Manx for the memories: Historic horse-drawn trams run on the Isle of Man
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Version 0 of 1. You can keep your shiny 7000-series Metro cars. I prefer Keith. Keith is a horse. He pulls a streetcar in Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man, a teardrop of land that sits between England and Northern Ireland and is home to 84,000 people. The island is most famous for its epic, antic motorcycle races, but it’s also a lost world of old and seemingly obsolete modes of transportation. This includes not just the horse tram, which takes riders on a 1.6-mile journey along Douglas’s crescent-shaped bay, but also an electric tram that runs north from the capital and a steam train that runs south. Earlier this month, My Lovely Wife had business on the Isle of Man. I tagged along, sampling the local color and riding the rails. It was nice to be away from Washington: Washington weather, Washington politics, Washington traffic. Not once as I rode behind Keith did I hear the hectoring words “stand clear, doors closing.” There are no doors on the Isle of Man horse tram. Riding it was a glimpse of what commuting in Washington was like a long time ago. The Manx horse tram started operating in 1876, six years after the first horse-powered streetcars debuted in Washington. While our streetcars started switching to electricity in the 1890s, the Douglas trams continued to be pony-powered, their service interrupted only by World War II. This is not to suggest that the horse trams are worry-free. Tram horses pollute in their own way. And as with our own subway, there have been funding problems. In 2015, the horse tram ran at a deficit of 263,000 pounds, about $344,000. That prompted the local borough council to vote to end the service. The Isle of Man’s Department of Infrastructure stepped in and took over. I guess that’s sort of like the federal government taking over Metro. The tram is considered an icon of the island, a magnet for tourists and an important bit of history. The service will continue at least through 2018. That ensures continuing employment for Keith and the 20 other Clydesdales and shires — Alec, Mark, Steve, Teddy and the rest — who each work no more than two hours a day during the tourist season, from April through November. When the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s subway cars go out of service, they’re discarded, although architect Arthur Cotton Moore thinks they should be turned into housing for the homeless and this summer some were repurposed as pop-up retail kiosks at the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro station . When Douglas’s horses go out of service, they’re sent to the Isle of Man Home of Rest for Old Horses. I’d like to go there myself some day. I thought about Metro while I was riding the London Underground, too. As on Metro, certain seats in each subway car are designated for the elderly, the infirm or the pregnant. One day on the Northern line, I noticed a young woman sitting in one of the seats and reading a book. She didn’t look pregnant, but pinned to her shirt was a badge that had the distinctive London Tube roundel and the words “Baby on Board!” What gives? “Research showed Londoners were often too afraid to offer their seat in case the woman turned out not to be pregnant,” a Transport for London spokesman wrote in answer to my query. “It also found those who needed to sit down felt they could not ask fellow passengers to give up their seats — particularly in their first trimester, when they’re not showing.” And so the “Baby on Board” badge. Since its introduction in 2005, about 1.3 million have been issued. “The badge makes it easier to identify mums to be, who might need a seat,” the spokesman wrote. “It also empowers pregnant women to ask when they need to sit down.” Does the badge require proof of conception — a note from a doctor, say, or a photo of a pregnancy test kit? “No,” wrote the spokesman. “We trust people to be honest.” The Underground has a similar badge for disabled riders with “invisible impairments” that reads, “Please offer me a seat.” The badges are free and can be ordered online. I loved this little detail on the Transport for London website: “Baby on Board badges come in plain envelopes.” Twitter: @johnkelly For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly. |