When did the Isle of Man Railway become a preserved line?

Short of some train-load staple in need of air transport being produced within spitting distance of the IMR (or the MER for that matter), I suspect rail freight is a dead duck on Man.

Great to see the "G" van is earmarked for restoration. Is that a 'Straight G' or the 'E/G' (which I thought was the only survivor)? And is there any intention to 'through pipe' it, in order to make for more photo opportunities?

 

G19 (built on the chassis of brake van E3 in the 20's) the through piped one, has been in Port Erin Museum for the last few years and we (Heritage Railway Volunteers) use it for storing our tools and equipment. The exterior has been tidied up/repainted and the additional bits added when it was in P'way service have been removed. Unfortunately the track on which G19 stands is not connected but we do have a restored freight set of M & H wagons and G12 the MNR van which is used for special events and photo charters. G1 (the only surviving wagon from 1873) is currently stored in the back of Douglas shed and viewable on our shed tours - another shameless plug. We would have liked to have had this in the museum instead of G19 but were assured that it would probably have disintegrated before it got to the top of Nunnery bank as only due to the fact that the woodworm are holding hands that it hasn't already fallen apart! I did hear that another group had offered to restore it but haven't heard anything lately or what the Railway's view of this was. I will post details of the Easter Rush Hour on the Railways and the Heritage Transport Festival when the final details are released.
Cheers
Ray.

 

I meant as in lines which drifted ambiguously from local service to preserved line. And they weren’t all modernised that recently either - ever been to Oschatz?


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When compared with the IMR fleet, just about anything looks modern! Regretably, I've never had the opportunity to venture onto the German NG lines during any of my visits, but I had those impressive 1950's built 2-10-2T's (Groß chuffereitung für schmalspurbahnen, perhaps?) and the diesel railbuses at the back of my mind when I mentioned modernisation. That any of the earlier Malletts survived is something of a minor miracle. For articulated locos, they're surprisingly dainty IMO, though perhaps they just look it when seen alongside those stonking great 10 coupled beasties!

 

Then you really should, although they’re Saxon-Meyers not Mallets. I mentioned Oschatz as it seems to be more ambiguous than most having been kept going on a shoestring for years, at one time I think only for school traffic. If you can find a steam running day a Saxon-Meyer is guaranteed as that’s all they have. For older rolling stock (beautifully restored too) you really need to go to Johstadt but that doesn’t fit the criteria as it was closed and reopened by preservationists.


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