Description
The station opened to traffic on and was provided with an imposing station building, an Italianate one-storey structure unlike any other railway building on the island. It was accompanied by a stone-built locomotive shed and workshop, corrugated iron carriage shed, water tower and various stone-built goods sheds and warehouses. The station befitted its status as the headquarters of the railway company, but after the merger in 1905 with the Isle of Man Railway Company the interior of the main station was modified, the office space being surplus to requirements: all administration was undertaken at Douglas Station from then on. The station had its own separate ladies' and gentlemen's waiting rooms and refreshments facilities, although the latter closed relatively early in the line's history. The workshop behind the engine shed was also closed and stripped of its equipment around 1905. The station closed to passengers on but certain freight services operated the following year.Extensions
At one time there was a branch that spurred off from the northern edge of the station and passed behind the carriage shed and the goods yard and on to the harbour side, terminating near the market square. This branch was used exclusively for wagons carrying ore fromDecline
The station was located on the outer edges of the town, and even on the railway's busiest days it would often appear to be deserted; in later years the station's wooden canopy, which adjoined the building, developed a distinct sag, and the buildings took on a somewhat abandoned appearance. Passenger services declined rapidly in the 1950s and became seasonal in 1960. Even at the height of the summer season, there were only two or three return workings between Ramsey and St John's and Douglas. By the 1960s goods traffic centred on the cattle dock, which ran along the northern edge of the station alongside the Sulby River and was still in frequent use. The complete closure of the Isle of Man Railway from November 1965 to June 1967 meant that movement of cattle ceased at that time. The local cattle mart was the busiest on the island, and provided much traffic for the railway, giving it some of its longest dedicated goods trains. Like most Manx stations, it never had full-sized platforms, but there were half-height ones reaching as far as the bottom running board of the coaches. On the south side of the main platform there was also a long bay platform. In common with most of the island's railway system, points and signals were not fully interlocked, but controlled by individual hand levers. Therefore there was no signal box or groundframe. After closure, the station remained largely intact, but the rails were lifted in 1975 for scrap and the whole site flattened in 1978 to make way for what is now Ramsey Bakery, making the site almost unrecognisable today although the road on which the bakery now stands is still known as Station Road. A calendar and set of postcards were issued in 2010 featuring watercolour views of the station and its environs, accompanied by a book by local artist Michael Starkey with historical information by Julian Edwards.Services
Under the original Manx Northern Railway operations, trains ran to St. John's, where there was a junction with the Isle of Man Railway's Peel to Douglas line. Some trains continued on to Douglas by agreement with the other company, and by 1888 when the northern company was struggling financially, the larger company took responsibility for all operational activities, ultimately taking over the whole line in 1905. Owing to the close proximity of the railway-ownedRoute
See also
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