The title of this report is not an exaggeration, unfortunately. On the morning of Tuesday 7th July, a serious accident occured on the Manx Electric Railway when Winter Trailer 58 derailed during a shunting move near Laxey Station, resulting in it toppling over onto its side. As a result all tram services between Laxey and Ramsey have been suspended and are unlikely to resume until around midday the following day (Wednesday 8th).
The Isle of Man Government have already released a statement confirming that an incident occured after 1000 involving 58. The trailer was being manoeurvered during a routine shunting procedure when it left the rails, but amazingly it then tipped onto its side, between two road crossings near to Laxey Station. Fortunately the tram was empty at the time and nobody was hurt as a result of the incident. The extent of damage to the 1904-built enclosed saloon trailer is not yet clear, although a number of pictures which have already appeared on the Facebook page of the Manx Electric Railway Society and in the island’s press would appear to suggest that it has sustained surprisingly little damage considering the dramatic nature of what happened. The process of recovering 58 is likely to be a fairly lengthy one which will entail a road closure, expected later in the afternoon of July 7th.
The cause of the derailment is not yet known but of course this will be fully investigated. Unfortunately, critics of the MER are already out in force blaming various factors for the freak accident with little or no evidence to support their theories, and even suggesting a boycott of the railway in response.
Any new information relating to this dreadful incident will be provided here on British Trams Online. The last week has certainly been an eventful one for trams in the British Isles for all the wrong reasons, with a tram v car collision in Blackpool, a vandal attack and subsequent damage to two trams in Manchester and now this latest accident on the Isle of Man. Hopefully the old saying that misfortune comes in threes will be true and we can now look forward to a period of calm after all this bad news of late.
Its obviously incredibly serious incident and those tasked with investigating should be allowed to carry out their work without “helpful” internet sleuths speculating and in some cases frankly using the incident to further there vindictive aggressive agenda against the current custodians of the line. Wish them well and hope its goes smoothly re railing the tram car.
Very strange to topple over considering the vehicle can only have moved not much more than a car length after the run round move and therefore going at very slow speed, especially as it was about to cross the main road. Even the railway haven’t established the cause yet so as you say a bit premature for people to be jumping to conclusions. I just hope the cause isn’t something that causes all or part of the fleet to be taken out of service in the run up to the busiest part of the season, which would be disastrous.
I was sorry and surprised to learn of the in incident at Laxey involving trailer 58 less than a week after our own return from the Isle of Man. I shall continue to travel on the MER with confidence. I am – be it noted – very averse to risk. I do not drive cars, would not under any circumstances travel by air, or visit places seriously threatened by terrorism. I have always felt safe on the MER and believe I always will.