Groudle Glen Railway and Sealion Rocks

[sunnybunny]

Hi

Been a visitor on here for a while and thought it was time I contributed something.

We have a relative who lives in Onchan in the Isle Of Man we visit. I thought people may be interested in looking at where I go for walks and what I found.

From the tourism website

History
Groudle Glen Railway is a 2ft narrow gauge railway, originally built in the spring of 1896 for the surge of summertime tourists visiting the area. The railway runs from Lonely Valley (Lhen Coan in Manx) to the headland and around the coast. When first built it carried passengers from the popular Groudle Glen to Sea Lion Rocks where a zoo with sea lions and polar bears was located.

The train services started out with the steam locomotive 'Sea Lion' and three passenger coaches. Soon after another steam locomotive called 'Polar Bear' was added with more coaches to keep up with the demand. Following World War I the steam trains were replaced for a brief period by two battery powered locomotives. The line was closed in 1939 for the duration of World War II. After the war services resumed with Polar Bear pulling trains to the headland, until the service closed again in 1962. It was not until 1986 that the line was reopened to the public after years of restoration. Over the next 10 years the line was extended to the original terminus, the Lhen Coan Station was rebuilt, and restored stream trains returned to service.


Walking the track I saw an overgrown siding which sparked my interest.



IMG_0489 by froggiefred, on Flickr

The Sea Lion rocks and Polar bear enclosure. It’s quite dangerous round there and there is positively no access at all.


IMG_0494 by froggiefred, on Flickr


IMG_0871 by froggiefred, on Flickr


IMG_0872 by froggiefred, on Flickr

and what it looks like from the foot path


IMG_0868 by froggiefred, on Flickr



Walking back I investigated the siding and found this.


IMG_0877 by froggiefred, on Flickr


IMG_0876 by froggiefred, on Flickr

Abandoned truck

IMG_0880 by froggiefred, on Flickr

Oscar the dog helping me to investigate


IMG_0879 by froggiefred, on Flickr


IMG_0878 by froggiefred, on Flickr

The siding looking back to the new tracks


IMG_0881 by froggiefred, on Flickr

Hope you enjoyed this.

 

[phill.d]

Love stuff like this, mine railways that resemble some crazy ride at Blackpool. Thanks for sharing

 

[WinchItIn]

Good quality first report, Looks like the remains of a bridge from pic's 2 & 3.

 

[night crawler]

Hey like the dog he made the report. Did the railway go across the cutting?

 

[sunnybunny]

Thanks for the replies, I tried to keep up with the quality of rest of the postings on this site.

The rail line was set up as purely to carry people to the zoo so stopped there, if you google it there's a fair bit of information about it around. The volunteers who restore and maintain it do a good job. e.g. new station and track. You can just see the sleepers and rails from the old track besides the new.


IMG_0884 by froggiefred, on Flickr


Photo 0005 by froggiefred, on Flickr

There was a footbridge across as you can see in the photo on wikipedia from 1972 but has collapsed since.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sea_Lion_Cove_-_geograph.org.uk_-_481810.jpg

I like exploring round the Isle Of man, as can see from the photo's they're no too fussed about Health and Safety and fencing everything off. There's lots of places where stuff has just been abandoned and left to rust and some has been restored.

Anyway this is where I'm going to explore the next time I'm there, I didn't have time when I was there last.


IMG_0886 by froggiefred, on Flickr

 

[Trinpaul]

That's just lovely, wonderful the things you can find when you're having a little wander

 

[Foxylady]

Some very nice finds, SunnyB. Amazing place for a zoo.
Thanks, and welcome to DP.