It seems to be a never-ending winter weather wise – even though we are now officially in spring! – and Monday 2nd April (a Bank Holiday, of course, which means we probably shouldn’t be too surprised the weather isn’t exactly playing ball!) has seen the latest disruption with the Douglas Bay Horse Tramway and Snaefell Mountain Railway suspended whilst at Crich the second day of the World War II Home Front event was cancelled although the museum did open to visitors.
Starting off on the Isle of Man and the decision was made early on in the day to not attempt to run services on both the Douglas Bay Horse Tramway and the Snaefell Mountain Railway. A statement from Isle of Man Transport said that the decision was made “due to adverse weather conditions and Met Office recommendations”. For the horse trams there were concerns about waves breaking over the Promenades which would have made it too dangerous to operate the horses along the track. An amber weather warning was in place with snow hitting Snaefell along with heavy rain at lower levels. It is hoped that this is a short-term problem as it will start to turn milder in the afternoon with the snow slowly thawing and lighter rain. The Manx Electric Railway is continuing to run for the last day of the Rush Hour on the Railways event.
The snowfall was still an issue for the Snaefell Mountain Railway on Tuesday 3rd April with no services again able to run to the Summit. The Douglas Bay Horse Tramway did resume services however.
Snow was the problem for Crich and this led to the cancellation of day two of the World War II Home Front event. This is obviously a major blow for the museum as it is usually one of more popular special events which takes place during the year. The museum did open a bit later than normal – without any of the World War II events – and despite attempts to clear the track using Cardiff 131 it wasn’t possible to run a tram service to throughout the day with a reduced admission price charged.
The first day of the event – Sunday 1st April – had seen the most intensive tram service of 2018 so far with five trams allocated to service. This included the first use of the year for Metropolitan Electric Tramways 331, Liverpool 869 and for the braver souls out there, Blackpool Boat 236.
Crich did reopen as normal on Tuesday 3rd April with a three tram service in the hands of 236, Leeds 345 and 869.
Hopefully with this continued poor weather it means we are going to be rewarded with a warm summer to enjoy plenty of tram action!