Isle of Man Steam and Electric Railway passenger increase for 2007

I was reading a recent newspaper article about the Isle of Man Steam and Electric Railways, and was pleasantly suprised to hear that the passenger figures were up by 7.1 percent on last year for the steam railway and 9.9 percent up for the electric railway. I must say that I think this increase in attributed to a number of reasons, firstly the hard work that the Department of Tourism and Leisure (DTL) and I would assume Manx National Heritage has put in on bringing the ‘nostalga’ back to the railways with some good events and promotion, secondly the fact that the island had a significant number of extra visitors during the TT 2007 centenery, and thirdly due to the events such as the Thomas The Tank Engine and Santa train days that are held down at the Douglas train station. Both of these events are very well supported by the local families and is certainly a big highlight for many local children.

Despite the great efforts by the DTL I would however like to point out that Mr Earnshaws TT commuter service shouldn’t take any of the credit for this in my mind, it could have been an amazing service, and really should have been funded by the government but once again it fell drastically short of being a good idea for many reasons. All of the credit and success of the manx railways is down to the hard work and dedication of all those who work hard to maintain the wonderful feature of the Isle of Man in the Manx Steam and Electric Railways.

Well done everyone you should all be proud of yourselves.