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

This is a very trivial question, but one that intrigues me.

Is the Isle of Man Railway a preserved line? If so, when did it change from being a normal working railway to a preserved/heritage attraction?

I think the Ailsa period was the start of things. That's the time when efforts were made to save the line from closure, since it was struggling to survive as a viable public transport system. But the IOM network continued to contract, as well as trying to modernise with railcars and other innovations.

Today I think it is unquestionably a heritage tourist attraction, but can anyone say for certain when the transition took place?

 

Ooh! .... good question! Trouble is, the original company picked the baton up again after Ailsa threw in the towel. Was the IMR still a commercial operation by then? I dunno either.

 

The railcars came in a few years earlier, in the early 60s.

At the start of the Ailsa period the railway tried to keep all three of the main routes open, and also tried to develop new freight services, such as container trains and oil trains. However midway through the Ailsa period freight services were dropped and the network shrunk to essentially what it is now; and the service started to be marketed specifically as a heritage operation.

 

Mods: Can this be moved to correct Sub-forum of Narrow Gauge?

 

Agreed. Then @marshall5 and @Mike Buttell will see the thread and give us a definitive answer (or two) ....

 

well it was at one stage part of the same organisation that ran the MER and the buses. I'm not sure if it's stand alone nowadays.

 

Hmmm.... I suppose a lot depends on how one defines a "preserved railway". As for a date, I'm not even going to suggest one, as like most things the IMR has undergone a period of evolution since the early 60's. One could suggest the end of 1965 season, (there were no services in 1966) but services resumed on all 3 lines for the 1967 & 68 seasons under Lord Ailsa. Post 1968 only the South Line has operated, first under Ailsa but subsidized by IoM Gov then by the 'old' company until nationalization. Today it is operated by the Gov't as part of the national transport along with the MER and Bus Vannin and marketed as a 'Heritage Railway'.
So where does this leave us? With the exception of the Heritage Railway Volunteers the railway is 100% paid staff but so is the Torbay & Dartmouth Steam Railway which also operates boats..... If we need to label it I would describe the IMR as a heritage railway but not "preserved" in the accepted sense. Maybe the answer is for folks to come over and see us for themselves and then make up their minds! Shameless plug.
Ray.

 

I'm not sure that there is a universal definition, but typically a "Preserved" railway is one that has outlived its usefulness as a public transport route and now operates as an attraction in its own right, providing a Nostalgia service rather than a Transport service.

For most lines it's a clear break, because the lines were closed by the government and reopened by preservationists.

It's interesting that the IOM lines are operated as part of the Manx Transport authority, and are included in the Manx transport pass (great value for money IMO). But I doubt if a casual punter would use the Steam railway as public transport. The buses are faster, cheaper and more frequent. Today, I think, it is very much a preserved railway, but as suggested by others above, perhaps the changeover was evolutionary, and was not a specific event.

 

Actually quite a few people use the railway for 'normal' purposes and, as Tesco is adjacent to Douglas station, is used by shoppers. The IMR operate commuter trains (with breakfast available) at the same price as the bus at certain times of the year. People who use the railway regularly take advantage of the annual Residents Pass for unlimited travel which is available at 60GBP for the steam railway or 75GBP (1/2 price for 60+) to include the MER & SMR as well.
Ray.

 

Last time I rode the railway at the Manx GP a couple of years ago, there were locals using it as transport.

 

Pete, I've twice reported my thread Engineering Peregrinations because it's in General and would make more sense in Steam, but no response. What am I doing wrong?
http://www.national-preservation.com/index.php?threads/1078629/

 

20 years ago, we used the MER, IONSR and buses with a Freedom of the Island pass and having a truly integrated system was fab, MER trams until 10pm, back in Douglas for last orders, acwe!

 

When did regular winter services end? Ever since then it has clearly been a service provided mainly for tourists.

 

Sounds like a real bargain. If only I lived in the IOM!

 

Winter services ceased on the Ramsey line on 25th Sept. 1961 although occasional goods and maintenance trains continued to run through the winter of 1961/2. Traditionally, apart from livestock or coal 'specials', most freight traffic had been handled in mixed trains. The last winter trains elsewhere on the system continued into the winter of 1964/5 but latterly the ex CDR railcars handled most of the traffic with one return trip to Peel and two to Port Erin daily. One of the G vans was through piped to run between the railcars to carry any freight. During the winter of 1981/2 a Fridays only shoppers train operated for which loco #12 and 3 carriages had their steam heating restored - but only for the one season IIRC. Nowadays the seasonal services finish at the end of the autumn half-term holiday but special/dining trains may continue and the Christmas trains are always popular.
Unlike most other narrow gauge railways the IMR has always been, primarily, for tourists so services out of the tourist season were always of a greatly reduced nature.
Thanks for your interest.
Ray.

 

Interesting point. So traffic was highly seasonal. But I would guess that, to begin with anyway, the tourists were using the railway as transport rather than an attraction in its own right.

In the late 19th century the IOMR was probably not that remarkable, but as a 21st century survivor it is unrivalled (SFAIK).

Interesting to compare with the Snowdon Mountain Railway, which has always been a 100% tourist operation. I wouldn't regard this line as preserved. It is doing what it has always done. In fact I'm surprised that they haven't fully modernised it, as I'm sure they'd fill the trains anyway and could probably carry more passengers.

 

In the British Isles maybe. But what about the Harz and various Saxon NG lines in Germany?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Wot? With all those huge 'modern' locos?

It always surprised me that, on an island railway, only the old Manx Northern directly accessed harbour facilities (at Ramsey). S'pose it wouldn't have turned out any differently for freight services in the long run, as a W12 loading gauge (for modern containers) would've proved a tad costly. IIRC, there was an attempt made to handle (smallish) containers, but this was effectively stillborn.

 

Although a Douglas harbour tramway was proposed it never came to anything. The Ramsey harbour branch was. primarily, for coal to, and lead ore from, the Foxdale mines. Lord Ailsa's "Mantainor" service really was a pointless exercise as the containers had to come from Castletown harbour on a lorry, be craned onto the R wagons, taken the 9 miles to Douglas by steam train, craned off and re-loaded onto lorries for onward transport. It was a huge loss-making effort as were the oil trains to Ramsey late in his tenure. One of the R wagons (which were created by taking the bodies off 'pairs' carriages and, allegedly, without the owner's permission) was rebuilt into a well wagon but the other flats could only carry the small B.R. A and B/BD containers or Ronagency's aluminium ones. I think a modern ISO container would be 'out of gauge' but despite a search I can't find an official loading gauge diagram in any of the published works. I'm sure there must be one somewhere.
Ray.