Away from Home

Image by Gerry Balding (Back from hols; slowly catching up)
One from the archives. This scanned slide dates back to the end of June 1998.
I visited the Isle of Man as part of a group from Inside Track Holidays to take part in the 125 celebrations of the opening of the steam railway. Many special events and trains were put on for the group on all the island’s lines.
This is perhaps the most unusual. As part of the celebrations, Manx Electric Railway car No.33 was transferred to run special trains on the Isle of Man Steam Railway. The steam railway is not electrified so the trolley pole was removed from No.33 and a diesel generator was placed in a 4 wheeled van at the rear. This provided the power for the traction motors.
We had a trip from Castletown to Douglas chartered for our group. However, when No.33 arrived from Douglas there was a small problem to resolve. The van had to be at the rear of the car, but the car couldn’t move unless the generator van was attached…….
The solution was to uncouple the van and get 6 of us human volunteers to push the van around the loop and onto the rear of the car for the return trip.
The picture shows car No.33 awaiting to depart for Douglas.
If I remember, the trip was at about 5 pm after the last steam train had gone. It was a very fast run – rather cold and windy with a sea mist coming in. Although it was a private charter, we did stop to pick up some passengers stranded after they missed the last service train. I also have vague memories of a stop at Port Soderick (the last station before Douglas) as the brakes were starting to smell……..
A memorable trip all in all.