Post-Nationalisation
When the railway was nationalised in 1978 Bill Jackson was appointed as the first manager. Although not liked by the preservationists and supporters, during his time in office much progress was made, although the negative developments overshadow his tenure in office. These include the loss of the large railway yard at Douglas and unpopular re-build on No. 12 Hutchinson to name but two. Upon his retirement in 1987 he was replaced by Robert Smith whose style was totally different and it was during his years that many changes were made. Smith masterminded the "Year of Railways" in 1993 and the subsequent celebrations that followed. In his time the rolling stock returned to original "purple lake" livery and Nos. 10, 15 and 1 (in that order) were returned to service. When he resigned in 1999 he was replaced by David Howard, with previous bus experience at various UK operators and rail experience from his time at Tyne and Wear Metro and was more inclined to a corporate approach and the railway had to follow suit. His time in office, finishing in 2006, will be remembered for the thrust on health and safety issues, the abundance of high visibility clothing on staff, warning signs, etc., as part of a Government wide drive on the issue. During his time in the role the Manx government commissioned a study to see if it would be worthwhile to operate commuter services to help relieve the road traffic congestion in and around Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man, and although experimental services were implemented in 2007, these only operated during T.T. race periods and have continued to do so since this time.
The result of the study was a recommendation against such development. Nevertheless almost all of the entire line has been relaid in the first few years of this century as part of the Department of Transport's IRIS sewerage scheme, with the line's numerous level crossings converted from manual to automatic operation at the same time, saving the railway the additional cost of employing crossing keepers, at all but one crossing. After the resignation of David Howard, the Department of Tourism and Leisure's Director of leisure, Mike Ball, stepped in as acting director of public transport and in early 2007 the leisure and public transport divisions of the department combined into "service delivery", Mike Ball becoming "Director of service delivery" under the minister Adrian Earnshaw appointed in November 2006. Ian Longworth was appointed as Director of Public Transport in 2009 and since this time the railway has also moved to become part of the Department of Community, Culture and Leisure. A number of new services have been introduced since the arrival of the new director, including evening excursion trains, a Rush Hour event at the start of each season, and a number of family-orientated events including a Teddy Bears' Picnic, Friends Of .Thomas Weekend and Fathers' Day Specials. An ongoing restoration programme for the railway's unique collection of rolling stock and locomotives is now in place; this has seen most recently two saloon-type coaches completely rebuilt and back in traffic and is to be following by at least a further three coaches being restored, one of which has been out of traffic for nearly half a century
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