Sunday 18th June 2023
Welcome to the second part of this week long daily blog special featuring Isle of Man Transport. Today we take a ride on the Island’s Steam Railway. It’s celebrating its 150th Anniversary this year.
The railway runs 15 and a half miles from Douglas south to Port Erin with a journey time of an hour, calling at six stations along the line.
It’s a single track three foot gauge railway with a passing place at Castletown.
It’s claimed to be the “longest narrow gauge steam railway in Britain that still uses its original locomotives and carriages”. Opened in 1873 the current route was originally part of a much larger steam railway network which used to serve Peel in the west and Ramsey in the north as well as the small mining village of Foxdale.
The railway runs between mid March and the end of October with four return journeys supplemented by two more during the TT fortnight and Fridays and Saturdays in July and August.
There are also evening journeys added on selected days in the high season offering a special dining experience. This includes “Pullman style fine dining offering a mouth-watering menu using only the finest Manx produce, the Dining Car is fully licensed and has a carefully crafted list of 14 wines”.
It’s good business as a special glossy coloured brochure gives full details of the various menus available on different dates.
Dining takes place in a “beautifully restored Dining Car built in 1905 and restored in Spring 2013”. It’s reckoned “the plush Dining Car is one of only a handful of fine dining narrow gauge dining cars in the world”.
The interiors of the standard coaches are also beautifully presented with sumptuous comfort on the cushions and real wooden floors.
Trains depart from a very imposing terminal building in Douglas …
… with the two platforms located alongside the town’s main bus garage.
You get some great views on the journey especially leaving Douglas along the coastline.
At the Port Erin terminus there’s a Museum which is well worth a visit as is the café which displays some great model buses on the tables.
Tomorrow we go from steam to electric traction as this week long daily blogging featuring Isle of Man Transport continues.
Roger French
Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS but it’s daily for this special Isle of Man Transport Week.
BusAndTrainUser 
Not particularly being a “Railway Buff”, and apparently only seeing the Isle of Man “through a rose-tinted myopia” (I thought that was the whole point of operating 150 year-old rolling stock and horse tramways, but never mind!), it has always intrigued me as to what will happen when things do actually need replacing. Surely they cannot go on forever? The tramway stock should be relatively easy to replicate, if it hasn’t been already, but “proper” railway stock must surely be more expensive?
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Heritage steam railways can even build new locomotives these days, the Ffestiniog certainly does, and undertakes building work for other railways.
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Looking at the photos the track has clearly ben replaced and is of modern design. The old style track was bullnosed and the rails held in place with wooden wedges
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Surely the comment about “rose tinted myopia” was in relation to the IOM never having been sullied by EU membership, and not to do with heritage railways?
Think Mackay has hit the nail on the head. I have a classic car that is fully original if you ignore the two resprays it has had, the retrim, the engine rebuild with a new cylinder head, etc.
Not been to the IOM but wonder if it’s the Island mentality that has a part to play. The Isle of Wight and both Jersey and Guernsey have an infrastructure that is somewhat quirky and even with modern developments like low floor buses, still has a traditional feel to it. Maybe the need to be self-sufficient has coloured things a tad?
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They have a lot of old fashioned craft skills meaning they are excellent at rebuilding and refurbishing ‘stuff’, whether that be mechanical or bodywork, on both the steam railway and the MER.
I believe they even have apprentices learning the ‘old’ trades.
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The A1 Steam Locomotive built a new A1 locomotive and are starting to build a P4 locomotive
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As ever excellent analysis from Roger. Personally I have never been to the Isle of Man. It would be interesting to compare IOM with Jersey which I know well holding a Jersey passport thru a grandfather ; being an accountant there are very definite tax advantages of being a Jersey resident. CT PLuss became infamous on Jersey but not sure how they compare with IOM
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I guess it’s a bit like Trigger’s broom in Only Fools, Dave. “It’s had 17 new heads and 23 new handles but it’s still the same old broom..”
..if you replace everything, but do it gradually, and maybe several times, it still counts as “original”, but if you replace it all at once, it isn’t….??
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It is actually possible to use the steam railway to reach the airport, Ronaldsway Halt being a request stop at the end of the lane containing the industrial estate opposite the airport. A 6 or 7 minute stroll brings you straight to the main terminal building.
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Clearly many Contributors on here never lived in the UK during the 1940s and a major part of the 1950s. I went to school on 1899 rolling stock, my local bus garage in Ascot was operating a 1929 single-deck even in 1950, and to stand in many market towns, particularly on a Saturday night, Sudbury (Suffolk) being one such, resembled a vintage transport display. So yes, it was a similar scene to the present day transport offerings on the Isle of Man, and not just my myopic view..
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