballasalla Station, with interesting sea-cliff views to the east, and all regular service trains pass at this station. After Ballasalla the line runs over relatively flat land past the request halt at Ronaldsway, to the island's ancient capital of Castletown. After Castletown station the railway crosses the Silver Burn and heads northwest across country to the diminutive request stop at Ballabeg. It then turns west for the short run to the local station of Colby, which is popular with the locals. After one further request stop at the Level the train continues towards Port St Mary; travellers can see views of Bradda Head and Milner's Tower on this stretch of line to Port Erin. Port Erin Station is home to the Whistle Stop Cafe providing light refreshments as well as the Port Erin Railway Museum, established in 1975 and housing two locomotives and various other items of rolling stock including the Queen's Coach and Governor's Saloon dating from the opening of the line in 1873. The majority of the line runs through countryside, with only small stretches being close to built-up areas. Many people start or end their journey in Port Erin, a Victorian sea-side resort, or in Castletown, the ancient capital of the Isle of Man. Ronaldsway Halt, located between Ballasalla and Castletown stations, and a few hundred yards walk from the airport, allows travellers to travel to or from the Isle of Man Airport by regular steam train. There are also several farm crossings and rural request stops along the picturesque line which largely serve adjoining fields and localised communities, this being especially prevalent on the southernmost section which passes through agricultural land. The line passes along the southern plain following the more hilly landscape north of Ballasalla.
When the railway was nationalised in 1978 Bill Jackson was appointed as the first manager. Although not liked by the preservationists and supporters, during his time in office much progress was made, although the negative developments overshadow his tenure in office. These include the loss of the large railway yard at Douglas and unpopular re-build on No. 12 Hutchinson to name but two. Upon his retirement in 1987 he was replaced by Robert Smith whose style was totally different and it was during his years that many changes were made. Smith masterminded the "Year of Railways" in 1993 and the subsequent celebrations that followed. In his time the rolling stock returned to original "purple lake" livery and Nos. 10, 15 and 1 (in that order) were returned to service. When he resigned in 1999 he was replaced by David Howard, with previous bus experience at various UK operators and rail experience from his time at Tyne and Wear Metro and was more inclined to a corporate approach and the railway had to follow suit. His time in office, finishing in 2006, will be remembered for the thrust on health and safety issues, the abundance of high visibility clothing on staff, warning signs, etc., as part of a Government wide drive on the issue. During his time in the role the Manx government commissioned a study to see if it would be worthwhile to operate commuter services to help relieve the road traffic congestion in and around Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man, and although experimental services were implemented in 2007, these only operated during T.T. race periods and have continued to do so since this time.
The result of the study was a recommendation against such development. Nevertheless almost all of the entire line has been relaid in the first few years of this century as part of the Department of Transport's IRIS sewerage scheme, with the line's numerous level crossings converted from manual to automatic operation at the same time, saving the railway the additional cost of employing crossing keepers, at all but one crossing. After the resignation of David Howard, the Department of Tourism and Leisure's Director of leisure, Mike Ball, stepped in as acting director of public transport and in early 2007 the leisure and public transport divisions of the department combined into "service delivery", Mike Ball becoming "Director of service delivery" under the minister Adrian Earnshaw appointed in November 2006. Ian Longworth was appointed as Director of Public Transport in 2009 and since this time the railway has also moved to become part of the Department of Community, Culture and Leisure. A number of new services have been introduced since the arrival of the new director, including evening excursion trains, a Rush Hour event at the start of each season, and a number of family-orientated events including a Teddy Bears' Picnic, Friends Of .Thomas Weekend and Fathers' Day Specials. An ongoing restoration programme for the railway's unique collection of rolling stock and locomotives is now in place; this has seen most recently two saloon-type coaches completely rebuilt and back in traffic and is to be following by at least a further three coaches being restored, one of which has been out of traffic for nearly half a century
As of the close of the 2011 season there are four of the original locomotives in operational condition: No. 4 Loch, No.10 G.H.Wood, No. 12 Hutchinson and No. 13 Kissack in addition to which No. 15 (now reverted to her original Manx Northern No.4) Caledonia is expected to see service in early 2012. No. 8 Fenella is privately owned and awaiting ten-year inspection before returning to service and No. 11 Maitland is undergoing long-term re-build. The Port Erin Railway Museum is home to No. 16 Mannin of 1926 and the 1875-built No. 6 Peveril with further locomotives at various locations.
There are nineteen coaches in service with more stored throughout the system (and some off-island having been sold in 1975). Two coaches are stored in the railway museum, and at least one has been preserved privately on the island, but several out of use carriages were lost in a fire which engulfed the large shed at St. John's in 1975. There is an ongoing maintenance programme for returning coaches to traffic which saw two saloon coaches completely rebuilt and returned to traffic in 2011 with a further two coaches to follow with work commencing in early 2012.
The Isle of Man Railway has always seen a marked seasonal pattern to its traffic. Services evolved around two main considerations; firstly the need to connect with ferries to and from the UK and Ireland; and secondly to transport day trippers out of the major termini. The railway never evolved appreciable commuter traffic, so local traffic tended to revolve around shopping, attending the markets held on the island, and occasional trips to "Town."
From the 1870s until the early-1950s, the basic service on all three main routes consisted of four or five trains a day. The first departures from Ramsey, Peel and Port Erin were timed to arrive just before 8am to connect with the morning ferries to the UK. These trains returned to their respective termini around 8.30am. The principal morning departures left Douglas, Peel, Port Erin, and Ramsey a little before or after 10am. All three routes would see a lunchtime round trip, then another late afternoon departure from the various termini around 4pm. There were also early evening trains on all three main routes, but these disappeared quite quickly after World War II. From 1886 to 1940, the Foxdale branch was served by up to four round trips on weekdays from St John's.
Additional trains were added to the basic service beginning at Easter. Further trains were added at Whitsun and again in July to cope with holiday traffic. At its height in the 1920s, the railway was carrying well over a million passengers a year. The high season timetable consisted of up to fifteen round trips on the Peel and Port Erin lines, and up to a dozen on the Ramsey line. In 1927, at the height of "The Bus War," the IMR boasted that it ran "100 trains a day at pre-war prices."
In the 1930s, following the integration of train and bus services, it was usual for the summer train service to peak at about a dozen trains each way on all three main routes. It has to be remembered that this intensive service ran on an entirely single track system controlled by Staff and Ticket safeworking, and limited semaphore signalling. As it was exempt from the 1889 Railways Act, it also lacked signal interlockings except at Douglas and St John's. Continuous vacuum brakes were not fitted until 1926/7. In spite of this the railway has seen very few serious accidents. (see below)
Traffic declined sharply in the late-1950s. A million passengers were carried for the last time in 1957, and an increasing number of locomotives were stored, rather than reboilered and returned to service. Although the railway was still intensively used in summer, by the mid-1950s winter train services had been reduced to morning and afternoon round trips to Port Erin and Peel, and a solitary working to Ramsey. These trains operated mainly for parcels traffic. Winter trains usually consisted of a locomotive and one or two carriages. The St. John's - Ramsey service became seasonal in 1960. From 1961 onwards of the ex-County Donegal railcars handled most of the winter service.
The last two summer timetables (see http://www.iomsrsa.com) before the railways reorientation towards tourism were issued in 1964 and 1965. These show six round trips on the Port Erin line; five on the Peel line, and just two to Ramsey. With the exception of the high season Port Erin-Douglas boat train, all of these trains operated between 9.30am and 5.30pm - quite a contrast to the fifteen hours a day operation of the 1920s and 30s.
In June 1967 Ailsa issued an ambitious summer timetable that pushed a reduced locomotive fleet to its limit (See Hendry and Hendry "Isle of Man Railway Album" - David and Charles 1977). But this time only five Beyer Peacock steam locomotives and the railcars were available for service. By September services had been reduced to four round trips to Castletown, three to Peel and two to Ramsey. This pattern carried over to the 1968 season, except that the Ramsey service had been reduced to one train, thrice weekly by the end of the season.
Since the closure of the Peel and Ramsey lines, the basic service has generally been four trains a day between Douglas and Port Erin and return departing at roughly 2 hour intervals between 10.15am and 4.15pm. Most seasons an extra train has operated from Douglas around 10.45pm, returning from Port Erin about 3.30pm during July and August. A brief 1990s experiment with a six trains each way a day service in high season was abandoned on grounds of cost.
In the period 1945-1965 most trains consisted of a three carriage sets hauled by a single locomotive. Each three car set consisted of a third class, a first/third composite, and a third brake, with seats for 120 third class; and 12 first class passengers. Additional carriages - usually older stock such as "the Pairs" and "small Fs" - were added when loadings increased in mid-summer. The official maximum loading for a single locomotive was seven carriages until 1977 when it was reduced to six (SRN Spring 1978). However, during locomotive shortages, a single Medium Boiler locomotive would sometimes handle eight or nine carriages on Port Erin trains, but would be banked as far as Keristal by the Douglas Station pilot. Peel and Ramsey trains were usually combined between Douglas and St. John's. These trains were often double-headed, usually to balance locomotive workings, rather than on account of the loading.
Apart from the Ramsey Cattle Mart specials, purely freight trains rarely operated on the Isle of Man Railway. Most freight traffic was conveyed by attaching freight wagons to the rear of passenger trains. The consequent shunting often delayed passenger trains at intermediate stations, but was cost effective for the railway. A miscommunication while detaching a van from a Douglas bound train at Union Mills was a contibutory factor to the August 22, 1925 accident at Douglas Station. Freight traffic ceased in the early 1960s, though Sir Philip Wombwell did try to bring oil and container traffic to the railway 1967/8 (Hendry and Hendry, op. cit.)
From its inception the railway operated an intensive service throughout the year, with restricted services in the winter months; the compant rarely operated dedicated goods or freight trains, with most services being mixed with passenger and goods stock (notable exceptions include major works such as transportation of materials for the completion of an airfield in the north of the island). This pattern of operation continued until 1965 when the railway was closed "for essential maintenance to take place".
In the event no trains ran in 1966 but the following year it reopened on a seasonal basis as a tourist attraction as detailed above; the following season with 1968 proving to be the last seasons for the Peel and Ramsey lines, and from 1969 only the southern route to Port Erin has operated. Services generally operated from May to September thereafter, notably only running between Port Erin and Castletown in 1975, and Port Erin and Ballasalla in 1976. Various timetables were experimented with in the early period of nationalisation with no trains operating on Saturdays for a number of years until 1987, among other changes.
The complete southern line has been operated every year since 1977, the last year of operation by the Railway Company prior to nationalisation. Aside from the popular Santa Trains which have operated since 1985, out of season running (generally between May and September) was uncommon until 2009 when a number of experimental services were tested, expanding the running season somewhat. The season now commonly commences at the end of February although services do not operate daily until Easter.
The season now extends until the first weekend of November to tie in with the Ride The Rocket Bonfire Night service and schools' half term. Today there are various timetables that operate at different times of the season, with the peak version seeing three train sets in service and six departures from each termini, the last one being at approximately 7.00pm depending on the operating pattern. Special event days often see bespoke timetables in operation with additional services often providing shuttle services to intermediate stations, usually Ballasalla and Castletown although Port St. Mary has also been served by these shuttles.
In more recent times one-off and special events have been further expanded beginning in 2009 with further expansion in 2010 to include several now-annual initiatives with the focus on the local market and families rather than the less lucrative enthusiasts' market which has tailed off since the expansive events beginning with the 1993 Year Of Railways and beyond. These are summarised as follows:-
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