Steps Taken to Prevent Trackside Fires

The DoI has recorded 26 fires in the vicinity of the island’s steam railway this year.

Of these blazes, which have hit several farms as well as hedgerows, the fire train has been involved in extinguishing 11 of them.

While the DoI said there have been 26 fires, we don’t know if the figures, released following an FoI by Gef, include the recent embankment fire which had spread into an adjacent stubble field, on a farm in Orrisdale.

While the year has been exceptionally dry, the DoI said it has put measures in place to ‘mitigate the risk of fires’.

These include an enhanced programme of vegetation management, limited the size of trains to lower the load on engines, fitting spark arrestors to all locomotives and emptying ash pans more frequently to reduce the volume of ash.

The department added: ‘The fire train is a dedicated engineering loco and crew which are put onstandby in the event of heightened fire risk. The fire train is manned by members of the Permanent Way team and on standby while been services are running. Fire locations are tracked and the fire train placed at the point of highest risk/least travel to speed up response.’

The DoI said it is also developing a ‘controlled burn process in the areas of highest risk’ and is in continuous dialogue with the island’s fire and rescue service.

While the steam railway is unable to use other types of locomotive, Groudle Glen Railway took to using diesel engines after a fire, unrelated to the railway, on the glen’s the headland.

Across in the UK, some heritage railways have also stopped using steam engines in order to prevent trackside fires.