Manx Northern Railway Cleminson Coaches

From Robert Hendry, Chairman IOMR&TPSLtd

I am pleased to announced that the threat of outdoor dumping made against our rare 1879 Manx Northern Railway Cleminson coach by the IOM Government, DCCL, which runs the Isle of Man Railways has now been ended with the transfer of MNR Coach No 3, which is owned by the Isle of Man Railway & Tramway Preservation Society Ltd to Southwold.

This is by agreement with the Southwold Railway Trust who are working to reopen a short section of the Southwold Railway which closed as long ago as 1929. The two organisations hope to restore the coach to running order and IMR&TPS has already set aside £25,000 towards the first phase of this exciting project to see a Cleminson coach running again in England for the first time in over eighty years!

Now for an appeal! The MNR Cleminson coaches were supplied new with small enamel makers plates on the interior of the first class compartments. We have the remains of one of the Swansea Wagon Co enamel makers plates, but if anyone has an intact one, I would welcome a photo as some parts are missing so recreating the artwork will be conjecture!

Also can anyone advise us of a supplier who is able to produce replica black on white enamel makers plates? Logically we will need four for the coach plus some spares, just in case there are light fingered folks around in the future, and maybe some for sale to help defray the cost. Any contact details for possible suppliers will be most welcome.

I will try to keep folks up to date with progress on this important vehicle. Phase One was saving it from being dumped outside to rot in the Isle of Man and getting it to safety. Phase Two is an up to date survey as our last survey was some years ago, and then we can start cutting wood, steel and cloth.

Robert Hendry

 

Rather than your usual one post with a flow of anti IMR rhetoric with no reply to any further queries I think this thread deserves a full explanation of your course of action of removing these items from Island.

Several questions:-

Given the cost involved with the transportation of carriage, its historical worth to the Island and the extent of the work involved why wasn't the carriage sold to an on island buyer (which the society was approached by via the email address publically given as a contact to ensure a safe home on Island yet did not even bother to reply to), surely it would have been more in the interests of all parties (ensuring the island retained its history, Southwold could have had more funds towards the virtual newbuild which the 'restored' carriage will have to be - there is a reason it hasn't ran on Island for many years), nor would the fairly extensive transportation costs have been necessary.

Why was no effort to restore this item on Island or any of the rolling stock (with the exception of Fenella which took some twenty plus years) which the IOMRTPS has on Island?

How does the society justify its claim to be the "Isle of Man Railway and Tramway Preservation Society" when it has removed historical artifacts from the Island without any real effort to find those items a home on Island (and indeed the ignorance of several attempts to open negotiations with the said society) or due thought to the condition of the items??

Why was the nature of their removal from the Island kept very much hushed up until the last minute?

Over what timescale do you anticipate this project evolving and will all work undertaken be in the public domain?

Will the item of rolling stock retain their MNR and IMR identities or are they going to be morphed into something Southwold relevant?

Given the carriage was kept in the workshops at Douglas and as yet Southwold has no real site established, aren't these objects more at risk in Southwold (where they have no historical relevance other than being 3' and one item being vaguely similar to a type of coach used on the railway)?


Wouldn't the restoration of No7 be a far more practical proposition if you had the IMR onside as you have far more access to the various parts, patterns and expertise required on Island than off it?

Why do you continue to portray the railway and the Island in such a negative manner when by your own admission narrow gauge railways of 3' and cleminson coaches or historical locomotives have in the main fared far worse on the adjacent Islands than they have on the Isle of Man? (The IMR didn't close in 1929 or dispose of its stock then). Furthermore why has the society had various items on store rent free on the Isle of Man Railway property for a period of over thirty years and yet made no effort to restore or do anything with them, and chosen to ignore offers to do something with them by other individuals and groups?

Why does moving these items to the adjacent Island somehow make restoration a 'more realistic' proposition given that there's enough local objection to a railway representing the railway which was once there to significantly stall its progress? The SR still seems to be some distance away from having funding for its own Sharpie project let alone restoring someone elses carriage and locomotive, wouldn't the funds used have been better directed towards that project and a newbuild coach rather than transporting irrelevant items from sites where homes have been offered? Exactly how beneficial are these items to the SR really?

Why have the plans to move these items at the best been slapdash, haphazard, last minute and hushed up? The choice to move these items to (firstly) The West Clare Railway and then (at the last minute) to change to Southwold seems to show a lack of planning, and a chaotic approach to organisation, plus a lack of regard to those who wish to preserve the IMR and MNR's heritage on Island.

Finally how does one go about joining this "Isle of Man Railway and Tramway Preservation Society" given that there's no website despite the apparent web presence of some of its members? Do you have any on Island members and if not why not?

I await your reply with interest.

 

Oh joy another IoM thread doomed to argument, ranting and eventual lockdown. Allan, for heaven's sake, WE GET IT. If you really, really must have this out with Robert, can't you PM him and spare us all the vitriol?


In answer to Robert's question, Trackside | High Quality reproduction, totems, targets & coach signs manufacture proper replica stove enamel BR totems Robert, so they might be worth getting in touch with regarding replica enamelware.

 

For clarification, the Southwold Railway's stock was not disposed of in 1929 but over a decade later as part of the war effort.

 

With respect,Robert,you have owned the Cleminson for some 35 years and have done little or no restoration on it during that time yet you have enjoyed free undercover storage/display at IOM Rlys expense. Why, therefore, have you now decided that its restoration is such a priority that it has to be removed from the Island rather than be offered to a group on the IOM? I'm sorry but this is just a"smokescreen" to cover up the fact that you have let your personal "spat" with IOM Rlys jeopardize the future of a valuable artifact.

 

At work we get enamel signs made by A J Wells, who are located on the Isle of Wight. A.J Wells & Sons Ltd

Phil

 

Hi Robert
Welcome to the forum, the forum allows a platform for speech, and unfortunately some members do try to abuse it.
The moderator team are on hand if comments go out of control.

Please therefore chose which replies you would like to respond to, feel free to ignore or report others, which can then be dealt with, don't therefore feel obligated to respond to the lunatic fringe.

 

Dear Mr Thomson,
Thank you for the opportunity to correct many of your allegations. Yes, you did contact us nine days before the deadline of dumping the coach was due to take effect to suggest selling it to a charitable trust you INTENDED to set up. I have set up a charitable trust and it takes a lot longer than nine days to do so. You intended HOPEFULLY to preserve it at an interpretation centre in the north of the Island. Is the centre built and available to you, or is it an Intention. Where is it? What funding do you have to pay the transport costs in nine days time, and what happened to the coach while you set up your trust? The DCCL said it had to be removed from their property so in the end it was not even dumping!

Your ideas were all a little insubstantial, weren’t they? Mr Longworth called the cleminson coach a LIABILITY. We had an agreement with an organisation that saw it as an important historic survivor. Does it make sense to throw away a secure future to work with someone who hopes to set up a charitable trust at some time in the future to create a seemingly as yet unbuilt interpretation centre which will be somewhere in the IOM, and funded by what? Hot air or money? In your email there was not one single tangible fact I could put to the Board. It was all intend, hope, somewhere, sometime.

Why did we make no efforts to ‘restore’ the coach? Our society was formed in 1974 and at the end of the first year had 37 members. We had preserved a crane and the coach. The IOM Steam Railway Supporters Association had been running for several years and had some hundreds of members. They yapped and that was all. We spent £1000 on static restoration of the exterior, but that was a temporary measure. However more stock was under threat. MER 23 and MER 26 were to be broken up. We could have done what the Manx Electric Railway Society did and yap, or we could save them. We saved them. I think that was the right thing to do.

In 1975, the IOM Government encouraged the IMRCo to break up locos 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 14. The IMR Board asked our opinion and my father had to present a case to save them ‘off the cuff’. He did so to such effect that the IMR Board agreed that the Government were idiots, which we would all concur in! In 1978 the same government acquired the steam railway. We acquired locos 5/8 and 9 just in case such nonsense surfaced again. The chassis of No 7 was to be broken up. We saved it.

I was the Treasurer of the Society and as no one else could be bothered to save anything, I had to try to fund all that. We decided that restoring No 8 to running order would be a massive boost for the railway and my father estimated it would take ten years to raise the cash. We started work in 1989. At any time from 1975 to 1989 we could have said who cares about this stuff. We’ll spend the money on our coach. Given that there was no one else who preserved anything that the IOM Government threatened, which one of these items would you have sacrificed? If we had let 26 go, we could have put that money to the coach, or No 7 could have gone. They survived because of our society. If we had the 500 members of other societies instead of a couple of hundred, we could have done more.

My father estimated it should take about five years from the commencement of work on No 8 to reach operational status. Because the DTL which ran the railway has never managed to understand the principles on which loco owners and railway operators work on the mainland, it was not until 1998 that the impasse was broken when we loaned our boiler for FREE to the government to let No 1 run. The Treasury had rejected that DTL project as not meriting public funds, but we made it possible.

Anyone who has practical experience in preservation can tell you that some security of tenure is needed. The Sutherland agreement was for 3 years and we had no guaranteed that any agreement over No 8 would ensue. In the event the DTL twice asked for a one-year extension. We went beyond what the agreement said, as the railway needed it. Finally when the Island had a capable Director of Transport in the form of David Howard we had a five-year agreement over No 8. David and I knew how inadequate that was for long term planning but it was the best he could do.

I remember the day David phoned me up to say he was resigning, as he was sick of being stabbed in the back. The Island lost a first class director thanks to the intrigues in the DTL. The DTL actually signed a 10-year agreement over Fenella on 1 April 2009, but with typical ‘Trail die Liooar’, which to non-Manx readers means Manyana, never sent our copy to us. That gave the current director the chance to tear it up.

We gave and gave, and finally had a ten-year agreement that would have permitted progress elsewhere, torn up. We were then blackmailed into surrendering three engines on which we had spent £39,865 for £1. From 1974 to 1994, we were always saving things or raising money for that purpose. If we could have raised ten times as much, we could have spent every penny. You ask how I can justify “Preservation” in the Society name. I think the catalogue of what we saved answers that.

You say I made no attempt to find the Cleminson coach a home on the Island. On 10 April 2012, the society made proposals to the DCCL that could have seen the Cleminson on display in the Port Erin Railway Museum. We have been attempting to secure that goal for 14 years. I have suggested it every time I have seen the DTL/DCCL management, but only the present Director wanted it to rot. How much did we want for displaying a vehicle that not even the NRM has an example of? Have a Guess? If you said nothing, you would be right, so the DCCL turned the plan down. They preferred it to rot. From a ‘let it rot’ response, with your “intention, somewhere, sometime” plan nine days before the deadline, it took us six months of non-stop work to provide a genuine future for the coach.

You ask, “Will the items of rolling stock retain their MNR and IMR identities or are they going to be morphed into something Southwold relevant.” There are a couple of excellent books on the Southwold Railway. I suggest you look at them. Except for the track gauge there are scarcely any dimensions in common between a Southwold Sharpie and an IMR Beyer, and SRT are already building a replica Sharpie and I have seen the frames. It would be great to build a replica Southwold Railway Cleminson, but if we did, an MNR Cleminson is not the starting point! Just go and look at the plans!

Again you demand to know will all work be carried out in the public domain? Modern Health & Safety rules mean that you cannot have everyone wandering around willy nilly. I didn’t make the rules but I have to obey them. I have said in the forum that I will try to keep the enthusiast world aware of progress. That is why I opened this thread. I do not expect to walk into any workshop in the land where restoration is going on just because I am interested in railways. As to a timescale, that reveals your lack of real experience. How much behind schedule is the rebuild of IMR No 15?

Even in your latest posting you cannot bring yourself to refer to the mainland or Great Britain but refer to ‘the adjacent island’. Assuming we rule out the Calf of Man, which is the most obvious adjacent island to the IOM, three foot gauge railways were not plentiful in Great Britain. It is only if we go to Ireland (which is another adjacent isle by the way) that there were numerous three foot lines. They mostly served very sparsely populated areas that suffered steady depopulation from the 1840s to the 1970s.

I have a letter from Joseph Tatlow, a brilliant manager of the BCDR and MGWR written in the 1920s in which he laments the small cake that the Irish railways had to eat even then. The IMR was much wealthier, and since the government take-over has received and wasted a vast amount of public funding. The Irish lines had to live within their means. Bullies kick someone who is weaker than they are. I will not kick generations of Irish railwaymen. I met some fine Irish railwaymen, but I never met George Howden, perhaps the greatest of all, but Allan Sheard did and both men respected the other.

You say the move of the coach was slapdash. Mezeron, who arranged the move on the Island, were most professional. They recommended special lifting beams to us, and we immediately took their advice. I saw the coach and loco lifted off at Glasson Dock. The work was done professionally and carefully. I discussed the loading with the boss of the mainland hauliers. That was done extremely well. At Southwold I was present when the stock was unloaded. The senior member of the crane firm sought my knowledge of Cleminson coaches before selecting the lift points. He knew crane work, but I knew the coach. That is the hallmark of a professional. It is not slapdash.

I believe that one DCCL vehicles did suffer a broken back during a lift. When the DCCL were moving one of our vehicles, the slinging was so incompetent that the roof suffered a pinch. That was slapdash. I suggest you try to get your facts right. The DCCL have been slapdash at least twice. We got it right.

I am quite happy to provide a detailed answer to all your other queries, if readers of this forum think they are worth replying to and I will leave that to the readers. If you wish to know the answer to any of Mr Thomson’s queries, just ask.

I am proud of my Manx ancestry, which I can trace back for 800 years, and I wish I could portray the way the railways are now run favourably. If you read my books on the MNR, IMR and the MER you will find the high praise I have given to superb managers such as G H Wood, John Cameron, A M Sheard, Frank Edmondson, Eddie Barnes, Jack Watson or David Howard. They deserved praise. If they had been in charge today this unpleasant situation would never have arisen.

I am actually quite glad of Mr Thomson’s post as I can ask him what he plans to do about the other MNR Cleminson on DCCL property? The last time I saw it, Mr Longworth had dumped it by the side of the carriage shed so that it could rot. Now we have saved our coach, I have contacted the Manx media and the UK magazines because I want to save Mr Longworth’s coach from Mr Longworth! It has a fascinating history and should be restored. Are you willing to campaign on the Island to save the MNR Cleminson that the DCCL is allowing to rot, Mr Thomson, and if not why not? The Society has saved out coach and we have set aside £25,000 towards the first phase of repairs. We are going to campaign to save the DCCL Cleminson, preferably to run on the Island, so are you going to campaign alongside us, or does that coach not matter as the DCCL is allowing it to rot in Manx rain?

I entitled the thread Manx Northern Railway Cleminson Coaches, and the ‘s’ was not a typing error. Our main efforts have to be towards out own coach but we will fight to protect the coach that is in the inept hands of the DCCL. We saved our coach. Maybe if we ALL kick up enough fuss, we can save the DCCL Cleminson too. What could be better than that?

 

Robert

Thank you for the response to Allan's posting.

The one question which was posed by Allan which I feel you have not answered is how someone might go about joining the Isle of Man Railway and Tramway Preservation Society? Especially as in your response you stated that if you had more members then you would have been able to achieve more.

I can sense that Allan is keen to see the historic items of the Isle of Man Railway preserved and I do not think he was being critical of the decisions made by the IOMRTPS to save items from scrap or being left to rot. If I understand Allan's concerns correctly I believe that it is as a result of what appears to be a lack of communication with other enthusiasts who may have been able to contribute to restoration or at least safe storage of the coach and No. 7 on the Island. (I say appears because the first time I heard about this was when it was reported in the Isle of Man Newspapers that there was a dispute between the DCCL and IOMRTPS.

I also believe that like many Allan is dissapointed to see the items removed from the Island and that the criticism's coming both ways from the DCCL and IOMRTPS do not feel constructive at all.

 

Thank you very much for that. I would like to be able to respond to whatever anyone wants to ask subject to the need to look after a hungry coach and three small daughters. If someone feels strongly and is abusive it is a shame, but if I can I'll try to get the facts across, though I may be a bit erratic as I had six attempts before I logged in! I am not 100% computer happy and when I can figure out how to load photos I will do.

To the two guys who sent contacts for the enamel makers plates - thank you. That is great and what I hoped would be the outcome. I will contact these firms. The original, which is about the same size as the G F Milnes plates on Snaefell cars, is badly cracked so I have a lot of reconstruction to do on the computer.

Marshall 5 said " "With respect,Robert,you have owned the Cleminson for some 35 years and have done little or no restoration on it during that time yet you have enjoyed free undercover storage/display at IOM Rlys expense. Why, therefore, have you now decided that its restoration is such a priority...

For 22 years the coach was on display free for the benefit of the railway at the Port Erin Museum and it was only because of the botched 1998 rebuild of the museum that it has not been on store continuously since 1976. I cant be blamed for the 1998 museum rebuild. I explained why we could not go any further from 1977 to 1989 as other projects seemed more urgent. We could have let the other items be scrapped and more work could have been afforded on the coach, but we managed to save all of them. Was that wrong? If so which item should we have walked away from?

It took 9 years to get sense out of the DTL over a loco agreement, and even then it was only when we offered free use of our boiler in No 1, and that was just for three years with the hope of an agreement for No 8 afterwards, but no certainty.

If you ask why is it urgent now? I would have loved to work on the coach ever since it went into the museum, but for the early years other projects took priority, then the DTL could not understand how a loco agreement works and in 1998 they put the coach in a shed.

Shortly before David Howard was stabbed in the back by the bizarre internal politics of the DTL he and I discussed restoration to running order. With David's backing, Colin Goldsmith and I spent a morning in the inspection pits examining the coach and we obtained a quote for a commercial restoration at £50,000. Shortly thereafter David was, as I have said stabbed in the back.

When you have an organisation that destroys the one outstanding chief in years, it does not exactly build confidence. After a very brief spell, I found that Mike Ball was a sensible and pleasant guy to work with, but he was on temporary secondment, so could not plan long term, and then Mr Longworth arrived and announced the Society represented nine liabilities to him. All our preserved stock was a liability!

This makes major preservation investment planning a joke. The DCCL then decided to dump it to rot. When we got the coach to Southwold it meant that we had exchanged uncertainty for security. If we could start work tomorrow I would do so, but there is a Russian phrase, "Measure Nine Times, Cut Once" We have an outline summary of work needed from the investigations Colin and I made, but we need to re-examine that. For phase one we are earmarking £25,000 so it will get us off to a flying start, but there are lots of technical issues.

Colin and I were discussing some of these before his tragic death, but his loss robbed us of a highly capable and nice guy.

If other folks think some of Mr T's other points merit response then let me know, but I would like two things out of this thread.
a) to provide useful information for folks who have a genuine interest
b) to see if we can ALL work together to save the other Cleminson coach in DCCL hands from the DCCL which is its own worst enemy. I knew that coach when it was still at St Johns before it became the mess hut in the 1960s. I have said elsewhere that we have drawings, a complete Cleminson chassis to provide date from and even parts that I rescued when the other Cleminsons were broken up. We will be happy to advise on restoring the DCCL Cleminson, but they need to do something before it is too far gone.

Robert Hendry

 

Robert

I fear our posts may have crossed and wondered if you could answer the question I had earlier

Thanks

 

DCCL = Department of Community, Culture & Leisure
DTL = Department for Tourism (or Transport) & Leisure (I think)

DCCL is the current government department with responsibility for the Isle of Man Railway.

 

Robert

Further to your claims I actually contacted you twice via the email address given to contact yourself to arrange for the safe storage of items on island well before no's 5,8 and 9 were handed over to the railway to see what could be done about this matter. The address I used was that given on the RailUK forum. That was months and months ago. The time which you responded to my email informing me I should contact the company secretary (and made no effort to direct me to give me an address to contact the secretary of the company, devoting most of the email instead to say how "Manx" your family is, how you 'care' about the Island - whilst robbing it of its heritage and showing scant respect to its inhabitants, delivering a small lecture on the wisdom of Gallileo and how you think that the term "Mainland" is most appropriate) was the second time I had attempted to contact you. Also in the past my mother attempted to contact you about a quiet unrelated matter and you didn't bother to reply to her, so you have form for being rude and ignoring people's emails and letters.

That the move was carried in a professional manner by the freight company is irrelevant, it is the arrangements behind the move which are slapdash. I have some insight into the recent matter from an authorative source and it appears like you sprang things at the last minute, the move was very hushed up, with only a few rumours surfacing about it, and you firstly changed your destination from the West Clare Railway to the Southwold - this hardly seems like a well planned out calculated attempt to find a new home, given that the items have remained safely on Island for thirty years. You also ignored the offers from the IOMSRSA to purchase the Cleminson and the frames of No7. The fact still remains that you are removing an item from safe storage on Island, despite offers made by several groups and individuals to aquire these items and provide a safe home on Island.

The IOMSRSA didn't yap - they got out, did jobs which needed doing and tried to keep the railway going. Then when the political climate changed they got on with rebuilding the system at Groudle, coming back to the railway when it was under a more enlightened management. Meanwhile the IOMRS gazumped their offer for No9 (which the money was being raised to restore it to running condition, not let it sit in a shed minus parts for years), whilst aquiring several other locomotives which then proceeeded to sit rent free in sheds for years (is it not the case that if something had been done about the asbestos issue it could have been removed from the locomotives many years ago at much cheaper cost that is mooted to take place at the expense of the Manx taxpayer?

As for David Howard being a good manager, this is the same manager who made the railway far less accessible and who cut many of the special events which had drawn many enthusiasts to the Island, plus pruned back Douglas station even more than in the Jackson era to build a bus garage? It's funny at times you also seem to speak gushingly of Bill Jackson, the manager who arranged for the scrapping of many items, who attempted to keep enthusiasts away from the railway because they spoke out against the changes which happened. Meanwhile you're critical of managers who were sympathetic to the railways history and have tried to publicise that.

What would I like to do with the Cleminson body on the DCCL property - well seeing as it's the only Cleminson body left in public ownership on Island I'd like to see a new underframe for it and see it running again. Somehow I doubt you will 'save it', though you might purchase it and let it sit around whilst doing nothing with it for years.

As for saving the locomotives, well that's highly questionable anyway, as pointed out you've let them sit round and done nothing with them. Meanwhile you have never owned No6 (which is in the "at risk group" you highlighted) yet that survived perfectly well (on display in the museum, cosmetically restored by the supporters) as does No 14 on Island.

I'm glad to see your assurances that the rolling stock will not be cut and shut, but that still begs the question will they retain their IMR and MNR identities or will they become SR Loco No 2 "Robert P Hendry" and Southwold Coach Number whatever?...

Incidentally your little aside about Ireland (where I bet you would be slightly more reserved in certain quarters before using the term "mainland", and where even the term "British Isles" is less preferable to "North Atlantic Archipeligo"), you simply showed that you had missed the use of an S to mean plural (ie more than one of) when I mentioned 3' railways in the adjacent IslandS.

As for the restoration taking place in the public domain, I am sure as you have figured out how to use internet forums you should have sussed out how this could take place without the public needing access to the site or breaching health and safety legislation. The restoration of the Snaefell Wheel took place entirely in the public domain using a website. Or do you just want to keep things under wraps so we can't see how little progress you are making?....

As for campaigning alongside you or joining your society, well as I've asked before exactly how does one join your society, given that it now seems to be a small clique with few (? No ? ) on Island members, with no online presence and no meetings or rallies on the Island which heritage it purports to protect...

 

Robert

Thank you for the detailed response and please rest assured that I am not an asset stripper! I am dissappointed to hear that you have had to take this course of action to protect the artefacts that are held by the society. I would be grateful if details on how I could become an associate member could be supplied.

In relation to publicity it is unfortunate that I seem to have stumbled upon your society at a particularly troubled time but I wonder whether establishing a website for the society to promote your cause and gathering further support may be a way forward?

 

Being on Island and knowing significant people (including people within MNH and the government) I would be in a significantly better position to find funding and a site than you are, given that you've managed to pretty much alienate most of the on Island enthusiast community. I certainly could have found a temporary site to store the coach away from the railway and know where to go about finding the people on Island who have an interest in the heritage of the MNR.

At least Mr Longworth has been her longer than yourself and seems to have made significantly more substantial gains for the railway than you. Apart from (getting a very good deal for your money) aquiring some locomotives and carriages, some of the items which you have had to dispose of down to health and safety issues (ie asbestos - why hadn't you taken action on this much earlier when it was far cheaper and far easier to remove it?) what exactly have you done for the IMR? OK so you did loan the boiler from No8 to allow No1 to steam again (but then I bet you personally made some money back on that producing your books and films and selling them for a profit), but that's about it for some 30 years. Indeed the loan of No8's boiler and the eventual return of it, No5 and No 9 could be said to be a degree of recompense for the rent free storage you've had of the IMR, MNR and MER items in your custody, kept on IOMRly property.

Indeed why didn't you approach the transport museum at Jurby, I am sure they would have loved to get some more artifacts to display, or was it the fact that they would have wanted some rent money to store artifacts (to ensure they can pay the rent for their museum) which put you off? Surely that's what an Isle of Man Railway and Tramway Preservation Society should be doing.

As for your excuse about asset stripping, well that is precisely what you are doing, stripping the Island of its historical assets to suit your own personal aims... It's got nothing to do with safeguarding Our Railway heritage and everything to do with your petty quarrel with the IMR.

I'm sure there'd be a lot of on Island interest in joining a railway society which holds significant parts of our railway history. I am sure that a significant part of the cost of removal would have gone a significant way towards providing a safe and secure on Island home, with more money for restoration. However what on Island enthusiasts are not interested in is providing money to a group which seems to be governed by a small cliche of members which does not have the Island or the railways interests at heart.

Oh yeah and as for funding, well at the time I made my initial approach I certainly could have made a sensible offer for the frames of No7 and/or the Cleminson myself outright.

 

I don't want to state the obvious but a gentle reminder..

Both parties are publically naming names, of people who may not be on here.
you ultimately are responsible for your own words.

As long as the debate is kept clean (remember kids frequent here too), it can remain.
If you find the mud bath, the debate may have to moderated.

At any time feel free to find the PM button and discuss in private, or the report button to attract attention.

 

Dear Mr Thomson,

Yes you are quite correct you did contact us on 24 November 2011. From mid July thanks to Mr Nick Black of the DCCL we had been in negotiation with the DCCL over the disposal of locos 5/8/9 to the DCCL for £1. The negotiations continued until January 2012, during which time I was not in a position to make any comment. If you look back to that period you will find that the society did not make any public comment as it was undesirable to disrupt delicate negotiations. The Board adopted a policy that silence was golden.

As soon as negotiations were concluded over locos 5/8/9 discussions commenced over MER 23/26. The board felt that discussions over 23/26 were best conducted without the assistance of those who would attempt to sabotage. I am pleased to say that agreement were signed on 7 April. That in turn meant that the clock started running on dumping of the Cleminson coach as a quaint thank you for the society ‘giving’ the DCCL the three engines for £1 was that the dumping deadline was six months to the day from when the loco agreement came into force!

As I commented in a previous email, within a few days I had made proposals that would have seen the coach on display in the Port Erin Railway Museum. These were rejected and dumping changed to outright removal.

Throughout the whole of that time, there was no time that I could say that any specific item might be on offer without implying that others might not be on offer or vice versa. When it looked as if negotiations might fail, my board had prepared a “Sale by Pubic Sealed Tender” and your name along with other interested parties had been listed as potential recipients, as you had expressed an interest in buying certain items. Thankfully we did not need to offer the stock for sale in that way.

Thank you for your suggestion about calling the engine “Robert P Hendry” . It is much appreciated but I fear you flatter me too much. I have an idea that when Roman Emperors appeared in Triumphal Processions that they were accompanied by a man whispering in their ear “Remember you are but a man”. With suggestions as flattering as this, I fear I may need such a functionary.

You blame us over the asbestos on 5 and 9, saying

“about the asbestos issue it could have been removed from the locomotives many years ago at much cheaper cost that is mooted to take place at the expense of the Manx taxpayer? “

May I point out that we did not get our hands on 6 or 16 and they still retain asbestos, or is that my fault too? Did the DTL/DCCL refrain from removing asbestos from its locos in a sense of solidarity with 5 and 9? If we had not loaned our boiler to No 1 that would not have entered service in 1998, so would have stopped in the museum with its boiler which was lagged in asbestos. So that would have been another £30,000 for the taxpayer to cough up.

It seems to me that we are getting on to very shaky ground here. Asbestos removal in the IOM seems to have been hit and miss until the UK 2006 regs. If you wish to blame me for 5/9 having asbestos in them and by inference 6/16 as well, maybe I am a benefactor to the Island, as the guys who had to remove the asbestos in the old days did NOT have proper protection. If by being the monster you suggest I am, I have stopped four engines having asbestos removed from them cheaply at the risk of the workers, perhaps that is worthwhile. My late father was a doctor and said that respiratory diseases were particularly unpleasant and asbestosis is one of the nastiest as it can catch up with you 20, 30 or 40 years later.


When it looked as if we were going to need to remove asbestos from 5/9, I did not yap about what a shame we had not got it done on the cheap when the poor sods who had to do the work had no proper protection. I’m sure we could have saved a lot of money that way, and if you think that is a good way to save money then you are welcome to think it, but I do not have to agree with you.

We obtained a quote from a competent UK firm well versed in steam loco work for £15,000. We actually placed the order for removal of asbestos, but within days the firm rang me to ask me if there was anyone I could recommend to them in the DCCL who knew what they were talking about. Some of the demands that the DCCL was making were absurd and others would not comply with the 2006 CAR. The firm quite rightly said they would only work in accord with the 2006 regs.

They were extremely worried about the quaint tent at the top end of the carriage shed and said they could not class it as an enclosure as it would not meet any proper safety standards on the mainland. In the end it was agreed that it was impossible for the contract to proceed.

I have used the word mainland because it is a geographically correct term. You asked in an email, would I not feel offended if someone spoke of the European mainland? How could I be offended? I do not find difficulty in calling a car a car or a duck a duck. A bay is a bay and a hill is a hill. I am not as tall as a hill, but it does not offend me in the least. The British Isles are a group of islands off the European mainland. That does not diminish me. It does not diminish England or Scotland or Wales.

I had hoped that this could be a serious discussion on the Cleminson coach, and a couple of people have given useful leads, but I fear it is likely to degenerate into the same sort of thread you started and which the moderators pulled the plug on.

I have drawn attention to the plight of the DCCL Cleminson coach. We will be happy to provide any technical advice if anyone wants it. It is the coach that is at threat not ours. It has been a hard enough job saving our coach. I think you and the IOMSRSA might perhaps save that one.


Robert Hendry