Isle of Man Railway rolling stock

The initial batch of carriages was supplied by Brown Marshalls and became known as the "Small Fs" due to their smaller size compared to later vehicles.

At that time, half the seating was removed from F.35, and a small bar and chemical toilet were fitted, along with gangways to the adjoining coaches.

As of February 2015, all saloons except F.36 have been fitted with corridor connections to form a full dining train, with F.27 (ii) at the rear providing the kitchen facilities and generator.

Built to the same larger profile as the saloons, these carriages still provide the backbone of the service fleet today and have rarely been out of traffic since their arrival on the island.

Generally operated as a set with other carriages added subject to traffic demands, a number remain in storage, notably F.43, the earliest surviving example.

This involved removing the chopper couplers from one end of each vehicle and replacing them with conventional side buffers on one carriage and rubbing plates on the other.

There was a further development of this policy between 1909 and 1926, when the bodies of the four-wheel coaches were removed from their original chassis and mounted in pairs onto bogie underframes supplied by Metropolitan.

Surviving unrestored examples (F.66, F.67, and F.74) are in poor condition, as their bodies date from 1873, and they have been surrounded by a certain amount of controversy in recent years, having been removed from the railway for storage.

These were 30-foot-long, six-wheel carriages built on Cleminson's patent underframes, which were five feet shorter than the Isle of Man Railway's "small Fs".

Cleminson's patent enjoyed a brief vogue in the late 1870s as an alternative to bogie carriages, mainly due to its low tare weight.

The Southwold Railway, which opened the same year as the Manx Northern, also used Cleminson's patent underframes for its passenger stock and some high-capacity freight wagons.

The North Wales Narrow Gauge and West Donegal Railways also used the system on coaches, and a Cleminson wagon survives on the Ffestiniog.

Two of the third-class carriages were damaged in minor collisions or suffered underframe failure before the Manx Northern was taken over by the Isle of Man Railway.

It was not returned to the completed museum but, despite being owned privately, it remained on the railway until finally removed (in the face of much objection) to Southwold in 2013.

One surviving member of the class sat at the end of the Port Erin arrival platform at Douglas for many years and retained its pre-war two-tone brown livery.

The Manx Northern Railway owned a pair of similar vans for use with the "N" class carriages, but these seem to have been replaced in the 1890s and then used for goods traffic until they were scrapped in the 1920s.

[2] The possibility of the Isle of Man Steam Railway Supporters' Association recreating one of these vehicles has been mooted in the past but never reached fruition.

These were four-wheeled closed vans, often attached to the rear of a passenger train to transport goods to the rural communities that the railway served for many years.

G.19 is distinctive for being fitted with clamber boards for tree felling and having a small wood stove installed, which were removed for its display in the museum during 2013.

In 2017, the Isle of Man Steam Railway Supporters' Association announced plans to fully restore the sole surviving 1873 vehicle, G.1, to service.

A dozen similar vehicles were delivered to the Manx Northern Railway when it opened in 1879, and further small batches brought the total to 46 by 1926.

Today, all lifting on the railway is performed by hired road cranes, especially during annual event galas when locomotives are turned.

In 1967, as part of a short-lived experiment to use the railway for shipping container traffic under the title "Man-Tainor" (alternatively "Isle of Man Ferry Express"), a new "R" series was created.

No stock carries this prefix today, as the frames were sold off in 1974 to the scrap dealer Manx Metals after the experiment ceased in 1968.

The final vehicle of the batch was experimentally converted into a bogie well wagon by crudely dropping the solebar sides, but this was not successful and was later scrapped.

They did not survive into the nationalisation era, although some excellent photographs of them appear in various books dedicated to the railway's history and rolling stock.

A sole surviving door from one of the "E" series brake vans is extant in the works at Douglas and carries a faded and cracked brown/purple scheme with white droplight surrounds and vermilion/yellow beading detail.

From 1899, bogie stock on the Manx Northern (e.g., the Hurst Nelsons and the "Foxdale Coach") had "Chocolate lower and creamy white upper panels" prior to the amalgamation with the Railway Company.

Most stock had off-white upper window and purple lake lower panels, similar to London and North Western Railway colors.

Images exist of some saloons and "pairs" that appear to show varying shades of brown in the mid-sections, similar to the post-war cream scheme.