Isle of Man Railway

Isle of Man Railway
Route length:	24.6 km
Gauge :	914 mm ( English 3-foot track )
Legend Ramsey Lezayre Sulby Bridge Sulby Glen Ballaugh Bishop's Court Kirk Michael West Berk Gob-y-Diegan St. Germains Peel Road Port Erin Peel Port St Mary The level Knockaloe Internment Camp Colby St John's Ballabeg Ballacraine School Hill Waterfall halt Castletown Foxdale Crosby Ronaldsway Halt to Isle of Man airport Ballasalla Union Mills Santon Braddan Bridge Port Soderick Quarter Bridge Douglas

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The Isle of Man Railway (IoMR) was built in 1873 in 3-foot gauge (914 mm), which also became authoritative for other routes on the island. Until the reconstruction of the 40 kilometer long Welsh Highland Railway , which was completed in 2011 , it was the longest steam-powered narrow-gauge railway in the British Isles. The Douglas – Port Erin railway runs 15.3 miles ( 15.3 miles ) between Douglas , the capital of the Isle of Man , and Port Erin .

These lines were all built to transport the products extracted from the lead mines. However, ore mining on the island has been suspended since 1911, when ore sales collapsed. The railways, which are still in operation today, with their historical systems, serve the busy tourist traffic.

Port Erin houses a museum about the history of the Isle of Man's steam trains.

history

Isle of Man Railway Company Ltd share dated September 16, 1875

Train in St. Johns Station (1962)

Locomotive 6 in the museum in Port Erin.

The Douglas – Peel railway was the company's first line. It was opened on July 1, 1873 from what is now the island's capital, Douglas, to Peel with a route length of 11.5 miles (19 km). The line was open until September 1968, with an interruption in 1966 when the entire IoMR network was shut down. Since the tracks were removed in 1975, the facility has been sleeping as a hiking trail and the Peel terminus as a museum depot.

The second line from Douglas to Port Erin is 16 miles and opened on August 1, 1874. Initially, the fleet consisted of 5 locomotives and 40 other vehicles. In 1928 the IoMR had 46.25 miles of track, had 16 tank locomotives with a 1'B wheel arrangement from Beyer & Peacock in operation, as well as 118 passenger cars and 151 other cars and auxiliary vehicles. Today, operations are largely based on the historical model. Since 2001, the level crossings are no longer closed manually, but operated automatically in accordance with the law. The manual closing procedure is only carried out for ordered tourist trains.

The third route was based on the Isle of Man Government Railroad Act of March 22, 1878, which provided a route in the north of the island from Ramsey to St. John's Junction roughly in the middle of the island. However, this route led through sparsely populated area, so that a second railway company under the name Manx Northern Railway (IoMNR) was founded for this line, the route 16.5 miles from Ramsey, Lezayre, Sulby Bridge, Sulby Glen and Ballaugh to Bishop's Court to then reach their terminus at St. John's on the IoMR route to Peel through a magnificent coastal landscape via Kirk Michael. This line went into operation on September 23, 1879. The contract between the two railway companies allowed the IoMR wagons to travel on the IoMNR route, but did not provide for any cost compensation, but the trains were allowed to run from Ramsey to Douglas. All traffic was stopped in 1968. Relics of the railway can be found in the Museum of the Railway in the Manx Electric Railway station in Ramsey. Relics of the operating facilities can only be seen with a trained eye.

Another railway act of June 13, 1883 approved a fourth railway line connecting Foxdale to St John's, which began operating in 1886 and opened on August 16, 1886 with a special train for shareholders of the Foxdale Railway (FR). After lead mining had ceased in 1891, the material was transferred to the IoMR, which continued to operate until 1905. In 1970 you could only see overgrown track systems.

The railways were largely run down in 1955 and were offered to the British state for takeover. The appraisal brought the sobering result that the traffic could be handled more economically with buses. Tynwald only allowed the line to continue operating to Port Erin. Passenger traffic was shifted to the buses of the IoMR. Freight traffic was left to all railways on the island only for their own use.

See also

• IoM route descriptions with lines in English
• IoM traction vehicles completely English
• IoM rolling stock English
• IoM photo locations in English
• Railway Museum Port Erin English

literature

• NN: Diverse rail operations on the Isle of Man . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 4/2014, pp. 202–204.
• Norman Jones: Scenes from the Past 17: Isle of Man Railways and Tramways Part I, The Isle of Man Railway. Foxline Publishing 1993, ISBN 1-870119-22-3 .
• Norman Jones: Scenes from the Past 18: Isle of Man Railways and Tramways Part II, The Isle of Man Tramway. Foxline Publishing 1994, ISBN 1-870119-32-0 .
• Richard Kirkman, Peter van Zeller: Isle of Man Railways. Raven Books, Ravenglass, Cumbria 1993, ISBN 0-9521624-0-7 .

Web links

Commons : Isle of Man Railway  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Isle of Man Public Transport
• Isle of Man Guide - Steamrailway