Isle of Man Railway

1973–1974 centenaries

Lord Ailsa took his five-year option on a 21-year lease and relinquished duties to operate trains from the close of the 1972 season and the Railway Company again took over services with subsidy from the Isle of Man Tourist Board. The centenaries of the Peel and Port Erin lines were commemorated with special trains on the anniversary days in these two years. Services continued to operate on the four each way per day pattern with additional services at peak times in the summer months to coincide with Island events.

1975–1977 curtailments

In a cost-cutting measure, trains only operated between Port Erin and Castletown in 1975, and Port Erin and Ballasalla in 1976. The line to Douglas was still maintained as locomotives and rolling stock returned there to receive maintenance. There was much political controversy over the short-line workings and services were ultimately restored in 1977 although rails were lifted on the closed sections during this time. 1977 proved to be the final year of Railway Company operation of the line, again on a familiar seasonal basis with four trains each way per day between May and September.

1978–1986 nationalisation

Various timetables were experimented with in the early period of nationalisation; Notable in this period were the Friday only Winter Shoppers trains which ran during the 1981–1982 and 1983-1983 winter periods, with only one train from Port Erin and return each day. Generally trains operated for Easter Week and the full season began at the end of May to coincide with the annual T.T. race period and ran until the last weekend of September. Aside from the popular Santa Trains, which have operated since 1985 the line remained closed in the winter months. Also of note are the shuttle services which operated between Douglas and the country park at Lough Ned (mid-way to Port Soderick), which ran in peak season and often utilised the railcars; a platform was provided for this service, which saw the last regular use of the railcars in passenger service.

1987–1999 anniversaries

Trains operated for Easter Week with the main season running from mid-May each year; from 1987 trains ran seven days a week in this period (previously there had been no Saturday service for several years) and many additional and extra timetables ran for the Year of Railways in 1993, the International Railway Festival in 1995 and Steam 125 event in 1998. Certain years also saw skeleton services operating in October and November, in conjunction with various off-season attractions on the Island, although the pattern of passing trains at Ballasalla was adhered to. A familiar pattern during this period was the operation of an additional train on Mondays-Thursdays in July and August which left Douglas mid morning (10:50) and returned from Port Erin at 17:30, utilising the long-closed station at Port Soderick to pass the regular service trains. It was common for a shuttle service to link Port Erin and Castletown during the closure of the Billown Circuit for racing during this time.

2000–2009: New millennium

The season was extended so that a daily service also operated during October half term after a three-week closure from the end of September. In some years, Castletown station was used as a passing loop instead of Ballasalla. There was major disruption to services for three years from 2000 when a sewer pipe was laid beneath the railway. This resulted in short line workings from Douglas to Santon, and various shuttles between Port Erin, Port St Mary and Castletown before the full line was reinstated. A courtesy coach was provided during this period to bridge the gap of the closed sections for passengers. The extra peak season train was dropped during this period, and the usual timetable had only four departures from each terminus. From 2007 a commuter service operated during the TT races, and in the first two years this also ran during Manx Grand Prix week.

1930–1945

In the 1930s, following the integration of train and bus services, the summer train service was trimmed to about a dozen trains each way on all three main routes. This intensive service ran on an entirely single-track system controlled by staff and ticket safeworking, with limited semaphore signalling. As the UK's 1889 Railways Act did not apply on the Island, there were no signal interlockings except at Douglas and St John's, though limited interlocking in the form of slot detectors was fitted at passing loops from 1927 onwards. Continuous vacuum brakes were not fitted until 1925–27. In spite of this the railway has seen very few serious accidents (see below).

During World War II, the usual winter timetable of seven or eight trains each way a day on all three main routes between 07:00 and 20:00 ran throughout. However, as the number of servicemen on the Island increased, additional late trains were run on Fridays and Saturdays: the last arrivals in Port Erin, Peel, and Ramsey were often around midnight. Military requirements led to a large number of special trains being run, some of them in the small hours of the morning, which led to some minor mishaps. Foxdale passenger services ceased in 1940, but the branch was heavily used for spoil trains during the construction of Jurby and Ronaldsway aerodromes.

1945–1959

Traffic levels remained very high in the late 1940s due to petrol rationing, but the 1948 Howden Report foresaw the eventual closure of both the Ramsey and Peel lines, with goods services transferred to road transport. The brief post-war resurgence of the Manx tourist industry kept the trains well filled into the mid-1950s, and postponed the day when significant economies and modernisation would be required. From 1955 onwards usage declined sharply; a million passengers were carried for the last time in 1957. By then the high season schedule had been reduced to seven round trips to Port Erin, and five each on the Peel and Ramsey lines. However individual trains, such as the boat trains, and the 10:35 to Port Erin could load very heavily: 9 carriages and almost 500 passengers on a single train was common in high season.

1960–1965

The last re-boilering before the 1965 closure took place in 1959; by then the active fleet had been reduced to 11 locomotives from the 16 of 1939 by the withdrawal of Nos. 7, 2, 9, 4, and 3. Loco Nos. 1, 6, 13, 14 and 16 were known to have limited lives left on their existing boilers, so the future looked grim. Although the railway was still intensively used in summer, 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, and were run at a considerable loss. Winter trains usually consisted of a locomotive and one or two carriages. The St John's – Peel section closed for the winter of 1960, reopening the following Easter, whilst in 1961–65 the St John's to Ramsey service was withdrawn for the winter months, after the long-established Kirk Michael to Ramsey school trains were replaced by buses. From 1962 the ex-County Donegal railcars handled most of the winter service; they were used between Douglas and Peel in the summer. The last two summer timetables reflect the tourism of the mid-1960s. These show six round trips on the Port Erin line, three to five on the Peel line, and two to Ramsey. Except for the Port Erin-Douglas boat train July and August, all trains operated between 09:30 and 17:30: quite a contrast with the 15 or 16 hours-a-day operation of the 1920s and 1930s. Almost the whole of the Peel line service was handled by the ex-Donegal Railcars, allowing the remaining steam locomotives to be divided between the South Line and the service to Ramsey.

1967–1968

In June 1967 Ailsa issued an ambitious summer timetable that pushed a reduced locomotive fleet to its limit, leaving no contingency in the event of failure, as by now only five Beyer Peacock steam locomotives and the railcars were available for service. The timetable was modified by mid-August to four round trips to Castletown (unchanged), three to Peel (down from 7) and two to Ramsey. This pattern carried over to the 1968 season, except that the Ramsey service was reduced to one train thrice-weekly by the end of the season.

Closure of the Peel and Ramsey lines

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, at roughly two-hour intervals between 10:00 and 16:00. In most seasons an extra train has operated from Douglas around 10:45 during July and August, returning from Port Erin at about 15.30. A brief 1990s experiment of six trains each way in high season was abandoned on grounds of cost. In the 2012, 2013, and 2014 seasons, a six train service has again been run in high season. The service in 2012 followed the conventional pattern of a third locomotive and third set of carriages providing additional departures at 10:50 and 14:50 from Douglas, and 12:50 and 16:50 from Port Erin; but in 2013, a third locomotive was used to shorten turn around times at Douglas, and trains departed at 90-minute intervals through the day. This allowed the use of only two rakes of carriages for the scheduled service, allowing the saloons to be reserved for excursion and charter trains.

In the period 1945–1965 most trains consisted of two and three-carriage sets hauled by a single locomotive. Each three-car set consisted of a brake third or brake-composite, a first-third composite, and a luggage-brake-third, with two car sets omitting the either the brake-composite, or the luggage-brake-third. Three car sets had seats for 120 third class, 12 first class; two car sets carried up to 60 third 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 sometimes handled eight or nine carriages on Port Erin trains, 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 loading.

Apart from the Ramsey Cattle Mart specials and the transport of materials for projects such as the completion of an airfield in the north of the Island, freight trains rarely operated. Most freight was conveyed by attaching freight wagons, loose coupled, to the rear of passenger trains. This practice was contrary to UK regulations, but legal in the Isle of Man. 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 train at Union Mills was a contributory factor to the 22 August 1925 accident at Douglas.

Freight traffic ceased in the 1960s, as road transport was much more effective over the Island's short distances. Ailsa's manager, Sir Philip Wombwell, did try to bring container traffic to the railway in 1967/8 and stripped 12 carriages from the F50-75 series of the bodies to act as container flats. The experiment proved unsuccessful as clearance issues prevented containers being carried north of Douglas, and the double transshipment of containers at Castletown – from ship to lorry and from lorry to train – made the traffic uneconomic. Some of the underframes from this project eventually found their way to the Ffestiniog Railway, where they were placed on 2-foot (0.61 m) gauge bogies and used as the basis for some of the "Barn" carriages running on the FR. Far more successful was a contract to haul oil between Peel and Milntown (near Ramsey) for the Electricity Board. Three 'M' series wagons were fitted with tanks, and the oil was worked as tail traffic until passenger trains ceased in September. The service continued through the winter of 1968/9, but was abandoned in May 1969 following the decision to close the Peel and Ramsey lines.

31 December 2022: A New Year dining train hauled by No.11 Maitland struck a tree near Ballabeg Station, causing some damage to the rolling stock, which was reported in the local media; later services were cancelled.